The Front Row with Nancy Armour September 13, 2011

Bruce Pearl may as well have "Damaged Goods" stamped on his forehead for all the luck the former Tennessee coach is going to have finding a new job.

Jim Calhoun won't be on hand when defending national champion Connecticut opens the Big East season, serving a three-game suspension instead.

For a second straight year, USC is playing for nothing more than pride.

And Ohio State didn't even bother waiting for the NCAA to pass judgment, shoving Jim Tressel out the door in hopes of sparing the school further punishment.

Fear might be the best weapon the NCAA has in what is largely an uphill fight against cheating, lying and corruption. Intentional or not, the NCAA has been embarrassing some of college sports' biggest names recently and the consequences ought to scare everybody straight. Success, reputation, wealth - they're no protection once a school winds up under the NCAA's microscope these days.

"There's a lot of attention currently because there's a lot of the high-profile programs that seem to be in trouble," said Jerry Parkinson, a law professor at the University of Wyoming and a former member of the NCAA's Committee on Infractions.

"It takes a confluence of events like this to get people's attention - and that's not a bad thing at all."

Search the NCAA database of major infractions, and you'll find hundreds of cases dating back to 1953. There are more than 60 in the last 2 1/2 years alone, at least a dozen of which have either wiped out records or made it all but impossible for misbehaving coaches to find work.

Yet most of the cases generate few headlines because they occur at small schools or in sports that don't command TV contracts worth billions. Even cases involving high-profile schools can usually be dismissed as isolated incidents, the failures of an individual coach or athletic department.

When there's a rash of violations at marquee schools, however, and serious ones at that, it creates an air of lawlessness that tarnishes all of college athletics.

"It's systemic, and the NCAA is having a harder time saying it's just a few rotten apples," said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and longtime critic of commercialization in college sports. "Because to the casual public, it seems like there are more and more scandals. I would dispute that, but the NCAA has to deal with the perception."

"There's no question it's at a crossroads, and I've been saying that for a long time," NCAA president Mark Emmert said last month. "That's why we need to act and why we need to act quickly. But again, I think, it's a case of all the great things in college sports being overshadowed by these high-profile infractions cases, and that's something we have to fix."

But how?

Critics have long dismissed the NCAA enforcement process as ineffective, blaming its reactionary nature and lack of impartiality. The NCAA doesn't have its own detective bureau, relying on schools to report themselves or for others, most often the media, to provide information on wrongdoing.

Once the enforcement staff determines possible violations, the case is forwarded to the Committee on Infractions, which includes seven representatives from member schools and conferences as well as three members of the public. The committee makes the final determination on violations, including what the penalties should be.

AP National Writer Nancy Armour can be reached at [email protected]