NCAA investigations are never fun when personal

The news coming out of my alma mater is painful for me.

I admit that there are not many teams that I actively root for anymore. I don't have the angst that many fans have for their professional sports teams. Really, there is only one team that can force me to my wit's end.

I am a Missouri Tigers basketball fan, and right now, this Tiger is crying.

The investigation into the Missouri men's basketball program is complete, and the findings are astonishing. In the first four years after the hiring of Quin Snyder off of the Duke bench in April 1999, there were 57 recruiting violations discovered. The violations range from the payment of $250 to a former player, Ricky Clemons, to giving current players the always hazy "illegal benefit" of meals and transportation. Also, Missouri illegally provided meals for AAU coaches.

For me, the only positive is that the school was not found to be involved in a case of academic fraud regarding Clemons. After all, he was the one who started all of this mess. He was a transfer student, and a troubled one at that. He is the player whom associate coach Tony Harvey is accused of paying $250, although Clemons doesn't remember how much he was given.

Now, as a student, I would like to think that when you're given money, especially an amount as small as $250, that you would remember it. However, besmirching the name of Ricky Clemons is not the point of this column.

The point is: 57 violations.

57! That's almost Rick Neuheisel level. The scope of the investigation was the years 1999-2003. That's almost 15 violations a year of improper recruit contact, extra benefits to athletes, and improper consorting with AAU coaches. That's an average of about one violation per player per year.

Kind of makes me wish I had worked on my jump shot instead of on my academics.

When this whole thing started, I joked with some friends, "Hey, this legitimizes us as a program. We got an NCAA investigation." I now regret those words, and I actually feel embarrassed. I am embarrassed as an alumnus and as a fan.

I remember when Snyder was hired. The girls swooned over his floppy hair and boyish good looks. Most other fans looked at the Duke pedigree and thought he would do. I questioned whether or not he was the proper choice to lead the program into the 21st century. He was supposed to revive a program that had aged gracefully, but still aged, under the watch of the legendary Norm Stewart.

The team began winning, even making a run to the Elite Eight round in the 2002 NCAA tournament. Missouri was on the up and up with a golden boy of coaching. The concern was whether or not he was going to stay at Missouri or jump ship to a higher profile, maybe even the NBA.

Now? Now Snyder presides over a tattered kingdom, laid to waste by one lengthy, skin-peeling investigation by the NCAA. His top assistant's letter of resignation was accepted by the university earlier this week, after the findings were presented to the university. The associate head coach is on administrative leave, which means he is more or less fired unless something major changes in the next three months.

And Coach Snyder? He is left to pick up the pieces of a career that has very quickly come crashing back to earth after a remarkable orbit. Much like the tech stocks that were red hot when he was hired, Snyder probably has very little national value left outside of Columbia, Missouri. Even if the NCAA penalties aren't harsh, the sting will be felt when he hits the road to recruit for the next class.

Hopefully, this investigation will teach some humility to those running the basketball program at Missouri. If nothing else, it is another lesson about coaching hubris run amok.

Even if it did hit a little close to home for me, I think it was ultimately a good thing.