Strippers, prostitutes, decadent parties on the yacht. If all the allegations against the University of Miami turn out to be true, the NCAA may have to add another chapter to the rule book when it comes to defining what exactly constitutes extra benefits for college athletes.
Not to worry, though. The organization is already on the case, and no doubt will be helped along by an extraordinarily detailed Yahoo Sports expose of a Miami athletic program where cash was king and the partying never seemed to stop.
No word yet on whether they put Inspector Clouseau or Barney Fife in charge, but for five months the NCAA has been diligently conducting its own probe of the Hurricanes and this time it means business. It really does.
“If the assertions are true, the alleged conduct at the University of Miami is an illustration of the need for serious and fundamental change in many critical aspects of college sports,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement.
Just what those changes might be, Emmert didn’t say. Certainly, though, prostitutes and strippers weren’t at the top of the agenda when presidents of major universities met last week in what was supposed to be a first step in reforming major college athletics.
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That’s not to say Miami will get off easy once the NCAA finishes its investigation. The Yahoo Sports report is so damaging that the football program could be grounded for years based on it alone. There will surely even be a call for the NCAA’s so-called “death penalty,” which has not been used since the Southern Methodist University football program was decimated by it a quarter-century ago.
If ever a program deserves to be shut down, Miami might be the one, given the range of accusations made by convicted Ponzi con man and Miami booster Nevin Shapiro and told to Yahoo Sports. Based on his tell-all, there wasn’t much that top football players and other athletes at Miami lacked for over the years.
Most boosters hand out $100 bills. Shapiro went much further, treating players to strip club parties, paying for prostitutes and catering to their every need. In one case, Shapiro told the website, he even paid for an abortion for a woman one of his players had impregnated.
Much of it allegedly happened under the watch of former Miami athletic director Paul Dee, who would go on to - no, we’re not making this up - become chairman of the NCAA’s committee on infractions. It was from that position last year that Dee came down hard on the University of Southern California in the Reggie Bush case, saying then that “higher-profile players require higher-profile monitoring.”
It the allegations prove correct, that makes Dee either a hypocrite or someone who was stunningly unaware of what was taking place right under his nose. Either way, it doesn’t do much to inspire confidence in the enforcement efforts of the NCAA.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...ege-football/2011/08/17/gIQAORh9LJ_story.html
Not to worry, though. The organization is already on the case, and no doubt will be helped along by an extraordinarily detailed Yahoo Sports expose of a Miami athletic program where cash was king and the partying never seemed to stop.
No word yet on whether they put Inspector Clouseau or Barney Fife in charge, but for five months the NCAA has been diligently conducting its own probe of the Hurricanes and this time it means business. It really does.
“If the assertions are true, the alleged conduct at the University of Miami is an illustration of the need for serious and fundamental change in many critical aspects of college sports,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement.
Just what those changes might be, Emmert didn’t say. Certainly, though, prostitutes and strippers weren’t at the top of the agenda when presidents of major universities met last week in what was supposed to be a first step in reforming major college athletics.
...
That’s not to say Miami will get off easy once the NCAA finishes its investigation. The Yahoo Sports report is so damaging that the football program could be grounded for years based on it alone. There will surely even be a call for the NCAA’s so-called “death penalty,” which has not been used since the Southern Methodist University football program was decimated by it a quarter-century ago.
If ever a program deserves to be shut down, Miami might be the one, given the range of accusations made by convicted Ponzi con man and Miami booster Nevin Shapiro and told to Yahoo Sports. Based on his tell-all, there wasn’t much that top football players and other athletes at Miami lacked for over the years.
Most boosters hand out $100 bills. Shapiro went much further, treating players to strip club parties, paying for prostitutes and catering to their every need. In one case, Shapiro told the website, he even paid for an abortion for a woman one of his players had impregnated.
Much of it allegedly happened under the watch of former Miami athletic director Paul Dee, who would go on to - no, we’re not making this up - become chairman of the NCAA’s committee on infractions. It was from that position last year that Dee came down hard on the University of Southern California in the Reggie Bush case, saying then that “higher-profile players require higher-profile monitoring.”
It the allegations prove correct, that makes Dee either a hypocrite or someone who was stunningly unaware of what was taking place right under his nose. Either way, it doesn’t do much to inspire confidence in the enforcement efforts of the NCAA.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...ege-football/2011/08/17/gIQAORh9LJ_story.html
