Bama Says It’s Clear; Website Has More Questions

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Good morning.  Let’s start where the big news always seems to be when it comes to the SEC — in the state of Alabama.  And like so many stories over the past few months, the big news of the day revolves around a potential football scandal at Alabama or Auburn.  Today it’s Alabama. 

Give it a week.

In this case, if it’s found that Tide players were paid for autographs or given merchandise at discounted rates by a Tuscaloosa menswear shop, those players could be ruled ineligible (or retroactively ineligible).  Think Ohio State.  Free tattoos brought down that program and have led to the vacation of a season’s worth of victories.  (The cover-up cost Jim Tressel his job, too.)

Players also are not allowed to have their likenesses used as advertising for a product or a shop, either.  It doesn’t look like that’s what’s been going on, but it’s part of this “investigation.”

The gist of the new info:


1.  UA put out a press release yesterday stating that it had found no violations of NCAA rules in its own investigation into the connection between multiple past and present players with a Tuscaloosa menswear store and its owner (who had Tide sideline passes in 2009 and 2010).

2.  The school released a letter that it sent to Tom Albetar — the store owner — on March 31st telling him that he was being disassociated from the program for three years.  Alabama had also sent him a cease-and-desist letter in December instructing him to stop selling merchandise featuring UA players’ autographs.

3.  Players like former Tide quarterback Greg McElroy are now coming forward to say that Albetar never paid them for their signatures.  Ex-player Chris Rogers said: “He’d (say), ‘Hey guys, I like you guys, but nothing is going to be free or discounted in there.  You have to pay for everything, because they’re watching me.  He would always say that, and he always would make sure you bought everything for what it was (worth).”

4.  Bama officials have still not filed a report with the SEC or NCAA, suggesting that they feel quite buttoned-up on this issue.

5.  Nick Saban spoke about the situation on KESN-FM in Dallas yesterday: “… Our compliance people have been on top of this for a long time.  I think this is an example of… it’s not a violation if you sign a shirt for somebody, you just can’t receive compensation for it.  We’ve done a cease-and-desist with this establishment a long time ago to make sure everybody understands what players can and can’t do.  You know, I guess I could ban our players from the place but until somebody can sorta convince me that somebody is doing something wrong — which I haven’t been convinced of yet — I don’t know if that’s fair to our players.”

6.  Meanwhile, the site OutkickTheCoverage.com — which happened to start this tempest with a launch-week story that ran just hours before Nick Saban’s SEC Media Days press conference — continues to ask questions.

7.  UA officials says they did discuss the matter with the SEC office.  The site questions why Bama officials initially said they did not file a report only to later come back and say that they did talk with the SEC. (Of course, it’s possible that there’s a difference between talking to the SEC office and filing a report.  Seems rather obvious to us.)

8.  The site also wonders what happened between last December’s cease-and-desist letter and the March letter disassociating Albetar from the program.  If nothing illegal was taking place, why was the second letter necessary?  That’s a good question.

9.  Here’s one of the site’s queries (verbatim): “Do you think Alabama would have ever released this letter without OKTC and the huge audience we’ve already created in less than a week pursuing this story?” 


On that front, we get to the meat of this story.  OutkickTheCoverage.com pulled a launch week coup by posting photos — and there’s no doubt in our minds those photos were sent to them by an Auburn-backer or 40 — of Bama players with Albetar.  In this day and age, that qualifies as “investigative journalism.”

Get a photo.  Post it.  Say “what’s up with that?” and then sit back and see where it goes.  When someone provides an answer, question the answer.  We’ve seen this same type of thing play out at SportsByBrooks.com again and again, too. 

It’s good business.

Clay Travis — the man behind OutkickTheCoverage.com — is an extremely sharp guy with an entertaining writing style.  He also would do anything for a pageview.  Nothing wrong with that, we suppose, as that’s how the business works.

Two years ago, Travis asked Tim Tebow at SEC Media Days if he still had his virginity.  Many laughed.  A few old-timers — like those of here at MrSEC.com — cringed at the line he had crossed.  That question was further proof that “old school” sports coverage was becoming more of a “National Enquirer,” “TMZ” style coverage.  You know why?  ‘Cause folks eat that stuff up.  Somebody’s been buying The Enquirer for all these years.

OutkickTheCoverage might have just found some real dirt on Alabama in this case.  It might lead to the downfall of its football program.  (Just as one of the 50 Auburn stories SportsByBrooks posted in the past 12 months might eventually damage the Tiger program.)

But we think this is a fishing expedition.  We feel the NCAA needs to get involved at this point to do some real legwork on the story… so we are not downplaying what OKTC has found.  We’re just suggesting that their method of investigation was pretty loose.

The trouble with sites like OutkickTheCoverage and SportsByBrooks is that they could post questionable photos of any program in the country.  While it doesn’t excuse a school’s actions, there’s some real truth in the old, “everybody does it,” line.  In this day and age, no player can be photographed with a booster, in a store or out to dinner without the photographer gaining the ability to start a controversy. 

It begins with a “What’s he doing there?” post.  Ten days later we may find that the player was doing nothing wrong at all.  Or we might find that John Edwards really was having an affair (to put things in a National Enquirer perspective).

These “investigations” aren’t “60 Minutes” in nature.  They’re much more toss-it-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks.

In this case, Alabama had better hope the photos OutkickTheCoverage has thrown against the wall don’t stick.  Or else the Tide could be on a Buckeye-like path to serious trouble.