Tag Archives: NCAA rules

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Carthel kinda/sorta had it coming at WT

I’ve returned from the proverbial “temple,” where I’ve been pondering the stunning firing this week of West Texas A&M University head football coach Don Carthel.

I have concluded — for the time being — that Carthel had it coming.

He went to a Lone Star Media Day event in the Dallas area earlier this summer. He attended tickets to a Texas Rangers baseball game. He took two of his players with him. Carthel and his team returned home to the Panhandle after the event and the players reimbursed their coach for the tickets. Carthel then reported he’d been repaid before the game, not after, and asked his players to back him up.

No can do, said the WT athletic department high command. That’s a violation of an NCAA ethics tenet.

You’re fired, coach, for “pressuring” players to lie.

I get that WT cannot condone lying among its student-athletes, or anyone for that matter. I also get that if the coach had broken a rule knowingly that could result in his termination, then that adds even more ammo to the WT athletic director’s arsenal of evidence against the coach.

Furthermore, if Carthel didn’t know he had committed a firing offense, why didn’t he crack the books more diligently back in 2005 when WT hired him to resuscitate a near-dead football program?

This is a tough time for WT’s football program. My hope now is that the boosters who’ve given so much support — i.e. money — won’t give up on the athletes and the coaches who now are entering what most folks believe is supposed to be a highly successful season.

I’m hoping for the best at West Texas A&M. Go Buffs!

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So … this is a firing offense at WT?

I’ve read this statement three times already and I think I understand what happened to West Texas A&M University football coach Don Carthel.

He took two athletes to a Texas Rangers baseball game in Dallas, asked them to reimburse him for their tickets to the game after the event to avoid getting slapped by the NCAA, and then told WT Athletic Director Michael McBroom that he was reimbursed before the event. Thus, he fibbed to his boss about when he was repaid for the expense, but he did so in good faith, thinking that the AD would want him to be on the up-and-up.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2013-08-23/former-buffs-coach-carthels-official-statement-firing

And for that he got fired?

This is going to take a bit of time to process.

Carthel talks in his statement about his testy relationship with the WT athletic brass, including McBroom. I’m left to wonder now if the athletic director was looking for a reason to can the coach.

Technically, he might have found it with the fib about the reimbursement. I’m having trouble getting how that constitutes a “blatant” disregard for ethics rules and regulations.

I’ll need more time to think this one over.

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Johnny Football fumbles at key moment

My old friend Tom Taschinger has it exactly correct.

Writing for the Beaumont Enterprise, Taschinger takes dead aim at Johnny “Football” Manziel’s troubles stemming from an autograph signing debacle that well could effectively cost him the rest of his college football career.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/columns/article/THOMAS-TASCHINGER-Manziel-mangles-his-college-4739393.php

The NCAA is looking into whether Manziel took money for signing the autographs. This is not a difficult case to prove or disprove. Either he took the dough or he didn’t. If he did, then Johnny Football is facing a possible season-long suspension by the NCAA.

Can there be any clearer message for the young quarterback, the first freshman in NCAA history to win the Heisman Trophy, that he isn’t supposed to take money for signing his name? If he did, the young Texas A&M quarterback has messed up royally.

Taschinger wrote this: “Manziel apparently signed autographs for memorabilia dealers — dealers! — in six separate sessions last season. We’re talking hours-long sessions and thousands of items. Big money even was said to have changed hands.

“Folks, that’s not a borderline violation. It’s as blatant as a quarterback being leveled by a defender five seconds after releasing the ball. You have to wonder what Johnny Football was thinking while he was grinding out those signatures — and why his parents or a coach didn’t step in and save him.”

I don’t want this story to pan out. It’s looking as though it will. There will be an accounting made of who paid Manziel the money if that’s what comes to pass. If it does, I fear the cheering at Kyle Field this season is going to be a bit muted without Johnny Football taking the snaps.

He would have no one else in the entire world to blame but himself.