Oxford is reeling, not from the news, but from the absurdity. The NCAA’s latest defense isn't just a filing—it's a masterclass on how to dig the hole deeper.
It was bad enough that their lawyers, J. Douglas Minor, Taylor Askew, and David Zeitlin were ordered a show cause penalty from Judge Robert Whitwell for abandoning the courtroom when Whitwell was in chambers preparing his ruling for the Trinidad Chambliss case.
Now, the motion they filed against the penalty gave everyone more second-hand embarrassment in Oxford after their 658-page filing in the Supreme Court against Whitwell's ruling.
NCAA came up with the weakest explanation to show cause
On March 16, Minor filed a 14-page motion on the NCAA's behalf to dismiss Whitwell's show cause order in Lafayette Chancery Court.
"In the motion, Minor argues that Mississippi law does not authorize the issuance of sanctions against counsel. Under Mississippi law, he wrote, the judicial power authorizes punitive sanctions against an attorney only upon a finding of criminal contempt. He said criminal contempt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt," The Clarion Ledger's Sam Hutchen reported.
The NCAA lawyers said they presumed that statement applied to them, too.
"Counsel had no reason to believe that the instruction was limited to members of the public who attended the hearing because members of the public are always free to leave, with or without an express invitation from the Court," the NCAA wrote in its motion. "Counsel did not learn that the Court’s announcement excluded them until after it retook the bench and announced its ruling."
For a legal team representing the most powerful organization in college sports to claim they didn't realize a court order applied to them is, quite frankly, the punchline of the decade.
This 'ignorance is bliss' defense doesn't just lack merit—it lacks a basic pulse, one that Judge Whitwell will most likely not find compelling enough as a reason for show cause.
Only time can tell what more the Trinidad Chambliss saga has in store for the NCAA.