BREAKING NEWS: Wulff, Eastern penalized by NCAA
by Grady Clapp on Feb 11, 2009 1:39 PM PST
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PrintUpdated 2:17 p.m. -- Links to NCAA and Eastern releases
This can't be good:
"The Eastern Washington University football program has been put on three years probation and is banned from postseason due to what the NCAA calls "major violations."
The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions released the report on Wednesday.
The violations include impermissible participation by ineligible student-athletes in practice activities, the use of too many countable coaches, failure to monitor by former head coach Paul Wulff, now the head coach at Washington State, and a lack of institutional control and failure to monitor by the university."
Credit: The Spokesman-Review
The real loser in this is EWU, who loses any chance of postseason play in 2009, gets 3 years probation, loses a coach and receives various other penalties.
The bad news for WSU: Wulff is forced to sit out the first three days of practice for WSU this fall, and attend classes on how to not do this sort of thing. He also gets the first real black eye of his WSU tenure.
There goes the leverage we had to call out Sarkisian ...
EDIT: You can read the full release from the NCAA here.
EDIT2: You can read the Eastern release here. Nothing groundbreaking in there, no mention of Wulff. Just this quote:
"We accept the NCAA’s findings and want to show, through our actions, that we embrace a culture of compliance. We are, however, disappointed with the decision to levy a post-season ban and will be assessing our appeal options.
"We have taken significant compliance measures to ensure we do not find ourselves in this situation again and we were pleased to see the NCAA acknowledged that fact in its report. Those measures will allow us to confidently move forward from this experience believing Eastern athletics are now best-poised to provide a meaningful experience for our student athletes, while remaining competitive on the field," Acting-President John Mason said.
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Thats tough for EWU
doesn’t hurt us really, so long as wulff figures out what he can and can’t do
I think because the NCAA laid most of the blame at Eastern's feet
They said the main problem was lack of institutional oversight, according to the S-R story.
I'm stunned
I’m sure people in the know — read: Sterk, Wulff, etc. — knew this was potentially coming. What I can’t believe is how none of the rest of us had heard of this. Everything we heard about Wulff over and over and over again is that he’s a standup guy, that he gets his edge by outworking everyone, etc. This seems to throw a wet blanket over at least some of that.
Kind of makes fog machines and sirens look pretty small.
Stunned is a good way of describing how I feel
I didn’t see this coming. This is totally unacceptable and something Wulff will need to address with “Cougar Nation”.
This stuff better be a lesson learned.
Yes, stunned!
Sure Does...
I’d like to preface this comment by stating that I do not hate WSU or Cougar fans. I merely think that your posters should be eating some serious crow on this topic. I read numerous comments inflating and aggrandizing Sark’s violations on your site. Now this leaks out about Wulff and everybody here is quick to dismiss this as either EWU’s fault or diminishing what had happened.
I have a friendly “hatred” for WSU every year in November just as much as you do for my school. But enough is enough. In the landscape of allegations of free prostitutes, money, cars and other over the top promises; none of these violations by either Sark or Wulff mean anything (besides 3 days and a class or a stiff reprimand). You all need to quit nit picking and realize that this stuff happens. I’m tired of “Cougar Nation” blasting UW for everything that possibly can. I’m sorry Pullman isn’t the happening place to be, but Jesus…find your own niche and worry about making WSU football good again. As much as it pains me to say it, you guys are developing (slowly) a proud sports tradition, and hating on other schools (except Oregon of course) is only hindering other peoples appreciation of it.
By the way Nuss and Grady, you guys do a great job over here. I often visit and keep up on your take on the Pac-10.
The pokes at Sark, at least from me, were meant in good fun
The good news is that none of the violations from either Wulff or Sark seem especially nefarious, and they’re the kinds of things that good compliance people at Pac-10 schools catch and nip in the bud. That seems to be the NCAA’s issue with Eastern. One Eastern fan over at SportsLink intimated that he thought the stiff postseason penalty had at least something to do with the fact that Eastern had received a slap on the wrist and a warning for some basketball violations in the recent past, and didn’t do enough to make sure this stuff didn’t happen again.
