TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The NCAA placed Alabama’s football program and 15 of the school’s other athletic teams on three years’ probation for major violations because of the misuse of free textbooks, stripping the Crimson Tide of 21 football wins over a three-year period.
The NCAA said 201 athletes in 16 sports obtained “impermissible benefits” by using their scholarships to obtain free textbooks for other students. Alabama identified 22 athletes, including seven football players, as “intentional wrongdoers” who knew they were receiving improper benefits.
As a result, the NCAA ruled the football team must vacate any wins in which any of those seven players took part during 2005-07.
Alabama said that pending a successful appeal, the decision would cost the program 21 wins, including the 2005 Cotton Bowl victory over Texas Tech and an upset of Florida earlier that season.
Eight of the wins using ineligible players occurred in 2005, Mike Shula’s best season as coach.
Neither the football team nor any other sport lost postseason eligibility or scholarships.
“The penalty itself is not one that’s directed at the coach,” said Paul Dee, who chairs the committee on infractions and is a former University of Miami athletic director. “It’s one that involves the team. It’s one that involves the players, and we believe it’s the appropriate penalty under these circumstance.”
The other 15 “wrongdoers” were members of the men’s tennis team and men’s and women’s track and field programs. The NCAA said those individuals must vacate any records they hold, and team point totals will be reconfigured accordingly from all events.
The other sports hit with probation were softball, baseball, gymnastics, women’s basketball, soccer, volleyball and both the men’s and women’s teams in basketball, golf, swimming, tennis and track and field.
NCAA denies Hazelton.
The NCAA has denied Cincinnati receiver Vidal Hazelton’s request to be eligible to play this season.
Hazelton transferred to Cincinnati from Southern California to be closer to his cancer-stricken grandfather in Georgia. Hazelton led USC with 50 catches in 2007.
The Associated Press
