USC just cannot catch a break. I love it.
Arik Armstead, considered to be the top offensive/defensive line prospect on the West Coast by sports folks who care about such things, originally committed to the University of Spoiled Children Trojans football program on June 19, 2010. For those playing along at home, that’s nine days after the NCAA smacked down the program for what they called “improper benefits” given to then-Heisman Trophy winner and current Miami Dolphins running back Reggie Bush.
Thank you beyond all thanks to Amy from Gridiron Goddess for sharing her insights into Paul Dee’s removal at Miami and lots of other things relevant to college football.
I have not yet picked my mouth up off the floor after the explosive Yahoo story broke regarding the University of Miami and former booster Nevin Shapiro.
Let’s be clear, people, near or at the center of this brouhaha lies Paul Dee, who was AD at Miami during most of the years that Shapiro was doling out money, gifts, prostitutes, booze, abortions, and crash pads at his beachfront mansion and million dollar yachFor Trojan fans and alumni this situation is nothing short of Dee-lightful, Dee-licious, and Dee-lectable. Why?
Paul Dee was the head of the NCAA Committee on Infractions during the USC hearings.
Let’s clarify for a moment, friends.
USC’s football case was about one person: Reggie Bush
USC’s basketball case was about one person: OJ Mayo
Miami’s case involves 72 players over nearly a decade of willful disregard for NCAA rules.
So, to quote the inimitable Alanis Morrisette: “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”
Isn’t it ironic that Paul Dee was the Athletic Director of Miami during what NCAA investigators have called the worst violation of the rules they have ever seen?
A sidebar for a moment: Both the Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo issues at USC involved agents trying to lure their patronage once these vaunted players went pro. This, I, and many other pundits, remain is NOT A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
Miami, on the watch of Paul Dee, on the other hand, is involved in an eight year, 72 (by Shapiro’s count, 73 by the NCAA’s) booster pay-for-play scandal that involved all the blithely aforementioned activities as well as BONUSES FOR BOUNTIES on competition such as Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and a three year standing bounty on Florida State quarterback Chris Rix.
Digest that for a moment.
Oh wait, one more Paul Dee tidbit. Dee is the biggest hypocrite in sports in recent memory, if not ever. The eight year reign of Nevin Shapiro’s pay-for-play scandal, which involved so many violations it is staggering and hits the NCAA’s BIG LIST, apparently flew under big Paul Dee’s radar as he was he quoted by the newspaper in Palm Beach as saying:
“We didn’t have any suspicion that he was doing anything like this,” said Dee, UM’s athletic director from 1993 to 2008. “He didn’t do anything to cause concern.”
Trojan nation, I feel you, the hypocrisy is STAGGERING. As SI.com’s Stewart Mandel said:
“Still, it seems only fair he should spend a day at USC’s Heritage Hall wearing a sandwich board with the word “Hypocrite.””
Oh sorry, yet one more Paul Dee tidbit – he took willful flaunting of the rules to new levels, after all. This eight year scandal qualifies for repeat offender status as Dee was AD at Miami during the Pell Grant scandal of the 1990s.
Now, consider the fact that Paul Dee sat in judgement of USC when they presented their case for leniency before the NCAA in the matter of Reggie Bush. USC’s now much mocked defense was that we (loosely) “did not know, could not be expected to know.”
I KNOW! Go punch a wall, I will wait, I’ve stocked up on wine and trust me, every expletive that can be uttered has been in my house in the last 24 hours.
Shall we revist the things Paul Dee said about USC? I mean, why not pour salt in our wounds at this point, right? In light of this info, this shit almost feels good.
Dee, who famously sat on the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING AT MIAMI famously told USC that even though the extra benefits a wannabe sports agent paid to Reggie Bush’s family happened in San Diego, some 130 miles from campus, USC “should have known” it was happening.
Go read the YAHOO investigative report if you haven’t. Read about how blatant Shapiro’s support of Miami football and basketball players was right under Dee and University President Donna Shalala’s noses. Read about how Shapiro got into a physical fight with the U’s director of compliance in the press box at a Miami football game and still Dee & Co. claim they did not know. Read about how he paid for Devin Hester’s girlfriend’s engagement ring, how he got the stripper another player got pregnant an abortion, how he made his home and his yacht available for parties and provided cars and clothes and cash and VIP club access and…
Paul Dee stated that the USC case was “three feet high” – referring to how high the evidence would stack if you laid all the paperwork up into a pile.
