Like medicine, mom telling us to bundle up, or a coach telling us we still need to practice before we make the starting team, no one likes to receive news they don't want to hear.  What makes the NCAA the villain in most people's eyes is their absolute control over penalties with only themselves as the court for appeals.

The USC football and basketball program was hit with harsh sanctions last week, even after all the parties (coaches and players) involved are no longer associated with the school.  Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo will essentially be erased from all but the collective consciousness of USC fans.  Penalties handed down by the NCAA went above the self imposed USC penalties, so that the basketball program will not be permitted to play in the NCAA tournament and the football team participate in any bowl game for two years.

Yesterday, after the Arizona program had already self imposed recruiting restrictions on itself for violations it committed by (then) head coach Lute Olson interactions with a camp on campus, the NCAA struck again by imposing an additional year of lost scholarship and wiping out the 19 wins in the 2007-08 season.

The question is, why mus the NCAA always appear to be the over-bearing parent that has to have the last word?  You've cleaned your room after being told to do so several times, but now told you will also not receive desert.  Each program has realized its errors, cleaned itself, imposed sanctions upon itself like a forced diet, and then gets additional punishment, as if to say "we're watching you".

There has to be a time when an NCAA institution will self impose sanctions and it will be enough to satisfy those in Indianapolis.  When will we hear about those?