Forgive me if I seem a bit unimpressed by that organization in Indianapolis.
-Troy Smith takes money from a booster, then leads his team to the National Title game and a Heisman Trophy. No sanctions for Ohio State, arguably the biggest football program in America.
-Reggie Bush’s parents are given a HOUSE, rent-free, and Reggie Bush is given a car and cash by a prospective agent. Bush wins the Heisman, takes USC to consecutive National Championship games, and gets drafted 2nd in the NFL draft. No sanctions for USC, who is Ohio State’s only legitimate rival for biggest program in America.
-O.J. Mayo is lavished with gifts and cash in his semester-plus at USC. He takes his team to the NCAA tournament and will be a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA draft. I doubt USC will be sanctioned for this and Mayo will be a millionairre.
-Chirs Webber (and other Michigan players) were PAID to play. Years later, Michigan had to take down some banners, while all the players were cashing their NBA checks.
-Division 1 college football is the only major sport, school or professional, on the ENTIRE CONTINENT without a recognized champion.
-Coaches like Jim Harrick, Kelvin Sampson, Dennis Erickson, and Jerry Tarkanian can lay waste to programs as they see fit, and get out of Dodge right before the hammer drops: leaving the program in shambles, with their own options and wallets intact.
-Players cannot change schools without sitting out a year, even if their school hires a new coach who is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE of their skill set (see Ryan Mallet), while coaches can leave mid-contract, mid-season, even mid-game with impugnity.
-National Champion LSU graduates less than HALF of the “students” who go to school there and play football.
-Michigan graduates less than HALF of the African Americans who enroll as “students” and play football.
-USC graduates just barely over HALF of the “students” who go to school there and play football.
-Many “student”-athletes at these football factories are railroaded into majors like “General Studies”, “Physical Education”, and “Kinesiology” that leave them with few options if their NFL or NBA ambitions fail.
-Ohio State schedules as they see fit, including last year’s out-of-conference slate of Youngstown State (IAA at home), Akron (at home), Washingtojn (on the road), and Kent State (at home), and then lays claim to the National Championship.
-Alabama recruited 33 players this off-season, despite a 25-player limit on enrollment. Alabama knew, and CONCEDED, that they will have to kick some of these players to the curb.
The NCAA doesn’t care about any of this. They are too busy chasing down Seminole and Sioux mascots and charting the A.P.R. of schools outside the top-25 which has no impact on the real culture of college athletics. Geez . . . talk about neutered and impotent.
2 Comments until now
One small note of agreement - I’d like to see coaches that are found to have been a party to recruiting violations, or at least knew about them and let them go on, receive sanctions of a similar nature that prohibit them from holding a job at a school as a coach for a sufficient-enough length of time so as to be a deterrent to the allure of bending the rules.
There are only three groups that drive the rules violations - coaches, school officials, and boosters. If you take away the incentive for a coach to cheat by making the penalty so strict as to not warrant the risk, then you’re removing one of the groups from the equation.
Without coaches willing to bend the rules, you don’t have coaches to work for schools that will bend the rules. It’s not perfect, but it’d be a start.
Agree wholeheartedly on the coaches comments. Too often student athletes are punished for the wrong doings of the coaches (and boosters) who seem to escape with little to no damage or financial consequence.
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