Well now. If ever there was a more pitch perfect case of “eating crow” I have never, in my entire life, been witness to it before now. Because the evidence against Dee, “U” president Donna Shalala, numerous coaches both with and no longer with Miami and, well, 72-73 players might actually be able to be laid end to end and stretch from the Coral Gables campus of the University of Miami to the downtown Los Angeles campus of the University of Southern California.
And that, my friends, is way more than “Three feet high.”
A guest post from Amy Lamare at GridironGoddess.net.
Well fellow USC fans, this is it. Right now the USC contingent is in Indianapolis getting ready to plead our case to the NCAA on Saturday. I am sure you, like me, are doing every good juju, good mojo, let the sanctions lift dance you can.
Dudes, I don’t know what to think. If I approach it rationally, I think we have an excellent chance at winning our appeal. USC seeks to have the sanctions basically reduced by half. Meaning we’d be bowl eligible next year, in the first year of the new Pac-12 which I happen to believe is VERY important and could set the tone for the new conference for years to come if USC is not eligible to participate in the Pac-12 championship (should we get to that game) or bowl games.
But since when has logic and rationality ever applied to the NC “We favor the $EC” AA?” I know my fellow Trojans feel me on this. To be slapped with “lack of institutional control” and then to sit through a sanctioned season and watch Cam Newton get away with claiming he had no idea what his Daddy did, and see tOSU players sanctioned and UNC sanctioned and USC freshman Dillon Baxter suffer through 10 days of ineligibility for catching a ride with a FELLOW STUDENT who just happened to be sanctioned as an agent by the NFLPA. First of all, NO STUDENTS should be credentialed NFLPA agents but second of all… it is a little fucking hard to slap USC with ‘lack of institutional control’ when the problem is so pervasive and so many incidences came to national prominence this year.
I mean have you READ the Allegations Against Auburn ? (READ it, is FASCINATING!!!) The FBI alerted the NCAA to the improprieties for fuck’s sake. And yes, is all hearsay, but if Reggie Bush taught us anything, where there are rumors, there is truth. And also, is about so much more than Cam. Cam is MINOR in the scope of the potential Auburn woes. We’re talking expulsion from the SEC. We’re talking Death Penalty… IF, and it is a BIG IF is proven. For those who will say “of course Auburn won’t be sanctioned, they are the $EC” — well, I agree.
However, go watch the ESPN 30 for 30 film Pony Excess about SMU. Back in the 80s, the old Southwest Conference was equivalent to the SEC today. And let me make it clear, I have no beef against Auburn. But I am fascinated by the Death Penalty and reading that Tiger Droppings article stokes my inner sick train wreck fascination with it.
So all of that (wine fueled) tangent aside, my point IS: all of that makes the allegations against Reggie Bush and USC look like child’s play. And though the NCAA Appeal policy is not to consider anything that has happened since – either at the school or in the sport — I maintain that these people are HUMAN and the organization as a whole runs a very real risk of making a complete joke of themselves.
Even J.K. McKay, USC’s Associate Athletic Director for Football has said: “Our primary contention is, given what we were found to have done, these are the harshest penalties ever meted out. When you compare them to other cases, probably unduly harsh, and we think they should be lessened.”
USC has gotten rid of Mike Garrett, Pete Carroll and Todd McNair (though I feel McNair was railroaded, but that’s another post). Lane Kiffin has been positively angelic this year. Pat Haden is toeing the line and saying and doing all the right things.
Based on all of this info and more, pretty much all rational people looking at the situation believe that USC has a chance to win at least a part of their appeal. The OC Register is reporting that a Florida based lawyer thinks USC will get back a portion of the scholarships but the post-season ban will be upheld.
Um, that’s not my feeling. Granted, I am not an expert, just a passionate fan. I feel like if the NCAA wants to save face at all, that we’ll see 50 percent of the scholarships restored and based on the half-reduction in sanctions there be eligible for post-season play in the 2011 season. I believe that the probation period will be upheld. Again, I am not an expert and am in fact highly biased.
Athletic director Pat Haden, a USC alum and former Trojan football player along with new USC president Max Nikias will be a part of the team presenting USC’s appeal on Saturday. Haden is cool as ice under pressure and Nikias is composed yet passionate. Nikias and Haden have hired many compliance officers for USC’s previously grossly understaffed compliance department, making it one of the best, if not the best (late, wine, my pizza just arrived, not looking it up) staffed compliance offices in FBS/Division 1 sports.
