Football's Dirtiest Programs: #3, Texas A&M

In the early 80s Joe Paterno quipped that he wouldn't retire because it would leave football in the hands of "the Jackie Sherrills and the Barry Switzers." This irritated Sherrill, but the shoe seemed to fit. On Sherrill's watch both Texas A&M and Mississippi state were found to have "lack of institutional control". A few years later RC Slocum, who was an assistant for the Aggies under Sherrill, saw his Aggies get cited by the NCAA for lack of control, making the Aggies the first team on our count-down to amass two such violations.

That said, Texas A&M's appearance in the countdown can likely be attributed to a culture of corruption in College Station that seemed to taper off after the 1988 penalties. Nobody told the boosters about it, though, as they continued to keep the Aggies in hot water almost continually through 1994.Sorry, No Photos

Factually, the infractions incurred by Texas A&M over the last 20 years pale in comparison to some of the teams we've already seen. The primary difference, however, is that in many of those cases, the Committee on Infractions sympathized with the institutions for their lack of involvement and inability to stop the boosters. This sometimes resulted in lighter sentences, and fewer instances of "lack of institutional control."

In 1988, the NCAA uncovered numerous incidents of assistant coaches, boosters, and current players offer improper incentives to prospective athletes. On one occasion an assistant coach drove a Datsun 280ZX to the prospective athlete's house. Parked it in the drive way and told him, in not so many words, that it could be his if he signed with the Aggies. In a more morally repugnant incident, that same assistant coach tried to lure a different prospect by telling him that he could arrange for his father to receive medical treatment if the player signed with Texas A&M.

To make matters worse, the assistant coach repeatedly lied about his involvement in those (and other) recruiting violations. He admitted during a hearing, once he finally came clean, that he knew what he was doing was a violation of the rules, knew that he should've reported them, and did not do so to try to cover it up.

Another assistant coach was found to have secreted a recruit away in an apartment, plying him with refreshments, on national signing day so that other teams would be unable to get in touch with him prior to him signing with the Aggies.

For their missteps, the NCAA imposed two years of probation, a one year post-season ban, and docked the Aggies 10 scholarships.

In their 1994 report, the NCAA praised Texas A&M for the strides that they had made in their compliance since the 1988 incidents, but lamented the fact that certain boosters and players just couldn't get with the program. 1994 also marked the second time in 3 years that the university had narrowly avoided the death penalty. The previous time, in 1991, was attributed to the men's basketball program.

Like the 1988 report, the 1994 case involved missteps in student employment. One booster employed nine student athletes, paying them over $27,000, at least $17,000 of which the NCAA deemed to have been an overpayment. The Committee on Infractions would've taken a much more friendly view of this incident, but for the fact that the booster in question was a member of the university's student employment program, and the university didn't take the proper precautions to ensure that participants in the program were paying the students the right wage and only paying them for work actually done.

The NCAA also made painfully clear that the booster knew that he was paying the athletes for work they didn't do, offering many specific illustrations, including one where the student athlete worked approximately six days, but was paid for eight full weeks of work.

Unfortunately for the Aggies, this second incident, and the attendant penalties, were greatly increased by the history of cheating in College Station. The NCAA handed down a five year probation and banned the Aggies from television and post-season play for a season.

Scoreboard:

• Unethical conduct: '88 (5 points)
• Lack of institutional control: '88 & '94 (20 points)
• Probation: 7 years total (14 points)
• Television ban: 1 year (3 points)
• Post-season ban: 2 years (6 points)
• Initial scholarships: 10 (5 points)
• Total: 53.00 points (1988: 27 points; 1994: 26 points)
  

Come back tomorrow for the culmination of the count-down... who's going to be #1?
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