NCAA Football florida state Seminoles

Florida State has returned the NCAA's volley.

FSU administrators released their rebuttal Wednesday morning to the NCAA in the latest step in the school's appeal of sanctions stemming from an academic misconduct case. The university is appealing just one of the original sanctions imposed by the NCAA earlier this year -- the order to vacate wins in as many as 10 sports.

The NCAA has not moved from its position that FSU must vacate victories in multiple sports, a ruling that would cost Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden 14 victories and essentially end his bid to become college football's all-time winningest coach.

The NCAA has not moved from its position that Florida State must vacate victories in multiple sports, a ruling that would cost Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden 14 victories and essentially end his bid to become college football's all-time winningest coach.

FSU officials on Thursday morning released previously withheld public documents in the university's appeal of NCAA sanctions. The NCAA allowed FSU to release the information sought in a lawsuit with Florida news organizations. FSU transcribed the information from a secure NCAA Web site that does not permit printing or downloading.

Read the Documents (PDF Documents)
Florida State's Appeal | NCAA's Response to Appeal

The NCAA changed its mind after all Tuesday and will allow Florida State to release NCAA documents sought in a lawsuit. But the NCAA is still playing hardball with Florida news organizations and says it's not subject to the state's public-records laws.

"That's not even hardball," Barbara A. Petersen, president of The First Amendment Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Tallahassee, Fla., told FanHouse Tuesday. "That's 'I am taking my ball and going home,' crybaby type of stuff.

"It is absurd. It's totally absurd. The issue of whether the NCAA and FSU violated the public records law has not been resolved."

Related Documents (PDF Format)
NCAA Letter to FSU | Joint Complaint Against FSU, NCAA | NCAA Letter to Fugate

The NCAA has spoken, and the answer is no.

The NCAA has officially rejected a request to release documents in its case against Florida State University athletics. The response is part of an ongoing dispute between Florida news organizations and the NCAA, which says it is not subject to Florida's public-records law.

The response, dated June 8 from Elsa Kircher Cole, vice president of Legal Affairs/General Counsel for the NCAA, reads "... please be advised that the NCAA is not subject to requests pursuant to Article I, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution (Access to Public Records and Meetings) or Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes (Public Records).

In one corner sits Florida news organizations. In the other sits the NCAA and Florida State University. In the middle sits FSU President T.K. Wetherell and Seminole football coach Bobby Bowden.

More than a dozen Florida newspapers and television stations sued the NCAA and FSU on Monday for the release of documents in an ongoing appeal of athletic-program sanctions. A public-records request by the media outlets has not been fulfilled in violation of Florida's open-government laws.

The dispute is over a response the NCAA gave FSU on its appeal of sanctions resulting from an academic cheating scandal that first surfaced and was investigated by the school in March of 2007.

Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

There's an unnerving, repetitive theme to the first four items in this week's FanHouse Walk -- lawyers. Maybe its just the offseason or an odd week, but they seem to be everywhere related to college football right now. Today's headliner finds Florida's Attorney General Bill McCollum threatening the NCAA and its president Myles Brand with a $1,000 fine or even jail time if it doesn't make public documents related to its confidential investigation into Florida State athletics.

Talk about a dramatic final impression.

D'Vontrey Richardson, a part-time player on the Florida State baseball and football teams, spent Monday working out for two scouts with the Milwaukee Brewers. Richardson clocked a 6.2 60-yard dash on a local high track and then displayed impressive pop with a wooden bat during batting practice at a nearby community college.

Florida State is back on the NCAA clock.

The Seminoles have until June 17 to rebut the NCAA Committee on Infractions' response to the school's appeal of a sanction to vacate victories stemming from an academic misconduct case. But how the Committee on Infractions answered the issues FSU raised put the Seminoles in an awkward position and remains a mystery -- and is in violation of Florida's law on public access, according to the president of The First Amendment Foundation.

The NCAA on Tuesday posted the Committee on Infractions' response on a secure NCAA custodial Web site that allows the document to be read only and not downloaded or printed out. The response -- the next step in a process that's far from over -- could only be accessed by FSU's outside counsel.

Florida State's list of available receivers continues to dwindle.

Richard Goodman, a senior receiver for the Seminoles, was arrested by Florida State University police Tuesday night and charged with aggravated battery, a felony. He was released on $1,000 bond. The charge, according to a sheriff's office spokesman, stems from an on-campus fight in November 2008 between members of the football team and members of a fraternity.

Goodman was suspended indefinitely from the team on Wednesday by FSU coach Bobby Bowden.

Trouble also has filtered into the local high school ranks, where star quarterback A.J. Graham, the state's Mr. Football Award winner who signed with Marshall University last February, was arrested on Tuesday by Tallahassee police on a robbery with firearm charge.

Florida State's president has passionately pursued protecting FSU football and the entire athletic department from NCAA penalties to the point of insanity. Bobby Bowden wants to keep his wins. Plus, Florida State has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect Bowden's total wins before he is put out to pasture in 2011 -- the least the NCAA can do is make a final ruling before that point.

Maybe not. The NCAA was supposed to rule on Florida State's appeal of sanctions from the Seminoles' academic scandal today. Instead, the NCAA gave the Committee on Infractions another week to consider the appeal -- which could include the FSU football team forfeiting up to 14 games.

At least it gives college football fans something else to talk about as we trudge through the doldrums of June.