Reactions to the Jim Calhoun ruling from around the web

Jim Calhoun and the UConn finally received their punishment from the NCAA stemming from this Yahoo! Sports report back in March of 2009. Calhoun was suspended for three Big East games next season, while the UConn program has been placed on probation and been given a handful of recruiting restrictions. You can read our reaction to the punishment here. This is what the rest of the internet thinks.

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Pat Forde, ESPN.com: "It’s not enough to hire a coach because he wins. An athletic director must make a great production in an introductory press conference about the integrity and character and superior moral fiber of the man in charge of drawing up a pick-and-roll. Combine that puffery with the salary and celebrity attached to many program leaders, and the Cult of the Head Coach gains clout. Their importance morphs into something almost presidential. And if you’ve ever seen a presidential security detail, you know that every effort is made to protect the boss. Even if it means sacrificing an underling in the face of danger. The protocol in college sports is comparable. Or at least it has been. Slowly, it’s changing. The penalties assessed to Bruce Pearl and Jim Calhoun are incremental proof that the Cult of the Head Coach isn’t the ivory tower it used to be."


Gary Parrish, CBSSports.com: "A postseason ban? That hurts. A television ban? That stings. But all Calhoun really got for cheating was a three-game suspension -- plus the contract extension he signed last May."


Jay Bilas: "What is an "Atmosphere Of Compliance?" Re-use the rule book like towels at a hotel? Is it possible to violate rules AND promote an AOC?"


Jeff Jacobs, Hartford Courant: "Calhoun has treated this entire sordid affair like it was another basketball game. In the face a Yahoo! report that nailed UConn, he has fought it, one fact at a time, fought it down to the last second. And you know what? The game ended. He lost. And now he’s considering overtime? Beyond a few game tickets and phone calls, the man has refused to take any blame. Athletic director Jeff Hathaway, already up to his knees with his own set of problems, fell on the sword for Calhoun. And now Hathaway’s detractors are killing him because he said in the NCAA report that trying to land Miles was the “most intense” he has ever seen Calhoun about the recruitment of a player. Calhoun, meanwhile, pulled the Sgt. Schultz. He didn’t know anything."


Dana O'Neil, ESPN.com: "On the surface it may not seem like much. Calhoun will only miss 1/6 of the 18-game marathon that is the Big East slate. He has missed games before, more than three in fact with various healthy concerns. That was, if not of his choosing, at least of his own making. But this is a benching, a benching of a man whose reputation means a great deal to him. Plenty of coaches have been smacked with NCAA violations and kept on keeping on, simply smearing Teflon on their hand-tailored suits. Calhoun isn’t any coach. He is on the Mount Rushmore of hoops, a man whose face is synonymous with his program. Only four currently active coaches already are members of the Naismith Hall of Fame: Jim Boeheim, Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Calhoun. That is the rarefied air in which Calhoun travels. And now he is the only one of the four to be held personally accountable for an NCAA infraction."


Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News: "Whatever Calhoun’s punishment might have been — short of being forced to dine nightly at Taco Bell with Pete Rose and Tom DeLay — members of the media would have carped about leniency. But Calhoun will remember this day the rest of his life, as surely as he’ll remember the nights he claimed the NCAA championship trophy."


David Steele, Fanhouse: "You'd like to think that no matter how prominent and prestigious a program and coach, violations of this kind -- exactly the type the NCAA claims it guards against the most vigilantly -- would receive appropriately harsh punishment. Apparently nobody in the Indianapolis offices shares your thoughts. Around there, Calhoun is a made man, and his program is untouchable. Or so it would seem, and the NCAA should be really bothered that, to so many, that's how it seems."


Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger: "Since it's so difficult for the short-staffed NCAA to prove that a program is associating with agents or enticing recruits with extra benefits, the only recourse it has is to send a harsh message whenever they do catch a coach breaking the rules. That's why it's disappointing that the NCAA failed to hand out a stiff enough penalty to UConn on Tuesday to serve as an effective deterrent."


Dave Telep, ESPN.com: "Unlike Bruce Pearl and the Tennessee Volunteers, the Huskies were not hit with sanctions that would prevent them from leaving campus to recruit. Instead, the sanctions levied on the Jim Calhoun and the Huskies deal with scholarships, official visits and phone calls. Overall, the sanctions can be overcome with an efficient plan and diligent attention to detail mixed in with good judgment and crisp evaluations. "


Gregg Doyel, CBSSports.com: "Don't be fooled. Think of those penalties as a handful of nickels and dimes. I could throw coins at you for 30 seconds and it wouldn't add up to anything significant. That's what the NCAA did with UConn. It threw a bunch of nickels and dimes at the Huskies. Total cost? Nothing significant. Unless my math is wrong, but I doubt it. I was always pretty damn good with numbers."


Ken Davis, NBCSports.com: "Asked by Seth Davis to address the disparity in penalties, committee chairman Dennis Thomas said, “I guess that’s your perception in terms of disparity in the penalties. Obviously, the head coach is responsible for what goes on in his program. When you have an individual who has a show-cause for a certain reason, obviously that is a serious violation in terms of being forthcoming with the enforcement staff and institution. We do not feel there is a disparity based on the information presented.” When I asked Mr. Thomas how the committee arrived at a three-game suspension for Jim Calhoun, he answered, “I can’t go into how you decide about five games, 10 games, three games or whatever. But the committee felt after reviewing the information that the three-game conference suspension was appropriate.” When I asked about options available, Mr. Thomas said, “As I indicated earlier, the committee has at its disposal an array of penalties. I call it a quiver. And we decided upon the penalties we imposed.” So who knows? Maybe they shoot an arrow from the quiver and there are targets with numbers on them. Calhoun’s arrow fell on a 3."


Andrew Porter, The UConn Blog: "The penalties themselves may not appear to carry too much weight, and you will certainly hear a lot of screaming from opposing fans about UConn being "slapped on the wrist," but they are incredibly embarrassing for the program and especially for Calhoun, who, with the university's backing, denied the charges against him."