All we can do is sit and wait. In typical slow as a damn dinosaur NCAA fashion, after USC’s one-day appeal hearing, the NCAA can take up to six weeks to render its decision. This appeal is the only avenue USC has left. If upheld, well, the NCAA sends a HUGE message, and not necessarily a fair one.
Since the NCAA moves so slowly– let’s look down the road five or six years– and let’s say the Auburn Allegations and LaMichael James of Oregon allegations are proven true and sanctioned. It will turn out this year’s Heisman and BCS National Champions, and BCS Championship Game will all need asterisks next to them. And that is just wrong. The NCAA is in no way able to enforce the rules that they set in any reasonable amount of time. I mean for fuck’s sake, the kids at USC now were in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL when Reggie Bush played. It is just, well, for an organization that prides itself on leveling the field of play so all schools have a chance — it is NOT FAIR.
Two people were stabbed Saturday in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl during a brawl before the USC – UCLA football game.
The brawl broke out at 4 p.m., a full three hours before game time. That’s some serious tailgating, folks.
Apparently the fight started when someone complained that a game of touch football in the parking lot was getting too close to the parked cars. An estimated 50-75 people were involved in the melee. According to the Pasadena Chief of Police, “school passions and alcohol were major factors in the brawl.”
I’ll bet.
Not too many surprises this week in college football. Well, if you’re a Florida Gators fan, you may have been surprised that your team kind of sucks. Well, at least compared with Alabama. (Editor’s note: I’m pretty sure everyone sucks that bad compared to Alabama this year. Good luck, other SEC teams.)
Here are a few of my thoughts from this weekend’s action in the NCAA:
LSU 16, Tennessee 14
So, I don’t really like either of these teams. But part of me feels bad for Tennessee, who got screwed when Lane Kiffin left. But then that part of me doesn’t feel too bad, because good riddance! Lane Kiffin is an asshole.
This game went down to the wire. LSU pulled it out when Tennessee had too many men on the field and the Tigers were allowed a redo and Steve Ridley scored with no time remaining. This caused a Tennessee player to sob on the sidelines. SOB. Not shed a few tears, he was doing the whole-body-shaking-sob thing. You know, the kind you do when say, I don’t know, a family member passes away?
NOT IN A FOOTBALL GAME!
Alabama 31, Florida 6
Is anyone really all that surprised with this score? I’m not. The Tide is the real deal. And Florida is not. Although, I’m pretty sure Nick Saban should think of signing Florida quarterback John Brantley as he has an affinity for throwing completed passes to crimson jerseys.
Michigan State 34, Wisconsin 24
Wisconsin isn’t as good as everyone thinks. My Arizona State Sun Devils almost beat the Badgers, in Wisconsin. So this isn’t all that surprising. Michigan State ain’t no Austin Peay. Also, way to go Spartans, to win one for your head coach Mark Dantonio, who was coaching from a hospital bed. Get well soon, coach!
Oklahoma 28, Texas 20
I wonder if Texas wishes it would have moved to the new Pac-10 now.
Oregon 52, Stanford 31
This one was a lot closer on paper. Stanford was up 21-3 in the first half. But they totally lost steam, and the better team prevailed. It was so nice to see Jim Harbaugh get all pissy on the sidelines. (I have before expressed my irrational hate for Jim Harbaugh here on this site. It has not waned.)
Washington 32, USC 31
This was a hell of a game! Well, not if you’re a Trojan. Second-year Washington coach Steve Sarkisian acted like he just won the National Championship. It was a HUGE win for a head coach in a football program that was once good and has since fallen. Sarkisian was actually quoted post-game as saying that Saturday’s victory was the greatest day behind the days when his two sons were born. A bit of an exaggeration? Possibly. But the Huskies hadn’t won in LA since 1996. And despite having the worst receivers ever (CATCH THE DAMN BALL, YOU FOOLS! IT IS YOUR JOB!), Jake Locker was a rockstar and pulled his team to victory. Put that kid on a team with a better line and better receivers and he’s a Heisman Trophy candidate.
So tell me, what was your highlight of Week 5 of the 2010 college football season?
Heather B.: The flight attendants totally knew what we were all doing. As they did...
GoonSquadSarah: I love this so much, Heather. I think there is something wrong with me...
VeggieTart: I'm going to politely disagree with you on one point: Yes, Ovie's hit...
flutter: Exactly what Trix said....
Tricia Honea: This is so sad. I hope that he will be remembered for his grand career...