5. University of Southern California Athletics Scandal
This one crossed a number of spots, including the football, men’s basketball, and women’s tennis programs. Sanctions for the football team included a postseason ban for 2 years, scholarship losses for 3 years, as well as vacating a BCS Championship. And, of course, Reggie Bush had to return his Heisman Trophy. But, you know, not anymore.
4. University of Minnesota Men’s Basketball Academic Cheating Scandal
The literal day before the 1999 NCAA Tournament began, news broke about a wide variety of violation by the Minnesota men’s program, mostly (but not all) related to academic dishonesty. Basically, none of the players were actually doing any school work and the Basketball team was paying someone to do the work for them. End result? All awards and titles were stripped from the program between 1993 and 1998. They were also put on probation for 4 years starting the 1999-2000 season and lost 5 scholarships over the next three seasons.
3. University of Michigan Basketball “Ed Martin” Scandal
This one was about rules violations resulting from the relationship between the University of Michigan basketball program and booster Ed Martin. Money laundering. Illegal gambling. All sorts of fun stuff dating back several years into the 80s! Shit was so deep that the FBI and IRS launched investigations. The most memorable name involved was Chris Webber. Michigan was banned from Postseason play in 2002-2003, vacated the entire 1992–93 season and every game it played from the 1995–96 season through the 1998–99 season (which included a 1997 NIT title and the 1998 Big Ten title), docked the school one scholarship a year from 2004–2005 until 2007–2008, etc.
2. City College of New York Point Shaving
Ok, this scandal goes waaaaaay back to the 1950-1951, so maybe it’s not the latest or hottest news. But it involved a whopping seven total schools/teams being involved, although as the name suggests the biggest of the offenders was the City College of New York. 33 players across the 7 teams teamed up with fixers, agents, referees, and good ol’ organized crime to shave points, fix games (about 86 games total), and make a ton of money. Punishment for this one was a little less “academic punishment and bans on teams for a few years” and more “several people went to prison for numerous years.” The NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament itself avoided returning to the New York area for about the next 50 years after this event.
1. Southern Methodist University “Death Penalty”
The obvious one is at the top. "Ponygate" It is named the “Death Penalty” after all. Various documentaries have been made about it, and the story is very well known. SMU had one of the most famous and successful college football programs in history, but as a smaller program was having increasing trouble recruiting players that chose to go to the bigger schools. Easy fix? Illegally pay the young high school athletes to come to SMU! A $61,000 “slush fund” (wow, that number seems so small in hindsight… or is that just inflation talking) was set up and which made payments from 1985-1986, where boosters paid cold hard cash to players to get them committed to play at SMU. When the NCAA found out about it? Well:
- The 1987 season was canceled
- All home games in 1988 were canceled (eventually the team would decide to cancel the away games too, what with all its players leaving)
- Their existing probation was extended until 1990
- Their existing ban from bowl games and live television was extended to 1989
- They lost 55 new scholarship positions over 4 years
- There were a variety of limits placed on their ability to hire coaches
- The team was allowed to hire only five full-time assistant coaches, instead of the typical nine.
- Severe limits on various recruiting activities through 1989
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