"Bluechips" - honest commentary from journalists

[Blitz]

Just got done watching the early 1990's basketball recruiting movie, "Bluechips" with my wife.
We are anxious to see our own alma mater in a big, in-conference home game today.
They'll televise it in these parts, so we'll be watching.

Anyway, I am interested in hearing/reading some honest commentary from sportswriters here on the subject matter for that movie.
Most of us here have tossed around the idea that big-time athletics (any sport) simply MUST involve some kind of cheating.
Paying athletes, getting housing or cars for other family members, easy coursework, etc, etc.
A few of the biggest names in college coaching were in that movie - Pitino, Knight, Boeheim, Tarkanian, - Marty Blake even made a cameo.
So, what gives. Are Coach K and Kelvin Sampson and Lavan and Fraschilla and Donovan and Tubby and Dave Odom and Calhoun (etc) all in the same boat together?
Does everyone cheat? (And let's no leave out the women's game, too. Auriemma, Pat Summit, Andy Landers, Stringer (etc) should all be part of this discussion.)
Some of you guys have been writing sports for a long time, around some big conferences and programs.
Please, can we toss this around.

 

[kingcreole]

I've said this before in a half-joking, half-serious manner: Quin Snyder learned how to cheat from Coach K. Quin just wasn't as good at it.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

College basketball? At its highest levels?

What do you think?

 

[John]

I have no idea. And we might need to truly define cheating.

I don't think of myself as a law-breaker, but I do break the speed limit. For coaches, I'm sure there are equivalents that they break all the time.

 

[Blitz]

College basketball? At its highest levels?

What do you think?

I want you, and others, to make some honest commentary on the matter.
Too often, we as sportswriters give free passes to coaches.
Or maybe they deserve free passes. Maybe most of them aren't cheating.
Or don't choose to consort with "Friends of the Program" alum or boosters

Heck, I've heard enough "What do you think?" commentary on this type thing.
I want us to address it.
Even in the movie, that one reporter was the only guy asking any questions.
The rest of the media seemed content to writer their gamers and make plans for the standard Monday teleconference.

Let's talk about this.

 

[Steak Snabler]

This is not necessarily on the subject, but I think the funniest part of that movie is when Ed O'Neill pipes up at the press conference at the end and basically says:

"Coach, I've been working on this major story about cheating in your program for the last few months. Can I ask you about it in a crowded press conference and basically give my scoop to every swingin'-**** writer and TV guy in the room?"

Hilarious.

And yes, I'm sure every major college basketball program cheats at some level ... even if it's just looking the other way while AAU coaches or athletic shoe reps run wild.

 

[heyabbott]

If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.

If you ain't first, you're last.

 

[Blitz]

See, that's what I want to see discussed here.
Shoe contracts, AAU, per diems, etc.
There various levels of activity which are/are not truly legal within the NCAA structure.
If there's something that's not legal, why aren't we addressing it.
Are there sacred cows on the college beat.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

I broke a cheating story in the 1980s. The school went on probation for two years. The staff was not retained.

Soon after, Kentucky was caught cheating. Boss said, "If Kentucky has to cheat in basketball, everybody cheats."

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Of the current Top 25, I have the biggest smelltest problems with Memphis, Tennessee, and Connecticut, and I'm not thrilled with Texas and Kansas State, either.

Michigan, during the years glorified by Albom? Please.

UCLA, during their relentless multiyear march? Please. Wooden is a great coach, but he had a lot of help.

Kentucky? Emery Air Freight? Make me laugh.

 

[hockeybeat]

Of the current Top 25, I have the biggest smelltest problems with Memphis, Tennessee, and Connecticut, and I'm not thrilled with Texas and Kansas State, either.

Michigan, during the years glorified by Albom? Please.

UCLA, during their relentless multiyear march? Please. Wooden is a great coach, but he had a lot of help.

Kentucky? Emery Air Freight? Make me laugh.

I'm sure there's something going on at UConn. Here you have a state college in the middle of nowhere, with only one godawful two-lane road leading to the campus. And they're able to land high school All-Americans?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

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.

 

[outofplace]

This is not necessarily on the subject, but I think the funniest part of that movie is when Ed O'Neill pipes up at the press conference at the end and basically says:

"Coach, I've been working on this major story about cheating in your program for the last few months. Can I ask you about it in a crowded press conference and basically give my scoop to every swingin'-**** writer and TV guy in the room?"

Hilarious.

And yes, I'm sure every major college basketball program cheats at some level ... even if it's just looking the other way while AAU coaches or athletic shoe reps run wild.

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.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

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.

 

[Blitz]

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".

 

[GBNF]

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.

 

[John]

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.

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

 

[Starman]

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.

95 percent of the NCAA rule book is completely arbitrary, arcane and irrelevant bull****. 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.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

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.