In the wake of sweeping NCAA violations, USC filed an appeal Friday morning asking for careful review of the NCAA’s findings.
The appeal asks specifically for the football team’s two-year ban to be reduced to a one-year ban, and that scholarship penalties on the football team for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons to be reduced from 10 to five each year.
When asked for comments on USC’s appeal, the USC media relations representative Carl Marziali said “the release speaks for itself.”
Senior Vice President for Administration Todd Dickey responds to the NCAA ruling (June 10, 2010).
"I don’t think anyone at USC has been giving interviews about it,” he said.
The NCAA announced major penalties on USC athletics on June 10, harsher than many in the athletic community expected. It announced a two-year bowl game ban on USC football, four years’ probation, a loss of 10 scholarships per year for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons, and the forfeiture of USC’s wins from December 2004 through 2005.
The NCAA’s June 10 ruling came after a four-year investigation on USC’s athletic practices — specifically financial benefits received by Heisman Trophy winning football player Reggie Bush.
Former USC football star LenDale White Friday morning told a Nashville radio station he didn’t “want to bad mouth nobody, but as big as this scale is and as much as [the NCAA] saying somebody took, for you not to know anything is kind of unbelievable to me.”
He suggested USC did, in fact have knowledge of impropriety and that coaches chose to look the other way.
“When I was going to school there, and we were partying too much on campus, coaches could show up at our dorm room and tell us to calm the partying down,” he said. “If you’re the athletic director I’m pretty sure you get wind of something, that somebody’s put something in your ear. “
Bush on June 16 called the NCAA’s report “the closest thing to death without dying,” and pledged to help USC fight the sanctions.
Still, many — including former football coach Pete Carroll, who coached the Trojans to 2004’s national championship — have been outspoken about their disappointment.
“I’m absolutely shocked and disappointed in the findings of the NCAA,” Carroll said in a video statement released by the NFL team he now coaches, the Seattle Seahawks.
“I never thought it would come to this,” he said with emotion.
School officials echoed the same tone in Friday’s appeal, but acknowledged some wrongdoing in the past.
“The University recognizes that violations of NCAA rules did occur, especially involving impermissible benefits going to student athletes as well as their friends and families, from unscrupulous sports agents and sports marketers,” said senior vice president for administration Todd Dickey in a statement by USC. “We take full responsibility for those violations given that they happened on our watch.”
Dickey called the penalties “too severe for the violations and ... inconsistent with precedent in similar cases.”
“We are hopeful that the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee will agree with our position on appeal, and reduce the penalties,” he said.
Dickey said that USC will not comment about specific elements of its position while it is in the appeals process.
Sports Information Director Tim Tessalone could also not be reached for comment.
Many complaints have also centered on the NCAA’s unusually long investigation, suggesting it was stretched out to maximize the NCAA’s profit from a decade of USC dominance.
Comment threads on many fan sites like ConquestChronicles.com were flooded Friday with frustration over the tens of millions of dollars USC football has generated and Athletic Director Mike Garrett’s lack of a response on the matter.
Dickey said he expects the NCAA’s appeal review process to take several months.
