Dirty coaches..great Whitlock editorial

[SouthernJet]

Let's come clean about 'dirty coaches'

by Jason Whitlock

Let me clarify my position on Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun and his alleged illegal recruiting tactics by discussing Kentucky's flirtation with Memphis' John Calipari.

If a sports media outlet reported today that Calipari and his Memphis assistants had NCAA-impermissible contact with a recruit from an at-risk situation and a manager-turned-agent, no one in the sports world would express an ounce of surprise.

Coach Cal's rep is that he plays loosey-goosey with the NCAA rulebook. He recruits prep-school kids, late-academic qualifiers and he's not above giving a dad (Milt Wagner) a job or an AAU coach a speaking engagement in order to land a program-maker.

Some sports writers I respect consider Coach Cal a "dirty coach."

I consider him a damn good one. And given the NCAA's insistence on holding onto an outdated rulebook and an immoral/hypocritical concept of amateurism, I believe Calipari's ethics are beyond question.

Judging any man's character by his adherence to NCAA rules is quite possibly the dumbest thing sports writers and fans do. The character that should be questioned is that of the men and women who refuse to acknowledge that television and its money demand that the NCAA reinvent itself and adopt rules that reflect the dramatic sea change in college athletics.

Have I made myself clear?

The only ethical/moral thing for a wealthy Division I men's basketball coach to do is circumvent the NCAA rulebook. Any coach falsely pious enough to waste much time pretending that he follows NCAA rules is a coach I have little use or respect for.

So I'm pleased as punch that in its desperation to win another national championship and keep pace with North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Connecticut, Florida and all the rest, Kentucky has had a moment of clarity and is throwing large sums of money at Coach Cal.

Maybe now we can deal with the truth. Maybe now we can quit playing dumb when most of the players at the elite schools magically tool around campus in luxury vehicles purchased by aunts, uncles and grandparents. Maybe now we will stop wondering why the parents of recruits mysteriously relocate to and land cushy jobs within easy driving distance of campus.

Maybe now idiots will cease demanding that big-time college basketball (and football) players get paid by the NCAA. The players and their families don't want a (freaking) pay cut.

Maybe now, rather than randomly and self-servingly publishing stories about coaches and kids operating outside the intellectually and morally bankrupt NCAA rulebook, we, the media, will focus on doing stories that pressure the NCAA to end its charade.

Does anyone honestly believe that Myles Brand and the NCAA really care about enforcing a rulebook that could potentially damage the TV-ratings-driving basketball programs that pay the salaries of NCAA executives and fund the welfare/Olympic sports?

If it weren't so sad, the whole gotcha game that we, the media, play with coaches and the NCAA rulebook would be high comedy. For publicity, our name across the ESPN bottom-line scroll and maybe a bogus journalism award, we've gladly played the role of NCAA enforcer.

It's the equivalent of 1800s newspapers running pictures of and stories about runaway slaves.

Does anyone remember in the 1990s when a U.S. attorney in Kansas City tried to turn AAU coach Myron Piggie into the Osama bin Laden of college sports? The U.S. attorney wanted to turn cash payments to recruits into a federal crime punishable by several years in prison. It was front-page news in Kansas City and Los Angeles.

I called bull(spit) on the whole operation. A publicity-seeking U.S. attorney wanted to felony-criminalize giving poor kids money and further empower the NCAA. And the U.S. attorney wanted to do it by attacking a vulnerable, poor, paroled black felon who was bankrolled by a major shoe company and a relatively well-intentioned white millionaire who was a Kansas basketball booster.

You follow? Attack an easy target, Piggie. Ignore the people who put the whole thing in motion, shoe companies and super-wealthy boosters.

The NCAA put all of this corruption in motion with its allegiance to a rulebook that has needed a major overhaul ever since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird turned college hoops into a television reality series.

Are college basketball coaches blameless? No. They could speak out on the stupidity and immorality of the rules.

The best coaches treat their players and teams like families. Many of the coaches become surrogate parents for their players, many of whom have no or poor relationships with their fathers.

Because of television, the football and basketball coaches at BCS schools now all make between $600,000 and $5 million a year. A man that wealthy whose instincts don't demand that he share that wealth with the kids in his adopted family is a man who deserves a special place in hell.

That is not written to say that coaches are driven solely or even primarily by altruism. Coaches are driven by their desire to win games and improve their contracts. That's their nature.

It's like men. We're driven by sex. However, our desire for sex will cause us to do all sorts of positive things

[Bugg]

What makes basketball players special? Either you're on campus to learn or you shouldn't be there. I'm tired of this nonsense that the basketball players need to be paid. Is a $40K per year tuition and room and board not enough? If you're too stupid to take advantage of the education you are offered, tough titties on you.

The NBA has a developmental league. Use that instead for players who have no business being on a college campus. Tenis players turn pro at 14. Baseball and hockey have minor leagues and juniors programs. Would rather have the NCAA have genuine student athletes rather than this sewer.

[gangreenman]

What makes basketball players special? Either you're on campus to learn or you shouldn't be there. I'm tired of this nonsense that the basketball players need to be paid. Is a $40K per year tuition and room and board not enough? If you're too stupid to take advantage of the education you are offered, tough titties on you.

The NBA has a developmental league. Use that instead for players who have no business being on a college campus. Tenis players turn pro at 14. Baseball and hockey have minor leagues and juniors programs. Would rather have the NCAA have genuine student athletes rather than this sewer.

The NCAA would lose too much money if they didnt allow teams to give out scholly's to some unqualified students. As for being on campus to learn, they are in a sense. They're there to learn about basketball (or football) or whatever the sport may be, first, as, at least for the elite ones, that is where their future is going to be. For them, school is something they just have to figure out a way of getting bye... Their sport is what really matters.

Hard to argue that logic as well, cause, after all, whose paying for their education, room, and board again??