I am not naive enough to believe we are fully compliant but hope we continue to strive for 100% compliance.

You can't prevent every incident from happening, but you can respond to incidents in such a way that will make future occurrences less likely. I am positive that there are absolutely cheaters at every school in the country that has a remotely competitive athletic program. The difference between the OSUs and USCs in the bunch and all the rest is that some schools actually actively police such activity, and some even act swiftly and harshly when they find a violator. Other programs look the other way to avoid finding problems and then actively protect the violators when they are found, as long as they are important enough to that school's success. Swift and harsh action doesn't mean there won't be another violator down the road because like in every other aspect of life these kids feel immortal, but it doesn't create that same culture of wink, wink, nod, nod. Once that culture is started, it's very difficult to do the necessary policing to run a clean program.

When FSU was in the middle of their cheating scandal, I commented that the kind of violations that were happening there could only happen in a place where the culture made it seem OK. I'm confident that the violations uncovered there were not all the instances of academic cheating that had occurred. The violations we all heard about could only have happened on the heels of many other similar things happening.

It's one of the things that makes me most proud to be a Gator these days. I would NEVER claim that unsavory things don't happen at UF. In fact, I'm sure that they do. What I will claim with absolute confidence is that, if any official in our athletic department gets wind of even the possibility of impropriety, it WILL get looked into and if there is evidence, it WILL be acted on. I'm also confident that if any UF coach was ever found to be aware of a violation without reporting it, that coach would be fired. Our compliance staff should be running clinics for how to create this kind of culture.

A good parallel to this is the UAA's policy of nobody being allowed on the field or court after a game. Many other schools claim that stopping the rushing of the court/field is just impossible. UF is proof that it is possible. You just have to actually care enough about the problem to do something effective to stop it. You can't prevent attempts at rushing the court, but you can stop it immediately when it happens and make it less appealing for others to try.