There’s a great job waiting for former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, one he’s highly qualified for. He should become the first national college football sheriff.
Give Carr a silver star to go along with his 1997 national championship, his impending induction into the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, his zero NCAA violations, and let him hire all the deputies he needs to clean up the Wild West mentality taking over the sport.
Columbus, Ohio, might as well be renamed Tombstone. USC turned Los Angeles into its own version of Dodge City.
Carr, speaking yesterday at NASDAQ’s headquarters in Times Square, where he and 15 others were announced as the NFF Class of 2011, put the onus of responsibility on the NCAA to clean up college athletics or get out of town.
“If you look at the way they do things,” Carr said, “they have all of these meetings, where everybody goes in . . . I mean, I had an NCAA investigator tell me several years ago, ‘Well, we know this is going on but we can’t do anything about it.’
“My response was, ‘Let’s change the rules.’ I think it’s a cumbersome process. When you look at where we are today, there are problems and a lot of issues, and we need to address [them] for the good of the game and the integrity of intercollegiate athletics.
“I mean, we’re under fire and we shouldn’t be where we are.”
Joining Carr as the Hall of Fame inductees are defensive tackles Marty Lyons of Alabama, Russell Maryland of Miami, Doug English of Texas and Rob Waldrop of Arizona; cornerback Deion Sanders, Florida receiver Carlos Alvarez, Oregon State fullback Bill Enyart, Georgia defensive back Jake Scott, Nebraska guard Will Shields, Minnesota quarterback Sandy Stephens, West Virginia linebacker Darryl Talley, Oklahoma halfback Clendon Thomas and Michigan State receiver Gene Washington. The induction of Ohio State running back Eddie George was announced Monday.
Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry will also be inducted.
Carr was careful not to single out rival Ohio State, mired in a messy investigation that already has led to the university suspensions of coach Jim Tressel for the first five games of next season along with five players, headlined by star quarterback Terrelle Pryor.
The NCAA has charged that those players received improper benefits and Tressel failed to take action when he learned about those violations, and then lied to investigators. A hearing before the Committee on Infractions is scheduled for Aug. 12.
“You’ve got a whole bureaucracy that’s been established in the last 20 years to deal with a lot of those problems,” Carr said, “but the entire NCAA enforcement issue is developed around the idea that everybody will self report, and in my judgment there’s been ample evidence down through the years that some people are not self reporting.
“So if you’re going to have a system that the public and the fans respect and buy into, then you better have a way of making sure that those people who are violating the rules don’t prosper. You’ve got to invest the money to have investigators and whatever else they need to do . . . or they need to deregulate.”
The mere thought of deregulation is scarier than the upcoming Kenny G/Michael Bolton concert at the Beacon. Imagine historically renegade programs such as Auburn being allowed to offer anything from cars to cash to recruits.
Carr said major violations involving excessive practice time that occurred under former coach Michigan Rich Rodriguez were “a disappointment for everyone.” The NCAA recently placed Michigan on three years probation.
“[Former Ohio State coach] Jim Cooper always told me at the Big Ten meetings two or three times a year, he said, ‘You know they may fire me but they’ll never fire me for cheating,’ ” Carr said.
Cooper was fired after the 2000 season under the guise of widespread academic and behavior problems within the program. Most believe it was because he was 2-10-1 against Michigan.
Tressel is 9-1 against Michigan. If the NCAA doesn’t run him out of town, maybe it’s time for a new sheriff.