Georgia Tech Officially Notifies NCAA Of Intent To Appeal Sanctions

that proving the penalties are inconsistent with previous punishments will help any. The NCAA doesn’t have any requirement to be consistent across rulings.

A fan wrote this on the ajc and I want to know what you guys think
Thank you for your reply to my message.

First, let me start by saying that I am well familiar with the NCAA enforcement policy as I happen to have a Juris Doctorate (a Law Degree). I do, however, appreciate you providing me with the link because a couple of items within your own website are of particular importance to the investigation regarding GA Tech:

" If NCAA enforcement staff conducts interviews on campus with enrolled student-athletes or other individuals, school staff members may be present during the interviews. Everyone interviewed by NCAA enforcement staff may have legal counsel present during the interviews. In many cases, information such as long-distance telephone records, bank records and academic transcripts are also collected during the process.

From the wording of the NCAA’s own website, it is obvious that the NCAA investigators have violated and/or ignored your own policies in the investigation at GA Tech.

My first point is that the NCAA has found its most damning fault against GA Tech’s Administration because the enforcement staff stated that GA Tech’s Administration wasn’t cooperative in their investigation because the Head Coach, Paul Johnson, and player(s) in question, in particular Demaryius Thomas, were notified of the investigation in advance, and the investigation was discussed with them prior to their conversation with the NCAA team. However, according to the NCAA’s own guidelines, from above, when your NCAA personnel conducts interviews on campus,etc., the individuals are allowed to have legal counsel present, and supporting documentation of the investigation are gathered at that time.

This begs the question; if your investigators planned on interviewing GA Tech’s Coaches and player(s), how were the Coaches and players supposed to know about the meeting they were supposed to attend with your enforcement staff, what documentation to bring, and their right to have legal counsel with them during the investigation, if they weren’t notified about the investigation PRIOR to the interview in the first place? This is not possible. Therefore, the argument that GA Tech’s Administration went against the NCAA enforcement staff’s request not to inform the Head Coach and Player of the investigation prior to them speaking to them was baseless and COULD NOT have been held against GA Tech according to your own procedures.

"Before the enforcement staff contacts those directly involved with the potential violations, they attempt to gather as much information as possible. The goal is to minimize the possibility of those directly involved compromising the integrity of the case by working with others to change the information reported to the enforcement staff."

I would suggest that section, above, in particular to GA Tech’s case, is the most complex and should cause the most problems to your investigation. Looking at the facts of the case against GA Tech, and the alleged player(s) involved, the small amount of items in question were provided by a former teammate at a cousin’s home, so, therefore, one would have to assume that if the NCAA investigators did their jobs correctly, as you indicate they are required to do so, above, and talked to all of the witnesses before speaking the player(s) and coaches who may have involvement and are the target of the investigation, because of the personal relationship with the player being investigated, it could very well be true that the player was informed by the cousin, and the player informed his Head Coach, and they went to the GA Tech Administration, rather than the Administration pro-actively approaching them. It could also be argues that these things were happening at the same time…you just never know. I would also like to point out that the NCAA states that it is your goal, not your mandate, that this happens, and the innocent situation surrounding the player and his cousin at GA Tech is exactly why your wording has to be such.
"NCAA enforcement regulations and student-athlete eligibility procedures employ many traditional due-process protections."

Getting now to your section on "due-process protections;" something near and dear to my heart. In fact, the NCAA sanction theory violates due-process protections by assuming players are guilty until proven innocent, NOT innocent until proven guilty. As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, requesting (NOT even requiring them unless "request" is considered mandatory), that GA Tech sit players being investigated for possible NCAA infractions is, in reality, punishing them prior to finding them guilty of any wrongdoing. To make matters worse, the NCAA is also punishing the rest of the entire team, who have never been accused of any wrongdoing and aren’t under any NCAA investigation.

