The next self-imposed "death penalty" by a Division I school took place in 2015, when Western Kentucky University (WKU) shut down its men's and women's swimming and diving teams due to a hazing scandal.
However, the "repeat violator" rule gave the Infractions Committees of the various NCAA divisions specific instances where they must either bar a school from competing or explain why they chose not to do so.
On October 20, 1951, former Kentucky players Alex Groza, Ralph Beard, and Dale Barnstable were arrested for taking bribes from gamblers to shave points during the National Invitation Tournament game against the Loyola Ramblers in the 1948–49 season.
[5] Rupp and the university were criticized by the presiding judge, Saul Streit, for creating an atmosphere for the violations to occur and for "failing in his duty to observe the amateur rules, to build character, and to protect the morals and health of his charges".
[6] Senior center Bill Spivey, a freshman on the 1948 unit, was charged with perjury due to discrepancies between his testimony and former teammates who claimed he was involved in the scheme as well.
As punishment, the NCAA barred Kentucky's entire athletic program from postseason play for the 1952–53 academic year, and directed its basketball-playing members to boycott the Wildcats during the 1952–53 season.
An investigation found that 21 players received approximately $61,000 in cash payments, with the assistance of athletic department staff members, from a slush fund provided by a booster.
Before the "death penalty" was instituted, SMU was a storied program in college football, with a Heisman Trophy winner (Doak Walker in 1949), one national championship (from the Dickinson System in 1935) and 10 Southwest Conference (SWC) titles.
The Mustangs compiled a 52–19–1 (.729) record from 1980 until 1986, including an undefeated season in 1982 led by the Pony Express backfield of future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Eric Dickerson and Craig James.
Sports writer Dan Wetzel, school officials significantly increased admissions standards for all incoming athletes, effectively taking the Mustangs out of contention for the kinds of players they attracted in the 1980s.
For example, in its 2005 investigation of the Baylor University men's basketball team, the NCAA determined that the Bears had committed violations as egregious as those found at SMU 18 years earlier.
However, in contrast to that case, once the violations finally came to light Baylor University took decisive and meaningful action to stop the violations and to punish itself and the involved individuals, including replacing the entire men's basketball coaching staff, implementing a postseason ban, forfeiting conference tournament revenue and reducing official paid visits, recruiting opportunities and scholarships....The university and several of the involved individuals exhibited genuine remorse and demonstrated total cooperation with the NCAA in developing the facts of this case.
[24] The penalties ultimately issued included three years' probation and a postseason ban for the 1988–89 season, marking the first time an NCAA champion had been barred from defending its title.
[23] The committee decided against imposing a death penalty because Askew was the only athlete who was proven to have received extra benefits, and because Brown was no longer employed at Kansas.
In September, the NCAA issued a notice to Alabama confirming 11 major violations including multiple instances of recruits and assistant coaches receiving cash, vehicles and loans from boosters already known to have provided impermissible benefits, and lack of institutional control (among other charges).
Ray "categorically" denied that Penn State had been threatened with a death penalty had it not agreed to the sanctions, saying that including it as a backup in the event of such a denial was "never even a point of discussion within either the executive committee or the Division I board.
The Division II infractions committee came down particularly hard on Morehouse because of a lack of institutional control; for a time the athletic department did not know the soccer program even existed.
MacMurray's men's tennis team had its 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons canceled after part-time coach Neal Hart and his father arranged to obtain $126,000 worth of grants for 10 players from foreign countries from 2000 to 2004.
When athletic director Bob Gay learned about the violations in 2004, he forfeited the one match the team had played that year, canceled the rest of the 2004–05 season, and self-reported the matter to the NCAA.
[40] As with Morehouse two years earlier, while this was MacMurray's first major infractions case, the NCAA felt compelled to impose the "death penalty" because of the nature of the violations.
By the 1970s, John Wooden and his UCLA Bruins had caught and eclipsed San Francisco as the premier West Coast power; nevertheless, the Dons remained an elite program well into the early 1980s, perennially ranked in the top 20,[46] and had captured six consecutive conference titles from 1977 to 1982.
John Lo Schiavo, a lifelong basketball enthusiast and an all-city power forward in his youth,[48] let it be known after the second NCAA case was resolved in 1980 that he would shut down the high-profile program if there was any further incident.
An exclusive booster organization called the Dons Century Club committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to illegal recruitment of players, paying off family members, and covering travel expenses,[46] while other alumni were also giving or "lending" players large sums of money, paying them for no-show jobs, providing lavish gifts, as well as picking up pricey restaurant and entertainment tabs.
"[51] His decision made international headlines, to the degree that while visiting San Francisco in 1983, Queen Elizabeth II pulled Lo Schiavo aside to ask when he would reinstate the basketball program.
In a 2011 interview, Lo Schiavo reiterated that he never questioned his decision, noting that all but one trustee voted in favor of shutting down the program in 1982 "because we had to make the point that we mean what we say and we intended to be good citizens".
[55] In March 1985, five basketball players at Tulane University, most notably star John "Hot Rod" Williams, were alleged to have been involved in a point shaving scheme.
[58] On April 4, president Eamon Kelly announced that he would recommend the permanent disbanding of the basketball program in order to "demonstrate unambiguously this academic community's intolerance of the violations and actions we have uncovered."
[58][59] According to Sports Illustrated, the scandal, combined with reports of academic impropriety, enraged the faculty to the point that several members wanted to drop intercollegiate athletics altogether.
[58] On April 14, 2015, Western Kentucky University suspended its men's and women's swimming and diving programs for five years as a result of a self-directed Title IX investigation into allegations of hazing.
[69][70] In August 2024, the University of Notre Dame suspended its men's swimming and diving team for at least the 2024–25 academic year following an external investigation that uncovered gambling and cultural violations.