The NCAA has long been criticized for their ridiculous rules, but the punishment they handed down on Virginia Tech linebacker Alan Tisdale may be the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever seen from the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
According to a report from The Athletic, Tisdale was suspended for nine games after he placed $400 in bets on the NBA Finals, winning just $41 bucks as a result.
As the story goes, Virginia Tech’s compliance department was going through all of the NCAA’s rules and regulations with the team back in August when Tisdale saw a slide in the powerpoint presentation that mentioned betting app FanDuel. The following day, Tisdale found Hookies head coach Brent Pry and told him, ““Coach, I think I screwed up.”
Apparently, Tisdale had wagered $400 on basketball games during the NBA Finals. He did so in the state of Vriginia, where gambling is legal. And he was 21-years-old at the time.
None of what he did was illegal. And he was only betting small amounts on a sport that he doesn’t even play. That didn’t matter to the NCAA, though, as they suspended Tisdale for nine games—which was later reduced to six after an appeal.
Here are the details, via The Athletic:
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A couple of months prior, Tisdale, who’d misunderstood the NCAA’s rules on gambling, had toyed around on the FanDuel app, betting on the NBA Finals. He did so in Virginia, where online sports gambling has been legal since January 2021. He was 21 at the time, about to turn 22, of age to legally participate in online wagering. And he had not at the time, nor has he since, been a professional basketball player in the NBA.
It doesn’t matter. Gambling in any form is an NCAA no-no, among the organization’s cardinal sins. Tisdale self-reported, not wanting to harm the team in the future with forfeiture should his bets be discovered. He hoped his confession would lead to leniency from the NCAA.
Instead, he got a nine-game suspension, reduced to six games on appeal. Before returning against Miami on Oct. 15, he missed half of his senior season for placing a little more than $400 in bets on a professional sport he doesn’t play that produced $41 in winnings, he said. The winnings were subsequently donated to charity after the violation was reported.
Hookies coach Brent Pry wasn’t at all pleased with the NCAA’s ruling.
“We try and do things right,” he said, pointing out that Tisdale didn’t realize he was breaking the rules, and that he confessed as soon as he learned he had done something wrong.
It’s hard to argue with Pry, too. The rule itself is ridiculous enough, but missing half a season for making $400 worth of wagers on a sport you don’t even play makes absolutely no sense and just seems unfair…which is why it is not even the slightest bit surprising that the NCAA came to this decision.