In the course of the NCAA investigation, if the targeted player is exonerated, what is his recourse if he has been held out of a game, or games? What about the rest of the team? Once the player has been held out of the game, if the team loses a game, or games, because the player(s) wasn’t playing, and the team misses their chance a Championship and a better Bowl Game, or even a chance at any Bowl game, there is no recourse for the player or the team. This is why our society is founded on the premise of innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

Finally, I wanted to make a comment about GA Tech’s lead investigator, Marcus Wilson; the same Marcus Wilson who attended the University of North Carolina as an Undergraduate as well as the University of North Carolina for his Law Degree. This is his same Alma Mater being investigated for several major infractions by the NCAA, and his same Alma Mater that is in the same ACC Conference as GA Tech, the team he just happened to be investigating.

Now whether Mr. Wilson actually had/has a conflict of interest or not, the NCAA should have never placed an investigator who even had an iota of question into the investigation of a member University where the investigator’s alma mater had any connection whatsoever. The mere fact that his Alma Mater plays in the same conference as the school being investigated should have disqualified him from the investigation – there was too much of a potential of perception that he would be biased against the investigated university to gain a competitive advantage for his Alma Mater, and, to be perfectly honest, by placing another member of his conference on probation, it takes heat off his Alma Mater during the course of their NCAA investigation.

I would also suggest that Dr. Dennis E. Thomas, who I believe was the Committee Member assigned by the NCAA for the GA Tech investigation, while he might be a nice man, may be unprepared for these types of investigations due to his educational background and lack of experience in major conference universities (he hasn’t had to deal with, or manage, the size and complexity of larger organizations and large numbers or personnel) and appears to have a history of "problems" with investigations of larger members of the NCAA. There have been numerous complaints raised against his lead investigations, and because of this, I suggest that Dr. Thomas may have a tendency to press for compliance issues with players and problems with Administrators when they really aren’t there. Dr. Thomas may not like being told that he’s wrong, and when his "orders" are "disobeyed" in his mind, he may very well become unreasonable and not follow NCAA guidelines. It’s also possible that Dr. Thomas wants to strike a message for the smaller members towards the larger ones as he’s representing them in the NCAA committee. Whatever the reason, looking back at his history, there appears to be a pattern of behavior that has begun that is quite alarming.

With the current state of our economy;

taxpayers scraping by to fund member institutions;

the cost of education skyrocketing;

all of the other problems going on in America we are dealing with right now;

the fact that a player received a shirt and watch from a former player at his cousin’s home around the holidays, thinking they were gifts;

the value of the items being less than the gift bags given out at every Bowl Game in America;

the items were returned as soon as it was found out there was even a hint there might be an issue
the Coaches and player(s) were following the procedures afforded to them by the NCAA (see above);

The NCAA investigators found GA Tech guilty during, primarily, due to GA Tech’s Administration failure to meet the demands of the NCAA investigators that Coaches and players not be advised about the investigation until they were confronted by the NCAA investigators themselves…something that is in complete opposite of the rights afforded by the NCAA’s policies. Also, GA Tech’s Administrators were following the advice of their legal counsel in good faith; there was never any intention to impede the investigation but to follow the NCAA guidelines as set forth from above.

There’s a legal theory called the fruit from the poisonous tree – anything derived from something illegal that can be used against you is thrown out. In the case of GA Tech, I would suggest that all findings against GA Tech are, thus fruits of the poisonous tree, and therefore, no findings of fault should be levied against them at all.

So, Crissy, I will conclude by thanking you, once again, for your reply, and ask that you continue this dialogue as you see fit. I believe that I have laid out a strong case on behalf of GA Tech, and, based on the Court of Public Opinion, would suggest that of the nation agrees with MY position, NOT that of the NCAA.

What GA Tech decides to do on their behalf, I’m not sure, but as a fan of College football, all I can say is that I am sick and tired of having investigations and decisions by your Organization such as this being brought up, especially when they are as trivial and obviously so incorrect as they are as the one placed on GA Tech, and I’m sure I speak for millions of other College Football fans when I say, enough is enough. Correct this obvious error and the NCAA will make a huge stride towards calming the hoard.