Louisville will vacate 2013 basketball title
NCAA appeals committee upholds punishment in school’s escort case
There’s never a wrong time to do the right thing. There’s rarely a point where a public institution is better served by technicalities than truth.
The University of Louisville has paid a high price for coming clean with its dirty laundry, with self-imposed penalties and a pre-emptive housecleaning. It has been guilty of clumsiness in some cases, particularly as it pertains to the firing of former athletics director Tom Jurich, and it has squandered some opportunities to reshape a squalid narrative into a story of contrition, commitment, resilience and redemption.
Yet even in the face of a failed NCAA appeal, even as it objected to vacating records that included the 2013 men’s basketball national championship, the school correctly chose accountability and closure Tuesday instead of a legalistic fight that figured to be fruitless.
Even in the wake of the weaselly example set by the University of North Carolina, Louisville’s interim president Greg Postel chose to answer to a higher authority than self-interest.
“I like to think we do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I personally cannot imagine not being cooperative in an investigation, not saying I’m sorry when something awful happens, not taking responsibility for it, not trying to put in place stronger mechanisms to prevent recurrence. So regardless of whether at the end of the day those things give you a credit, they’re simply the right thing to do.”
Postel said the NCAA’s decision was “simply wrong” and complained that the school’s cooperation “was ignored” instead of serving to mitigate sanctions. But he didn’t question the wisdom of the previous administration in voluntarily taking punishment early in the investigative process. Nor did he indicate any inclination to take the NCAA to court.
Given the tawdry nature of the Andre McGee/Katina Powell case, Postel took about as high a road as circumstances permitted.
Ultimately, that’s what people should expect from a public university and what Louisville alumni and fans should applaud once their anger and anguish subside. By the end of a difficult day that included the removal of the 2013 NCAA championship banner from the KFC Yum Center — a first in Division I men’s basketball — Louisville had at least tak- en its medicine and started the long haul toward healing.
This was not only the right thing to do, but it was probably the prudent approach as well. As a voluntary association, the NCAA is virtually impervious to litigation by its members. With another potential infractions case pending over the alleged bribery scheme behind Brian Bowen’s recruitment, Louisville is poorly positioned for a prolonged court battle over its punishment.
Whatever merits the university’s case might have had from a legal or logical standpoint, there was no getting around the fact that a member of the men’s basketball staff provided strippers and prostitutes to players and recruits, some of them underage, and in a university dormitory. There was no way to excuse it or to explain it away and little chance the NCAA Committee on Infractions would risk being seen as condoning the conduct through token penalties.
Louisville’s administrative optimism about the outcome of the appeal was probably misplaced and it was certainly tempered by last week’s rejection of a Notre Dame appeal by the same fourperson panel that heard Louisville’s case: Jack Friedenthal, professor emeritus at George Washington University; attorney W. Anthony Jenkins; Patti Ohlendorf, vice president for legal affairs at the University of Texas; and Vanderbilt University athletics director David Williams.
Their decision supported Postel’s belief that the salacious nature of the allegations was an obstacle the school simply could not overcome. While Postel described the violations as “appalling,” the appeals panel repeatedly used the word “reprehensible.” The two words are not synonymous, but both of them convey big problems.
Under the circumstances, the proper approach is to acknowledge wrong, accept punishment and strive to do better. You shouldn’t need a reason to do the right thing.