You may have heard that the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, has put Cal Poly on probation.
So here’s what we’re supposed to accept: UNC can push athletes through paper classes setup in the AFAM department for a couple of decades and not get punished but Cal Poly gives kids too much money for books and gets hit with two years probation?
It’s a perverted twist on Jerry Tarkanian’s old joke about how the NCAA got so mad at Kentucky that they hit Cleveland State with probation.
We know that the ruling in the UNC case was that the NCAA didn’t have jurisdiction over academic fraud but it’s ironic that it is punishing a school for potentially too much academic support and not for academic fraud.