BC-FBC-FLATROUBLES:MI – sports (800 words)

Troubles abound in Florida college football scene

(DIVERSITY) (ARCHIVE PHOTO)

By Mike Phillips

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Billy Joe isn’t giving up his championship ring, and he’s sure not giving up on his Florida A&M football team.

Joe, whose program faces 196 NCAA violations, was all but defiant Saturday morning when he met with the media during the annual Florida Sports Writers Association media days.

“We are at our lowest as a program,” Joe said. “I’m just waiting for the bleeding to stop.”

But if you’re looking to point a finger at Joe, in his 11th season as a FAMU coach, think again.

“It has been quite exasperating because the problems were not brought on by the coaches or the football players,” Joe said. “The crisis that we have has been an administrative concern. You really can’t worry about things you have no control over, and we don’t really have any control over that.

“… The infractions were incurred by our athletic administration, primarily in the compliance department. But even though it’s a problem incurred by the program, it still hurts the team. We have to accept it, deal with it and move forward.”

Joe said no football program could withstand scrutiny by the NCAA.

“When the rules are not applied properly, you have to pay the piper,” he said, accepting his fate. “But I’m sure most coaches would probably agree with me that once the NCAA comes in to look at your program there is a high percentage that they are going to find something. It may not be big. It may not be monumental. But they are going to find something.

“It’s almost impossible to have a program that’s 100 percent clean, and the three infractions we had were not intentional,” said Joe. “… It was just misreading the guidelines of the NCAA, which is very unfortunate, especially for the football players who did not bring this problem on themselves.”

The violations resulted in mistakes made in the progress students made toward graduation. There were also problems in handling the student forms, especially the student drug forms.

Joe tried to downplay the entire scandal, saying only a few rules were broken.

LOOKS WORSE THAN IT IS

“Some mistakes were made,” he said. “But when you look at it, it looks really worse than it is when you read in the paper or hear on TV that FAMU is involved with 196 rules violations. But really it was only three, but it involved a lot of athletes. It was three rules being misinterpreted on way over 100 athletes.”

With just two weeks until the first day of practice, Joe has no idea who will be on his team. He is still waiting for the NCAA to deliver sanctions in order to find out who is eligible.

“We are still in limbo and still in purgatory,” Joe said. “The NCAA has not issued their sanctions or told us just how they are going to handle it yet. It’s very difficult because we … don’t want to invite certain kids and then they are deemed ineligible and you have to play someone who hasn’t had any reps, no snaps, no practice time – and we’re lined up against the University of Illinois in the opener.”

Joe’s team has already been hit by the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, which has taken away two MEAC conference titles. But Joe seemed unshaken.

“We lost those two titles on paper,” Joe said. I have a MEAC ring right here, and I’m not giving it back.”

ZOOK ON ARRESTS

While Joe spent the day handling questions about the FAMU scandal, University of Florida coach Ron Zook talked about the ongoing problem of football players being arrested. Florida, the University of Miami, Florida State and others are all dealing with this issue.

“I don’t think it’s as bad in college football as it seems. There is just so much more exposure,” said Zook, who has suspended linebackers Taurean Charles and Channing Crowder after both were arrested recently. Zook agrees with many college basketball coaches who are trying to get the NCAA more time with their athletes.

“The more time you are able to spend with your children, the more chance you have to keep them in line. It’s hard because of NCAA limitations. I’m all for what the basketball coaches are doing.

“There’s a lot of things on college campuses across the country that are not going to change. It was that way when we were in college, and it’s that way now.”

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(c) 2004, The Miami Herald.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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ARCHIVE PHOTO on KRT Direct (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):

Ron Zook

AP-NY-07-24-04 2115EDT