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"Bluechips" - honest commentary from journalists

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Blitz, Feb 16, 2008.

  1. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    It does depend on what you mean by cheating. I mean, the NCAA considers it a violation if an athlete is given a free Coke (heaven forbid if Pepsi is the sponsor too) .

    I interviewed a semi-prominent D-I men's hoops coach once and I asked him about what it was like to deal with the NCAA. He told me that he thought the NCAA should just have 15 rules, and if they were broken, the violator should get kicked out, no ifs, ands or buts.
     
  2. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    That part with Ed O'Neill immediately popped into my head when I saw this thread. Among the many ridiculous protrayals of sports reporters in movies, that one is right up there near the top for that very reason.

    "We need a plot device to start Nolte's speech....let's have the reporter go after him!"

    That said, I have seen dumbass reporters do similar things before. O'Neill's character just wasn't portrayed as a dumbass before that scene.
     
  3. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    The vitriol toward the NCAA on here has been constant and nasty for years now, and we don't deal with the NCAA on near the level that coaches do. I think we all recognize the need for there to be standards to be adhered to, but the NCAA's rules have become so byzantine that the IRS views it with envy.

    I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I think everybody cheats. That's too broad a brush. I do think it's widespread and cuts across various levels of egregiousness. The speed limit analogy John used is an apt one. If we were to pore over every page of the NCAA rule book, I'm certain there would be no small number of rules we would dismiss out of hand until a penalty had to be paid for violating them.
     
  4. Blitz

    Blitz Active Member

    Postgame pressers or mid-week gatherings, it's always pretty much the same to me.
    We've all been a part of these things.

    A feature or expose on some of those topics, Baron, seems like it'd be an interesting read.
    Replete with comments from actual coaches. Does anyone do these sorts of stories at your papers?

    There do seem to be different interpretations of "cheating".
     
  5. GBNF

    GBNF Well-Known Member

    I have no doubt every major program in the country engages in some sort of cheating, but there are varying degrees.

    I wouldn't imagine (though I don't know) Coach K handing over the keys to an Escalade to a recruit.
    I could verry well see him turning a blind eye to the matter whatsoever, and allowing it to go on.
    I'd venture to say that out of the top 75 programs, 70 of them have a "don't ask, don't tell" relationship with the coach and boosters.

    The problem is, I'm OK with it. This isn't 1959, when a good college basketball team only meant a few extra clips in a paper.
    This is 2008, when schools make millions off of their exploitations of student-athletes.

    Start paying the kids, and there'd be a lot less cheating.
     
  6. John

    John Well-Known Member

    I doubt it. Programs would still be competing to sign the top players in the country.
     
  7. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    95 percent of the NCAA rule book is completely arbitrary, arcane and irrelevant bullshit. A lot of the NCAA rules SHOULD be broken, with impunity (i.e., athlete can't be flown home for parent's death or critical illness).

    Absolutely every D-I program breaks some rules, many inadvertently and unintentiionally.

    The vast, vast majority breaks SOME of the rules, analogous to the 77 mph-in-a-70 mph zone speeding everybody does every day on the freeway. An extra phone call here or there (NOT hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, Mr. Sampson), pick up a meal tab at McDonald's, let a kid take a midterm exam five days late, etc etc.

    I would guess 1/4 to 1/3 of the major programs flat-out cheat -- give kids cars, cash, major academic cheating, etc. -- and don't care about it.

    Baron Scicluna's idea is the best one: Cut the rule book down, way down. Hell, they could go to a "Ten Commandments."

    But break those rules, and you're finished. Athlete, ineligible, career over. Coach, banned, career over. School, off TV and out of the tournaments for 3-5 years.
     
  8. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    I was thinking while I was writing my last post that this is an inherent portion in the nature of competition. When we were discussing the first Belichik spygate, the notion of going to any means necessary was bandied about. I would submit that sports have always been on the Machiavellian side that way. Only recently has it gotten to the point, though, that the risks of cheating were greater than the rewards. And so, programs have continued to cheat, and I don't know that anything is going to change that.

    As for journalists' role ... it appears the gloves have come off. The one guy who dared write about Mark McGwire's andro was in some quarters reviled for it, but in my mind that started a trend where sportswriters increasing became asked to be Woodward and Bernstein. Like many coaches, we've looked away, but you know, so did just about everyone involved.
     
  9. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Catching up with my Sports Illustrateds and read the story on Michael Beasley going to K State. Six high schools in four years, his ride is a late model SUV, his mom got a job in Manhattan, he said he didn't even know where Kansas was when he agreed to follow one of his AAU coaches there.
    Don't know if its cheating or not, but it doesn't seem kosher. I wonder if we'll see more NCAA problems with the top talen being required to go to college before jumping to the NBA?
    You read enough stories about top athletes in colleges and you can read between the lines that something is going on in more than a few of them. The way AAU coaches have become "player agents" is just plain odd. I'm surprised the AAU, which used to pay some lip service to "integrity" continues to let its name be used with some of these national travelling b-ball programs.
     
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The real scandal is in the AAU and traveling-team programs. That's where the absolute pimps and slave brokers operate.
     
  11. pressmurphy

    pressmurphy Member

    The rulebook is too damn complicated for any program to be pristine.

    I'd bet that in basketball there are as many as 35 programs (about 10 percent of Division I) right now sliding money to players with the coach's knowledge. Doesn't have to be big money, but you know it's in unmarked bills.

    About twice that many probably have boosters doing the dirty work.

    Of the remaining 225 or so, it's a safe bet that a bunch go the "payment in lieu of cash" route with prepaid phone cards, supermarket gift cards, arrangements with restaurant owners or sneaker stores that are friends of the program, etc. I'm not talking four-figure payouts to any kid, but likely enough help so that he can take his girlfriend out for pizza and a movie.
     
  12. Italian_Stallion

    Italian_Stallion Active Member

    I can tell you that anybody that plays my team cheats.
     
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