- Chad McEvoy,
Professor of kinesiology and recreation
Bruce Pearl, Jim Calhoun, Tom Izzo and Jim Tressel are coaches for some of the most prestigious programs in college sports. However, success and acclaim is not all that these coaches share; all of them have been suspended this year for violations by the teams under their reign.
According to a 2002 study by Dr. Chad McEvoy, professor of kinesiology and recreation at Illinois State, this form of punishment is an emerging trend in collegiate athletics. He claims that because of ineffectiveness of some commonly used punishments, putting more accountability on coaches is becoming more frequent.
In a review of 35 Division I football and basketball programs that faced NCAA penalties for major violations between 1987 and 2002 that has been widely acknowledged as the most extensive data collection in the field, McVoy found that those teams on average won more often after the penalties were imposed. However, up until this point accountability was aimed at universities and players rather than individual coaches.
“It makes you wonder what the true purpose is behind penalties if there is no drop in performance.” McEvoy said. “I think part of it is they want to project an image of being hard on punishment for publicity and for prevention reasons. But a trending solution is more harsh penalties on coaches. Holding them responsible could discourage them, and would also get this message across.”
McEvoy claims that sanctions on universities and particular players, such as scholarship reduction, fall short in punishing the university’s sports programs.
“Teams that get fewer scholarships are at a slight disadvantage initially,” McEvoy said. “But at some point the scholarships come back, and the team builds back up without really losing much in the first place.”
McEvoy uses the University of Miami Hurricane’s punishment from the 1995 season as an example.
“The Hurricanes lost 31 scholarships in 1995 as a result of a five year penalty,” McEvoy said. “But in that time they had one season under .500, and the rest they had eight or nine wins. But when they got them [the scholarships] back the team took off, winning one national championship and nearly repeating the next year.”
However, scholarship limits are not the only penalty that is particularly ineffective. McEvoy also claims that TV bans for schools are unreasonable because they punish other schools aside from the one intended. Revenues for all teams of a conference are shared between all others in the conference, and less exposure hurts the conference as a whole.
“If the University of Illinois received a TV ban it wouldn’t just punish them, but it would affect other schools in the conference that have done nothing wrong such as Northwestern…because of lost revenue.” McEvoy said.
McEvoy claims similar problems stem from banning a team from playing in bowl games or the NCAA tournament.
“Postseason bans can punish a program,” McEvoy said, “but the problem you run into there is that you are punishing current players for what past coaches and players did.”
He uses the example of Kentucky coach John Calipari as a coach that should have faced more accountability. Calipari left the University of Massachusetts and Memphis University while facing allegations and some proven instances of infractions of NCAA rules, although he left both programs as punishments were being considered.
“Should a coach like John Calipari be able to move away from his problems without facing punishment?” McEvoy asked. “I think something like a one year ban would discourage him from doing the same things at the next school.” Despite claiming that this newly reinvigorated use of this penalty could prove effective at limiting a coach’s proclivity to allow rule-bending, he does acknowledge some potential weaknesses of the sanction.
“One problem [with coach accountability] is that they are only suspended from actually coaching games.” McEvoy said. “They are still allowed to recruit players, participate in practice and implement their game plan. The only thing they really miss is coaching games, which is important, but is really only part of their job.”
Even with this limitation, McEvoy claims it is the preventative measure that is most effective about this particular punishment.
“If a coach knows that his job is in trouble, I think he would be less likely to let some of these infractions happen.” McEvoy said.