NCAA investigating Cam Newton

There's no longer any honor among thieves. If schools are going to rat each other out in real time, we may have stumbled on the first effective means of cleaning up big time college athletics.

 

Perhaps I have become an incurable cynic in my advancing age, but I've found myself chuckling about some of the earlier posts discussing (seriously, it seems) the possibility of "rolling back" big-time Division I athletics and taking the universities that sponsor the teams back to their original missions.

Never. Going. To. Happen.

You've got as much chance of getting that done as you have of making any substantive changes to the military-industrial complex that dictates an enormous portion of this country's annual budget. Which is to say, zero.

As with seemingly everything else in life, you can simply follow the money.

There is simply too much cash at stake, for too many individuals at too many levels in the system, for any of the people in power to even consider a comprehensive overhaul in the operations of D-I athletic departments.

NEWSFLASH: Students, alums/boosters and other fans of most programs (even the mediocre ones) take this football and basketball very seriously. Just look at the amount of money boosters invest in these programs -- Virginia Tech just opened a new building that houses a palatial football locker room, and that's just to try and keep pace with its peers. While I think it's crazy, obviously there are people in this country who have more money than they know what to do with.

The first president or athletic director of a BCS university to recommend a downgrade in athletic competition would be out on his ass and burned in effigy on campus. If anyone from the NCAA started making serious noise about reform, the BCS schools could just take their money and start their own organization.

Assuming that NCAA officials/school presidents/ADs enjoy their jobs (and the salaries and perks that come with them), why would anybody risk the equivalent of "touching the third rail?"

Especially when it's so much easier -- integrity be damned; integrity doesn't pay the bills -- to simply look the other way and feign shock and dismay when another "pay for play" story surfaces.

 

it's not a necessity if you're thinking objectively looking from the outside. but if you're a president or administrator of any big time football or basketball power don't you think eliminating those sports would be a huge blow to those schools. i'd imagine it would cut administrators salaries in half so while maybe not a necessity completely unrealistic to think the school would be anything near the same school if it happened. and yes of course various fanbois would protest outside the president's office.
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I never said it was realistic. Everyone wants money, and there's plenty of money out there. But there's only one group that's not allowed to partake in it.

Look at the uproar when Michael Jordan's kid refused to wear his school's sneakers because of the sponsor. You had people whining that he wasn't a team player, or that he was greedy. I wish the kid would have flat-out said, "Yeah, this is about money. I'm not getting a damn penny for wearing the school's stuff, so I'm not wearing it."

Imagine if he played for Duke, where Krzyzewski makes six-figures in endorsements. He would have clearly pointed out the hypocrisy in how the NCAA and its schools do business.

 

Why do so many people have problems with the quote function on this thread?

 

One person messed it up by accidentally cutting an open quote mark and the rest of us kept repeating the problem trying to respond to that conversation

 

I would certainly not be shocked to find out that Cam Newton (or his father) took money from Auburn to enroll there. And if he did Newton and Auburn should be punished by the NCAA for violating their rules.

But the fact is that right now there is zero proof that Newton took money from Auburn. Any Heisman voter who chooses not to vote for Newton solely on the basis of "I think he took money" should lose his vote immediately.

Innocent until proven guilty still means something in this country. If he did it, catch him. Until then please spare me the moralizing over this.

 

I've misquoted myself on this board.

 

Innocent until proven guilty applies in the court of law. It doesn't apply in my own opinions. And my opinion is that Cam Newton took 200 grand to play at Auburn. And he's probably not even the wealthiest player in college football either.

 

Well, it took Reggie Bush five years to be "proven guilty"

I can understand why someone wouldn't want their vote to go to someone who will have to give it back in a few years.

But this season, it's not like there's a "This guy or this guy" this could be the tiebreak.

Newton may win by one of the highest margins in history.

 

The decision to strip Bush of the Heisman was one of the dumbest in recent memory. The Heisman Trust is not an enforcement arm of the NCAA.

 

Obviously this bears repeating:

The Heisman Trust's mission statement certainly suggests there is one. "The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity," reads the first sentence of the mission statement.