Uh-oh...we have an enemy infiltrator here.
You are correct though…a lot of crow needs to be eaten by Cougar fans (some by me as well).
PS Funny exception you have there for “hating” on Oregon. :-)
PPS I hate your basketball team…but you probably knew that already.
by westsidecougar1 on Feb 11, 2009 3:43 PM PST up reply actions
The difference between this and Sarkisian
The violations took place at the actual University in question. So I guess I’m not understanding the “crow” comment. I think you will find a lot of WSU fans up in arms about this even though the violations did not take place at WSU. That’s a HUGE difference between WSU and the UW. As an example, when Neuheisal was at Colorado a lot of Dawg fans didn’t like the way he recruited against the UW. Then he becomes a Dawg and a lot of UW fans swept what he had done and would eventually do under the rug.
If this had happened at WSU obviously we would have crow to eat. If it does happen at WSU you will see a totally different reaction to violations. For the most part we don’t want it and will not put up with it. Some Cougar fans immediately wanted him fired. That kind of reaction typically doesn’t happen at the UW.
I respect your opinion and obviously not every Coug is going to agree with my position. I just see the way our respective fan bases way of handling these things as very different. We expect our coaches to “do it right”. If they don’t we want to hang them. UW fans let a lot slide and some are using this as a way to say “see, this stuff happens everywhere so we are o.k.”. Again though, I don’t think you will see a lot of Cougar fans justifying what took place with Wulff period.
You make a good point...
however, if you head over to uwdawgpound then you will see some pretty hateful things said about NeuWeasel and the spiral he put UW into. The only justification I have for UW fans sweeping things under the rug with Neuheisal is that there are far more bandwagon fans west of the Mountains who don’t understand what he did. The population is so much higher that suddenly (during a good season) my waitress at Red Lobster wants to talk about the 3-3-5 defense.
Like I said before, I pop over here quite a bit to read the Pac-10 roundup, but alot of the comments on Sark’s violations seemed to be based more off of Husky hatred than factual logic.
And I'm glad you feel comfortable engaging in dialogue
I guess you might want to look at it this way: It would be one thing if Sark’s violations had been an isolated incident, but a lot of Coug fans see this as the latest in a long line of indiscretions by UW coaches, whether it was the most revered man in the history of Washington athletics (Don James) or the most reviled (Neuheisel). Is that fair to Sarkesian? Heck no. But that’s the perspective.
The WSU football program has no history of NCAA violations of any kind, and this stuff didn’t even take place under their watch. I think that’s an important distinction.
I think you are correct
As far as the bandwagon fans attached to the UW program. I have always held the belief that WSU fans are so sensitive about these types of issues because of our relationship to WSU. Most WSU fans are Alumni/Graduates so it isn’t just about “the team”. It goes much deeper. I’m not saying WSU fans care more but we might think of the greater impact. I know there are many UW fans in the same boat who expect things to be done “the right way”.
I actually wonder if this episode will help UW fans understand why a lot of WSU fans get upset about the “typical” UW fan not caring about violations when they take place at the UW. I think it goes back to the expectations we have for WSU programs.
I lived in Pasco for a bit...
and I came to the conclusion that I’d rather pay $1600 a month for a mediocre 2br 1bath house 40 mintues outside of Seattle than ever, ever, live east of the mountains. No offense, it’s great for what it is, I’m just a city kid.
Although I will be over this summer to play that stunning new Paloluse Ridge GC you put in over there.
To live in Pullman as a student is nothing like living anywhere else in Eastern Washington
I grew up in Yakima and it is completely different. There is more of a multicultural atmosphere than in other small towns.
by Craig Powers on Feb 11, 2009 11:19 PM PST up reply actions
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