Who,
Me?
The
NCAA has just come down hard on the Syracuse basketball program, long the
domain of Coach Jim Boeheim. It appears
that players from time to time had other people do assignments and “volunteered”
for youth clinics after being paid to do so.
Oh, and the drug protocol came with the occasional wink or nod. Who knew?
The
punishments probably will include forfeiting victories and the loss of
scholarships, if not a ban on postseason play.
It could have been worse, but the university won brownie points for
alerting the NCAA of possible problems.
School officials didn’t move to correct those problems necessarily, but
they kept track of them. How brave. As to Boeheim, the coach acknowledges there
were violations yet he feels “disappointed.”
Why? Because “The [investigating]
committee chose to ignore the efforts I have undertaken over the past 37 years
to promote an atmosphere of compliance.”
Huh? Division I coaches are the
closest thing to God on earth; what they say goes. If the Syracuse basketball program stinks,
the odor starts with the head coach.
Next
week, I’ll probably drop in on Clare’s old softball coach at Elmhurst; he wants
me to score games this year. Coach Mike
has an office to make the tiniest Manhattan studio apartment look like the
Ritz, with stacks of paper threatening to bury coach and visitor alike. There are also pictures, including more than a
few of my daughter. But I’m willing to
bet there isn’t a slush fund stashed away in a desk drawer or a paper written
for one of his players.
That’s a lesson Division
III could teach the big guys, if only they cared to listen.
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