March 8

Wikipedia's article on March 8.

Events

• 1913: The Clemson College Rifle Club has a meet with North Georgia A & M.
• 1972: The Clemson University Chorus in concert in Daniel Auditorium at 8.m., presenting pieces by Antonio Vivaldi, Samuel Barber, Vincent Persichetti and a group of Madrigals. Free admission.
• 1978: Loch Ness monster hunter Lee Frank presents a slide show/lecture on Nessie, Bigfoot and other creatures, in Tillman Auditorium at 8 p.m.
• 1995: The Clemson University Symphonic Band presents its Spring Concert at the Brooks Center. The Ramones play at Characters, 805 Frontage Road, Greenville at 9 p.m., admission is a mere $10.
• 2005 - James Frey, reformed addict and author of New York Times bestseller A Million Little Pieces, speaks in Tillman Auditorium. On January 8, 2006, the investigative website, thesmokinggun.com, publishes a 12,000--week investigation of police and other public records and accuses Frey of embellishing and fabricating his criminal history. The author appears on the Larry King Show on January 11 to defend himself and admits he may have embellished some, but he stands by the "essential truths" of his book. Subsequently, Oprah Winfrey, who gave his book a huge boost on her book club, repudiates the recommendation and Frey's publishers pull their contracts for his next book.
• 2007: As part of the Family Series, the Brooks Center hosts Cirque Le Masque at 7 p.m. Created by Dennis and Bernie Schussel of Le Masquerade Entertainment Group, this company has provided sophisticated entertainment for over two decades with first-class performers, colorful costumes, creative music and unique special effects. Admission for the gravity-defying acts, acrobatics and dance routines is $10 for adults, $5 for students.
• March 7, 2008-March 8, 2008: WSBF celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with a concert on Friday in the Hendrix Center ballroom and Alumni jocks on the air on Saturday, followed by a banquet.
• 2008: The Clemson Wiki main page tallies hit 43,000. The gasoline tanks are being removed from the former BP-Amoco station on the southeastern corner of Tiger Boulevard and College Avenue in preparation for construction of a Walgreen's Drugs.
• 2009: The Florida State football team will vacate an undetermined number of wins, serve four years' probation, and face a reduction in scholarships and other penalties due to what the NCAA described Friday as "major violations" from an academic cheating scandal.

Nine other programs were also penalized -- baseball, men's track and field, women's track and field, men's swimming, women's swimming, men's basketball, women's basketball, softball and men's golf -- and face the same sanctions. Overall, the scandal involved 61 athletes.

The race between Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden for most victories in major college football came to an abrupt halt Friday. Bowden, a game behind Paterno when the 2008 season ended, has pulled up lame due to a case of academic fraud, writes Ivan Maisel.

Dinich blog

Football coach Bobby Bowden would have entered the coming season with 382 career victories, trailing Penn State coach Joe Paterno by one win on the all-time list. The sanctions will force him to forfeit all wins during which ineligible students competed in 2006 and 2007.

It is not immediately clear how many wins Florida State will have to vacate. Dennis Thomas, the vice chair of the NCAA Committee on Infractions and acting chair for the FSU case, said only one ineligible player would have had to participate in a game for the entire team record to be vacated. Still, Thomas said the NCAA had no evidence the university knowingly played ineligible athletes.

Florida State is considering appealing the sanction that would force the Seminoles to vacate wins.

"We believe that the NCAA confirmed that our investigative efforts and our self-imposed penalties were appropriate," Florida State president T.K. Wetherell said in a statement Friday. "We already began implementing our self-imposed penalties. And we will begin implementing all but one of the NCAA's additional sanctions.

"We just don't understand the sanction to vacate all wins in athletics contests in which ineligible student-athletes competed because we did not allow anyone who we knew was ineligible to compete. Our position throughout the inquiry was that as soon as we knew of a problem, they didn't play."

In November 2007, Florida State and the NCAA agreed that athletes who had received "improper help" would be suspended for 30 percent of their seasons. According to the Orlando Sentinel, officials interviewed 75 individuals, and 39 admitted receiving improper assistance in an online music course. Roughly two dozen football players were suspended for the Music City Bowl, which FSU lost 35-28 to Kentucky. The Seminoles also suspended about 10 players for the first three games of the 2008 season.

FSU officials and players were under the impression those athletes had already served their punishment, but Thomas said on Friday that the instant a player cheated in class -- regardless of whether school officials knew about it -- he became ineligible, and if that athlete played in a game, it must be vacated. That could cost FSU games from 2006, when the academic fraud began.

"They are ineligible at the time of that violation until they are reinstated," Thomas said. "If they participated while ineligible, obviously the games they participated in will have to be vacated. The trigger is if those 61 individuals obviously as identified by the institution committed academic fraud. At that point, they rendered themselves ineligible."

The football team will be limited to 83 total scholarships in 2008-09; 82 in 2009-10; and 84 in 2010-11; the maximum usually allowed by the NCAA is 85. Florida State self-imposed the loss of the two scholarships for 2008-09, and will self-impose the loss of three scholarships for 2009-10. The NCAA added an additional loss of scholarship from the maximum in 2010-11.

The committee stated this case was "extremely serious" because of the large number of student-athletes involved and the fact that academic fraud is considered by the committee to be among the most egregious of NCAA rules violations.

Florida State's probation extends through March 5, 2013.

"I must say that Florida State did a great job in cooperating with the enforcement staff in accumulating all of the information that was required," Thomas said. "Yes, Florida State did self-report. They did an outstanding job. We have to give Florida State University credit for that."

The NCAA determined that a former learning specialist, academic adviser and tutor gave "improper assistance" to Florida State athletes who were taking online courses. According to the NCAA, the former learning specialist typed portions of papers for at least three athletes and also provided answers to an online psychology course quiz by instructing another athlete to complete the quiz on behalf of the athlete enrolled in the course.

Heather Dinich covers the ACC for ESPN.com.

• 2010: Reconstruction begins on the Clemson University gateway sign, destroyed by a errant SUV in November after only one week of completion and landscaping.

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