Crimson Tide Red-Faced After Ncaa Ruling Alabama Football Program Banned From Upcoming Postseason

The grim events inside the Alabama football building did nothing to dampen enthusiasm on a sunsoaked lawn outside. Across the street from the Paul W. Bryant Museum, cheerleaders practiced for championship games they won’t attend this season.

Alabama, never before on probation during decades of prominence including six national crowns, was banned from postseason play for one season Wednesday and ordered to forfeit 11 games from the 1993 season in which an ineligible athlete played.

A television ban was not imposed as part of the three years’ probation, but Alabama stands to lose more than two dozen scholarships.

The shock waves spread quickly across the state as the breadth of the punishment became apparent.

Talk radio lines were flooded with misery as fans learned of the Crimson Tide’s fate. On the campus of archrival Auburn, a few Tigers fans toilet-papered a downtown area known as Toomer’s Corner. That’s usually done after a victory by the Tigers, who themselves emerge from two years’ probation this season.

The NCAA cited the Tide football program for exhibiting “a distressing failure of institutional control.”

A statement released by the NCAA said Alabama was censured for three chief reasons:

A player obtained from boosters six impermissible deferred-payment loans totaling $24,400, during 1989 and 1990. The player, Gene Jelks, completed his career in the fall of 1989. The NCAA said he never repaid the loans.

Antonio Langham was allowed to play in 11 regular-season games in 1993 even though he had signed with an agent and athletic officials were aware that a potential violation of rules had occurred.

The school’s faculty athletics representative provided “false and misleading information” to the NCAA in the Langham case.

University president Roger Sayers complained that the infractions committee failed to grasp “who knew what, and when.”

“Knowing the facts of our case, the penalties are without precedent,” Sayers said.

The sanctions against Alabama call for the loss of four scholarships for 1995-96, which Alabama already has given up voluntarily, plus four more for 1996-97. In addition, Alabama can sign only 12 new recruits in 1996-97 and 16 in 1997-98, instead of up to 25 each year.

The total number of scholarships lost depends on how many players graduate or otherwise leave the program, creating new space on the roster. Assuming normal attrition, Alabama is looking at a net loss of 30 scholarships during the probation.

Sayers called Alabama’s sanctions “excessive and inappropriate” and said the school would appeal.