Ex-Alabama Baseball Coach Gets 15-Year Show-Cause Penalty, Has To Be Dumbest Dude Ever

The NCAA has handed former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon a 15-year show-cause penalty for his involvement in a betting scandal that cost him his job last spring.

And a particularly poorly planned one at that… but more on that in a second.

Bohannon's penalty means that any program that wishes to hire him must demonstrate why it should be able to hire him, per Tuscaloosa News. Even if a program manages to do that, Bohannon is barred from participating in the entirety of the first five seasons after his hiring.

According to ESPN, Alabama was also sanctioned. They've been handed three years of probation and a $5,000 fine. Additionally, the school must retain a firm to provide gambling education to student-athletes, coaches, and staff.

While this was a serious scandal as far as the harm it could have caused to the integrity of the game… having said that, the circumstances of how Bohannon got caught are nothing short of hilarious.

The gist of it is that Bohnannon texted a bettor named Bert Neff that a key player — referred to as HAMMER — would not be in the lineup for a game against LSU.

"Lemme know when I can tell LSU… hurry…" Bohannon wrote.

Neff then hustled over to the MGM Sportsbook at Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark and tried to bet $100,000 on LSU, before news broke that the player would be out and the betting lines changed.

The plan makes sense, but it quickly devolved into what sounds like something you'd see on a bad network sitcom.

Bohannon's Text Set Comedy Of Errors In Motion

The sportsbook staff thought that dropping $100,000 on a college baseball game seemed a little odd. Of course, they turned out to be right, but their suspicions led them to limit the amount the Neff could wager to $15,000.

This did not sit well with Bohannon's accomplice.

"The bettor then attempted to place additional wagers involving the April 28 Alabama vs. LSU baseball game,
but the sportsbook staff declined the wagers due to suspicious activity," the NCAA's findings read. "This suspicious activity included the bettor's insistent demeanor to get the bet placed and statements to sportsbook staff that the bet was ‘for sure going to win’ and ‘if only you guys knew what I knew.’"

The only thing he could have said that would have gone over worse would have been, "I'm placing these bets on behalf of Alabama head baseball coach Brad Bohannon!" 

He may as well have said that because Neff also showed Bohannon's messages to the sportsbook's staff.

There was some world-class buffoonery at play in this one, and unfortunately for Bohannon, he's paying the price. Neff is paying the price too. According to The Athletic, he is facing charges of destroying evidence, tampering with witnesses, and providing false statements to the FBI.

Serious stuff for sure, but that's why you need to make sure you do a better job of vetting your accomplices…