Remember the movie, “Men In Black?” Whenever Agent K wanted witnesses to forget they saw something incredible – usually involving an alien – he used his “neuralizer” to make them forget the incident.
It seems that is what the NCAA and now the BCS do whenever they strip a national championship from a school like they did to Southern California. It gets erased from the record books, banners get pulled down from the rafters and trophies are melted down. In essence, that championship is neuralized.
The NCAA already had wiped out the 2004 USC title because Reggie Bush’s money-grab, but the Bowl Championship Series responded in kind Monday by taking away a title for the first time in its short history of running bowls. The problem is neuralizers don’t exist – not that we know of at least – and the BCS and NCAA can’t wipe out our memory of a championship game.
Erasing championships from record books is the NCAA’s way of trying to punish the athletes who are no longer at the schools. The officials at the governing body of college athletics must think that the ex-players will be wounded or the alumni will be shamed by their actions.
However, the lack of flags or trophies cannot keep us from remembering the two men’s basketball Final Fours in which Michigan’s Fab Five played – and are now ignored because of Chris Webber’s alleged improprieties. While the NCAA says to forget it, we’ll fondly recall 2008′s men’s basketball title game in which Kansas beat Memphis. The latter school’s season was later ruled ineligible because of Derrick Rose’s fraudulent SAT scores.
And USC’s 55-19 BCS title-game victory over Oklahoma in 2004? That was a fun game to watch that truly proved the Trojans had the best team in college football that season. Because of Bush, the BCS says it never happened.
No matter how hard they try, this form of punishment by the NCAA and the BCS does not work. USC players are not going to give back championship rings, coaches will still brag about how they beat the Sooners and fans will talk about that game in the Orange Bowl even more fondly for years to come.
Repeat, the NCAA and the BCS do not have neuralizers. And if the “Men in Black” did have them, they probably wouldn’t lend it two groups that believe so much in the college football bowl system.
USC stripped of ’04 BCS title [ESPN]
