Guest commentary: NCAA sanctions against Mizzou raise concerning questions

Editor’s note: Jim Sterk is the athletic director at the University of Missouri.

Last week, the University of Missouri submitted its appeal of the decision by the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions to punish hundreds of student-athletes in Mizzou’s football, baseball and softball programs for the misguided actions of one former rogue employee.

That decision remains perplexing not only to us here at Mizzou, but also to my fellow athletic directors and coaches throughout the country.

When the sanctions were originally announced Jan. 31, a collective jaw dropped when David Roberts, the NCAA’s chief hearing officer for this case, was asked during a press conference if schools will be less likely to cooperate or tell the truth based on this inconsistent decision. “You can certainly make that argument,” he said.

The decision and subsequent discussions about the decision left us all with some key questions:

What are the expectations of athletic leaders when individuals break the rules?

A sanction should be designed to change future behavior. Based on this decision, what exactly is expected from all of us in the future?

The penalties that our program is now appealing were surprising in severity, particularly after investigators praised our “exemplary” cooperation throughout the joint investigation. Since the announcement, journalists, community members and Missouri leaders, and even our athletic competitors are puzzled that integrity and truthfulness turned out to be a poor strategy.

In our case, we acted swiftly once bad behavior was discovered. We self-reported, we cooperated, we took responsibility, and we took further actions to ensure our employees and students understood our “Win it Right” culture.

We removed the employee who acted alone in creating a tutoring violation, and we held 12 student-athletes accountable. We focused the consequences on those involved, but years later, the penalties delivered by the Infractions Committee did not.

Instead, our students and future students who had nothing to do with this violation could suffer the brunt of the sanctions, which include bans from post-season play, recruiting restrictions, and loss of scholarships. That would be a shame, considering those involved in this isolated case are no longer at Mizzou.

We need to pause and think about that as we strive to instill accountability and integrity in our student-athletes and in all of our college students everywhere. We must question the logic of an action that will have a chilling effect on integrity, whether it’s in college athletics or any other part of our institutions.

Many of our state and federal legislators have raised their voices in support of our athletes and our values to not only “Win It Right,” but in this case, “Make it Right.”

Now more than ever, we are focused on supporting our student-athletes. As our football coach Barry Odom has said, our players won’t give up. They are used to working through adversity on the fields and off. They will continue spending grueling hours maintaining excellent physical condition, grinding through practice, and balancing their academics with tough schedules. We are proud of our student-athletes, who earned a school-record average GPA of 3.125 in the Fall 2018 semester.

Virtues are actions, not just stated principles. At MU, we will continue to be a model of cooperation, honesty and commitment to values and the ethics of true sportsmanship.

I’ve been asked if we regret telling the truth during the investigation, and the answer is an emphatic no. Even knowing the results, we would still self-report, cooperate with the NCAA and hold the appropriate people accountable.

The regulatory system only works when the NCAA and we as members inspire and celebrate cultures of compliance like we have at Mizzou.

If success in investigations requires dodging, lying and compromising our principals, we will never play that game.

This story was originally published April 3, 2019 at 1:39 PM.