Players are wrongfully paying the penalty for Fresno State’s blunder

Fresno State President John Welty called a news conference Monday, puffed up his chest and said oh so seriously, “I take full responsibility” for the academic fraud that has been uncovered in a well-sourced, well-proven story published in the Fresno Bee.

And to prove it, he dropped a season-ending decree on a group of players and coaches who weren’t involved in the bad behavior.

Like so many college administrators these days, Welty’s actions indicate he thinks of his players as sacrificial lambs, useful only in a way to impress the NCAA investigators.

The academic fraud -- allegations of bogus grades and term papers written for student-athletes by university personnel -- occurred in the men’s basketball program under retired coach Jerry Tarkanian and does not involve this season’s team or coaching staff.

Welty’s way of taking “full responsibility,” it turned out, was to declare this season’s 20-6 Bulldog team ineligible for any NCAA or National Invitation Tournament bids. Eagerly taking up Welty in his willingness to “take full responsibility,” Western Athletic Conference athletic directors announced Tuesday that Fresno State would also be banned from the conference tournament.

Everyone seems so quick to punish the current team for past improprieties.

Interesting, though.

Welty was the university president who hired Tarkanian.

It was no secret, what and who Tarkanian was.

Tarkanian was a Fresno State grad, a fabulous technical coach and motivator, a wise judge of talent but not of personal character, a man who left the program at Nevada Las Vegas in shambles, and who spent nearly a decade fighting with the NCAA.

So Welty and his athletic department hired Tark.

The athletic director at Fresno in 1995 was Al Bohl. He is now at Kansas. He is not being punished. Welty is not being punished. Even Tark is not being punished.

Tark is still on the university payroll to the tune of $120,000 a year, to be a fund-raiser and goodwill ambassador for the university. Tark told the Bee and university that he had “no knowledge,” that members of his staff were engaged in any academic fraud. No idea!

Tark is not, therefore, taking full responsibility.

Via e-mail, Welty said, “I’ve been clear throughout that Jerry Tarkanian was not directly involved in the problems leading to the most recent sanction.”

So in Welty’s world, the coach is not responsible when people working for him commit academic fraud. And the coach shouldn’t be punished. But the players who had nothing to do with this should be.

And Welty would not have been taking “full responsibility” for these transgressions now if the Bee hadn’t published its story.

If the Bee had waited until, say, May, to fully report and document the academic abuses in the athletic department, Welty could have been self-righteous in the summer, could have waited until after the NCAA tournament to show the NCAA how strong and tough and virtuous he is.

“I agree,” Welty said, again by e-mail, “that it appears unfair. However, the institution has to be accountable, and be accountable immediately, regardless of the timing.”

At least when the St. Bonaventure players were similarly slapped with punishment this week for something they didn’t do, they stood up for themselves. They’ve refused to play their final two regular-season games.

The Atlantic 10 Conference stripped the Bonnies of six conference victories and barred them from the conference tournament for using a player who transferred from junior college without a degree but with a welding certificate -- not that there’s anything wrong with welding. So the Bonnies said, fine, our season is over today.

University President Robert Wickenheiser also took “full responsibility” for approving the transfer.

While his team was banned from the conference tournament, Wickenheiser continued taking “full responsibility” while traveling to California on a fund-raising trip, according to school officials. What, no funds to raise in New York State in the winter?

Wickenheiser also was unavailable to take “full responsibility” by answering any questions in person.

The St. Bonaventure players who have refused to play have heard critics suggest their scholarships be revoked. They have been skewered for costing their final two opponents -- Massachusetts and Dayton -- competition and experience.

We should be congratulating those players. At least they are taking responsibility in the only way available to them.

It wasn’t the players who admitted the welder to college. Or played him in games.

But it was the players who were told to stay away from the conference tournament, as if they were something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

At least one college in our trio of miscreants this week moved to punish a perpetrator first.

Georgia fired assistant Jim Harrick Jr. on Wednesday.

Jim Jr. has been accused by a former player of paying telephone and other bills in violation of NCAA rules. This seems to come as a surprise to Georgia officials who apparently paid no attention to the problems Jim Jr. and his father, Coach Jim Harrick, had at UCLA and Rhode Island.

So far, at least, Georgia hasn’t decided to wow the NCAA with its toughness by banning this ranked team from postseason play.

Welty said, “I believed it was necessary for us to take immediate action. A member of the NCAA has a responsibility to hold itself accountable when violations occur. The postseason ban sanction is consistent with sanctions in other, similar cases. I also wanted it to be clear to our community that this behavior would not be tolerated.”

It might have been more clear had Tarkanian not been hired. Or if Welty were acknowledging he made a terrible decision in hiring Tarkanian and that rather than punishing the players, Welty were offering to step down.

“I understand that ultimately this is my responsibility,” Welty said. “I have the responsibility to fix problems in the future. And I will do that.”

That’s sure to be comforting to the Bulldog players as they watch postseason basketball on television this month.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.