In what has become a summer tradition in recent years, Alabama has returned to deliver its annual self-reporting of NCAA violations over the last calendar year.
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After reporting 22 violations last year, with nine including the Alabama football team, the school released another 13 minor NCAA infractions across all Crimson Tide sports. The violations occurred from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, and are considered Level 3 or Level 4 violations.
The list includes just one from the Crimson Tide football program from July 1, 2017. Other sports include men's basketball, women's soccer, rowing, softball, women's basketball, men's tennis, gymnastics, swimming and diving, and baseball.
Some of the reasons are, well, common mistakes everyone seems to make at one point or another in life and almost comical they need to be reported.
Football
"MFB Assistant Coach responded to an unknown text message, which resulted in impermissible communication with a parent of a 2019 prospected student-athlete," the report reads. "The coach reported (the) violation to compliance and provided supporting screen shot of text communication."
The school also noted it provided rules education to the assistant coach, who was not named in the report, regarding permissible methods and times of communication with prospective student-athletes.
Let's face it. If you get a text from a random number and area code, aren't you at least going to respond and ask who it is?
Men's Basketball
There was also one from the men's basketball program from March 30, 2018, where a "current student-athlete used the twitter handle of a prospective student-athlete in a tweet on his personal twitter account."
The tweet was removed, according to the report. Kids will be kids on social media. No harm, no foul.
Women's Soccer
The "biggest" offenders of the bunch:
"Soccer coach inadvertently pocket dialed the mother of a prospective student-athlete prior to the permissible date to initiate telephone calls."
"Soccer coach accidentally replied to an email from a PSA prior to the permissible date or first correspondence."
"Soccer coach made a call to a PSA's father whom he believed was old enough to receive telephone calls."
First off, you haven't lived unless you have accidentally pocket dialed someone. Secondly, the father was old enough to receive the call. The recruit was not. That's an easy mistake to make when reading that. Regardless, a simple report and a sorry will probably do just fine here.
Rowing
"Women's walk-on rowers participated in practice activities, participated in two practices following the 14-day tryout period without signing the drug-testing consent form.
Translation: The papers got signed and said walk-ons were withheld from two practices.
Softball
"Staff member inadvertently hit 'reply all' to an email from a prospective student-athlete prior to the date that recruiting materials could be sent to her."
Very common mistake here. It's embarrassing for the staff member, sure, and there's a solid chance there is an office joke about this. Always double check the recipients.
Women's Basketball
"A women's basketball graduate student manager served in the role while being below full time status a grad student."
Someone probably forgot to enroll in enough hours. Oh, the horror.
Men's Tennis
"Men's Tennis Student-Athlete was provided travel expenses to attend an away from home competition while ineligible for competition."
This seems like another easy mistake to make. There is a roster of players and it's safe to assume everyone needs the allotted stipend for student-athletes.
Gymnastics
"Gymnastics Coach inadvertently pocket-dialed PSA prior to September 1 at the beginning of her junior year."
"Gymnastics Coach mistakenly responded to a text message from a PSA who was not old enough to receive general correspondence."
The more people which admit to pocket-dialing errors, the better the rest of us feel.
Swimming and Diving
"Diving Coach allowed enrolled women's diving prospective student-athlete to participate in tryouts prior to submitting required documentation verifying full-time enrollment and medical clearance."
The punishment here is about as equivalent to getting written up at work. It's not going to get you fired right now. Just never do it again.
Baseball
"On two occasions, the baseball team failed to provide a day off from required and countable athletically related activities an institutional vacation period."
Maybe the weather was too nice not to practice?
Summary
So from social media posts to pocket dials to not signing a drug-testing consent form, these are all minor NCAA violations and likely will have no major, or any, ramifications for the school's athletics department.
Alabama football head coach Nick Saban will not be in trouble for this, nor will the soccer coach, or anyone else for that matter. These are self-reported violations. Consider this case closed, and it was rather brilliant to release it at 5 p.m. right before a weekend, too.
Coming off a national championship last season, Alabama football is the preseason favorite to win it all once again in 2019, and opens the season against Louisville on Sept. 1.
