Yahoo levels Miami

I know this is probably too pollyannish but the Ivy League saw this coming about 40 years ago and decided to get out. They still keep the student in student-athlete.

Maybe giving Miami and others the death penalty would finally send a message. I'd also suggest paying athletes, making football and all sports a major, just like business, letting recruits sign at any time of the year and going to a full playoff system, run by the NCAA, not the bogus BCS, will help end the charade.

I think in basketball, making freshmen ineligible might help some. Maybe it should be at least two years of college for basketball.

 

The reason most scandals revolve around college sports and not the pros has a lot to do with sunshine laws for the public universities. It's a lot easier to prove that Jim Tressel knew about the illegal booster when you can subpoena his emails.

And the Herald got scooped on this, IMHO, because Nevin Shapiro is actually in jail up in New Jersey. Robinson did more than 100 hours of jail interviews up there. The Herald can't possibly devote the same resources to this project that Yahoo did.

 

Robinson knows the right people to get to the right people and maybe the Herald thought Shapiro was just some kook felon and dismissed him.

Still gotta think someone in Miami knew some of this was going on.

And if the NCAA can without question say that this stuff did happen and corroborates Shapiro's story, what should the punishment be? What is fair? What isn't?

The only thing that can be known for sure is that a lot of lawyers in South Florida will make a lot of money off this in the coming months.

 

Well, this is probably another debate for another thread, but although Ivy League is non-scholarship, it does have some of the same issues as other Division I football...questions about academic qualifications of players relative to the rest of the student body... "Football majors"...Salaries for coaches and administrators...Recruiting.

And although Harvard, for example, doesn't have football scholarships per se, if you're from a family making under 50k or so and you get admitted because of your football ability, Harvard will essentially pay your way through its need-blind financial aid apparatus.

 

It does have some, very little, of that. It will never have to worry about big-time scandals, though because none of its teams participate in postseason football, let alone a BCS bowl or NCG. Ivy League teams are eligible for NCAA championships in all other sports, but not football, even at the FCS level.

Some football fans hate the Ivy League because it didn't sell out years ago. It saw the corruption of what big-time football can bring. Those fans can't believe that the schools that basically started the game and brought about the formation of the NCAA let that all go away to save their academics. Should the Ivy ever expand I would think a school like Vanderbilt or maybe Army or Navy would be possible members. But probably won't happen for 50 years.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02harvard.html

No, not on the same level as Miami. But scandal nonetheless.

 

The Herald's sports editor is a HUGE Miami fan. Take that for what it's worth.

 

I should have qualified that and said football scandals, where most of the money in any athletic budget goes. That is what I am talking about. That their schools might try at all costs to win a football championship, is enough for Ivy League schools to not allow them to play in the FCS playoffs.

 

The NCAA needs to be held accountable as well. Just thumbing through the day-after stories, all Mark Emmert has to say is, if its true, we need to make changes. Well, what the hell are they waiting for? We've been hearing this same song-and-dance from the NCAA for years about needing change ... let's see, there's been Miami, Ohio State, USC, the Fiesta Bowl, and, if you want to take a trip in the wayback machine, SMU. NCAA, relieve thyself, or leave the men's room. But don't just pay lip service to it. And those on the story need to be more aggressive in dealing with the NCAA when it puts out such self-serving nonspeak.

EDIT: I posted this before reading the essay by George Dohrman in SI this week on the NCAA raising the API cutline, which laid out the situation perfectly. The NCAA's had the recommendations from the last blue-ribbon commission in hand and for all we know, they've been very effective doorstops. If they're really concerned about restoring integrity to college sports, then damn the TV money, just do it.

 

An even better example is the University of Chicago. When it got out, it got out all the way. Perhaps to the detriment of its brand, but certainly a principled move ahead of its time.

 

The Herald apparently decided to NOT devote the resources to this project. And the Herald is getting its big-city ass kicked now, as it should.

Really, this story broke in August 2010. Plenty of time for the big-city Herald to take it and run wild. But the Herald face-planted into the ostrich hole, and where does that leave the Herald now?

Chasing after a story that should have been the Herald's, that's what it is now. Who's in charge at the Herald? Who writes for the Herald and didn't tackle the beat aggressively? How could you think a story might not be there?

There are always plenty of stories at UM. What you get at the Herald, unfortunately, is what happened at practice that day.

 

I don't think this is the Herald. I think this is newspapers. I can't think of a one that would devote these kinds of resources to this kind of story anymore. Even the New York Times would not have done something this elaborate.

To do a story like this right, you are taking approximately 300 bylines out of the daily newspaper in a year's time. Newspapers are too bare-bones to even think about that.