Comes now more news of NCAA issues, albeit minor ones, colloquially known amongst the college sports faithful as "secondary violations," this time out of the Mississippi State Bulldogs. According to Brandon Marcello of the Clarion-Ledger, MSU has "adequately handled" six secondary violations since January of this year.
The violations run the gamut from football to boosters to coaches to Facebook. Well, MSU really can't blame Facebook, so they had to blame the football player who wrote on there and head coach Dan Mullen for being inattentive:
Feb. 22
Information concerning the date of a football prospect’s unofficial visit to MSU was posted to a Facebook group by an MSU football player. The posting revealed that the prospective player was expected to be on campus for an MSU basketball game at Humphrey Colisuem. The information "came from the football office," according to the letter to the SEC. The MSU football player who posted the information on Facebook received a letter of admonishment. Coach Dan Mullen received a letter alerting him of his obligation under NCAA bylaws, along with further rules education during a monthly compliance meeting.
Yeah, that's some heinous stuff right there, Miami would probably fire somebody if that happened to them. But this one, I thought, took the cake:
June 22
Jimmy Abraham, executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, provided T-shirts, hats and mini-cowbells to the Warren Central High (Vicksburg) baseball team during a pre-game meal at the M-Club Alumni Building on April 22. The total value of each individual’s gift was $15. All players on the Warren Central High baseball team were declared ineligible to compete at MSU. Abraham received a letter of reprimand and the MSU baseball staff was asked to not recruit on the Warren Central High campus for one calendar year.
Now this is just funny. You knew those cowbells were going to get them into trouble, but I'll bet you didn't expect a cowbell to produce a secondary NCAA violation and place an entire school's baseball players off limits, did you? I wonder if we can expect the SEC to now officially ban them, since they surely take a dim view of ... oh, who the heck am I kidding, they are rolling on the floor laughing just like me.