Auburn Tigers Story By Selena Roberts Exposes Larger NCAA Issue

November 24, 2012; Tuscaloosa, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers head coach Gene Chizik talks to the media following the Tigers 49-0 loss against the Alabama Crimson Tide at Bryant Denny Stadium. Chizik refused to address his coaching future at Auburn University. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Roopstigo is a funny word.

I don’t really know what the hell it’s supposed to mean, but it’s making waves in the college football world right now due to its relationship with a salacious story of program-gone-rogue on the Auburn Tigers. Headed up by former Sports Illustrated and New York Times reporter Selena Roberts, Roopstigo.com dropped a story titled “Auburn’s Tainted Title” that alleged all sorts of impropriety about the 2010 BCS champs, specifically in regards to former star safety Mike McNeil.

I’m not here to discuss whether or not what Roberts wrote is factually accurate. People will inevitably make a case for both sides. It’ll probably look something like this:

Roberts is an award-winning national magazine writer with pretty heavy-hitting credentials and at first glance the story appears well-sourced. However, the main source of her information is about to withstand trial for felony armed robbery and has an ax to grind with the university because he feels ostracized.

Then, of course, you have to take into account that Roberts could really use a big scoop to launch this website she apparently named after her dog (I’m serious). Now that’s not to say that she’d sacrifice her integrity to do so, but it’s obvious she felt for Mike McNeil. She told her interview subjects as much when she allegedly prefaced those conversations with, “I’m just trying to help Mike.”

Her report does advocate Mike McNeil’s innocence, but when you tuck it inside of an Auburn slam piece, you’re not exactly building public sentiment in the place where it counts: Auburn, AL. The place where Mike McNeil is set to undergo trial.

That being said there are also aspects of Roberts’ report that are hard to discredit. The synthetic pot abuse has been reported by multiple outlets, although the use of the word rampant seems to have adopted a rather ambiguous definition in the past few days.

Like I said, there’s a case to be made from both sides.

However, this brings me to my larger point. We hear so much about the culture created by college sports, and when we get idyllic we talk about the passion and the tradition. But, when we get cynical, this is the sort of stuff we turn our head to.

Regardless of whether or not you believe the Roopstigo report in its entirety, in parts or not at all, the bottom line is that Auburn likely cheated. They likely cheated because every program in the country cheats, by NCAA definition, in some form or another.

Schools voluntarily report secondary violations on an almost daily basis. Kids smoke weed. Occasionally they do lines off a bathroom sink in some sketchy nightclub or punch police officers. Some forms of cheating are far worse than others, while some forms of cheating probably shouldn’t be cheating at all.

Unfortunately, when we talk about the “culture” that all this cheating creates, it’s one of blind tolerance. College football is a multi-million dollar industry in these college towns, and it often fuels the economy of dozens and dozens of local businesses. So when various levels of cheating occurs, it’s generally treated nonchalantly. Unless you’re selling tabloids (ahem, Clay Travis), scandal is bad for business.

The part of Selena Roberts’ report on the Auburn Tigers that really raises eyebrows–to me–is the subversive nature of Auburn’s police force. And even if it’s entirely fabricated, the fact that it’s so wholeheartedly believable speaks directly to the nature of college football’s underlying issue.

The word scandal crops up far too frequently in collegiate athletics, and we’re often quick to brush it aside, but people need to be held accountable at every level. Players, coaches, administrators and, most of all, the NCAA.

We’ve seen them botch investigation after investigation and it contributes more to this epidemic than anything else by far. If the governing organization is corrupted and covetous, how can you expect member institutions to not act accordingly?

There are billions of dollars at stake and everybody is trying so desperately to get their hands on it that it creates this vacuum that seems to suck everybody’s scruples into nothingness. And because there’s no guiding hand to equitably divvy up the proceeds, we get a weird Blazing Saddles version of the Wild West, with Gene Chizik draped in leather from head to toe double-barreling rounds off into the Auburn sky and Nevin Shapiro blowing up bridges with dynamite.

Did Auburn cheat in 2010? Yeah, probably. Was it as bad as Selena Roberts and Mike McNeil make it out to be? Maybe. Does everyone cheat? Yes. Does that excuse Auburn from cheating? No.

The questions are never ending, but none of it changes the fact that if the NCAA wasn’t so damn broken, we wouldn’t have to be put into the position of distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable forms of cheating. Essentially, we don’t like the NCAA for the exact same reason we’re skeptical of this Roopstigo story.

There’s just too much grey.