The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Sudden Impact: 515 Pages ZZzzzzz

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Culture of Football? It’s for the birds.

The NCAA Enforcement Squad’s latest problem child is the University of Oregon (hereinafter referred to as the Ducks, because it makes it even more ridiculous), who have actually fessed up about at least one major violation relating to recruiting practices.

Oregon Ducks Feeling that vindication varies directly with poundage, the Ducks released 515 pages of evidence to the local newsrag, The Oregonian, who actually posted these things — lots and lots of emails with significant redactage (I made that word up) — guaranteed to bore you after you view the first 10 or so. Being a glutton for punishment, I looked at the first 100 or and the last hundred or so, just to claim to be thorough. I was overwhelmed by all the stuff in the last group, which provided dispositions of prior recruiting cases dating way the hell back to the Garden of Eden.

Now, even in view of the embarrassingly defensive publication of poundage, the Ducks are in deep duck soup. ??? ???? ???? ??? One major issue is paying a $25,000 fee to a talent scout in Texas. Oy!

You want to talk about “football culture”? There you have it. Most of this occurred during the reign of Chip Kelly, who bolted Oregon to replace Andy Reid as head coach of the NFL Philadelphia Eagles in January.

However, the Ducks and the NCAA disagree on the severity of that particular violation. Oregon admits to major violations, but considers its payment to that agent in Texas to be a secondary violation. The NCAA considers it major. Are we splitting hairs here or what? Or is this an arabesque to try to soften the blow of the whole thing by saying, “Yeah, but it isn’t as bad as you say it is, and we have 800 pounds of heavily redacted documents to prove our Duckine veracity.”

Oregon pleads ignorance according to a USA Today report:

“Football staff members were not aware that the manner in which they were using scouting/recruiting services was impermissible,” Oregon said in its October 2012 summary disposition. “Nonetheless, the recruiting advantage that was gained via the oral reports from scouting services personnel was more than the minimal.”

The NCAA has no reason to believe Lyles “coerced or directed any prospect to ultimately choose Oregon.” However, according to another document, “Lyles did provide a meaningful recruiting advantage by orally providing background information about prospects to the coaching staff and also by serving as a conduit to facilitate communication with prospective student-athletes.”

Lyles’ connection with Oregon first drew the NCAA’s attention in March 2011, after a Yahoo Sports report detailed how the school paid Lyles shortly after five-star running back Lache Seastrunk joined the Ducks’ football program. Lyles had been a mentor to Seastrunk, who was from Temple, Texas.

Yep. Vintage Chip Kelly. Culture of football. This petri dish is growing some interesting cultures.

The next step is appearing before the NCAA infractions committee. An unnamed Ducky said that the NCAA had taken a bowl ban off the table in preliminary talks; however, the Ducks were willing to accept recruiting penalties and scholarship reductions. As the investigation proceeded, the path forward got pretty muddy, so all bets are off.

This thing has dragged on for quite a while. betfinal ???? News of the ,000 payoff emerged in March 2011, a couple of months after the Ducks appeared in their first SSMNC game. ??????? ??? ????

Read the Oregonian report on this sordid mess and let me know what you think. I’ll forgive you if you don’t read all 515 documents.

******

NCAA flips a bird at Sebastian.

University of Miami HurricanesMeanwhile, back at Indianapolis, the NCAA is smugly pooh-poohing the University of Miami’s (hereinafter referred to as Sebastian the Ibis) attempt to get the case against it dismissed.  Saith Jonathan Duncan (hereinafter referred to as Jake the Enforcer), the NCAA Interim Vice President of Enforcement, stated:

“In the enforcement staff’s view, the motions to dismiss are largely based on assumptions, false accusations, misleading statements and meritless claims about the enforcement staff and its investigation. For the reasons set forth below, the enforcement staff requests that the Committee on Infractions deny the motions.”

Former Clintonista and long-time president of “The U”, Donna Shalala, had previously spoken loud and hard about the unprofessional practices of the NCAA Enforcement squad. Donna takes no shit from no quarter.

In a CBS Sports story, Jake the Enforcer also defended several enforcement staff members who have since been fired:

“The enforcement staff ‘self-reported’ the [Maria Elena] Perez [attorney for Shapiro who was paid by the NCAA after doing that work, though she contends that she never actually was employed by the association] issue and then cooperated diligently with internal NCAA staff members and the Cadwalader firm to fully identify and disclose information related to the Perez issue. After an external investigation, those individuals found to have had culpability in the matter have been held accountable, and as a united enforcement staff, we deeply regret, have apologized for and are embarrassed by the events and circumstances. Nevertheless, we will not stand idly by when meritless, personal attacks are launched under the broad brush stroke of ‘enforcement staff misconduct.’

“… Overall, the enforcement staff believes that the institution is again grasping at straws in an attempt to disqualify members of the enforcement team with the most knowledge about the case. Not only are these personal attacks based on no evidence that would support the removal of Barnhart and Hannah from the case, they are also not a basis for dismissal of the case in its entirety.”

So, there you have it. The NCAA can do no wrong. The game is on center stage. The Indianapolis Arrogant Pricks vs. the Miamah Strong-Willed Culture of Football.

The NCAA can defend its shoddy practices for only so long. But do they need to? Who’s going to do anything about them?

All of this stuff is good fodder for Corbett’s case against them, should it ever go to trial. Here’s hoping!

O! Holy Night

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Take it to the hole! Tonight is the holiest of nights for the NCAA and its college basketball equivalent of WWE. On center stage in Atlanta are the Cardinals of Louisville and the Wolverines of hated Michigan in a tag-team match to the death.

“Now that the money’s in the bank, why not? Let’s watch our sharecroppers play basketball.”  —David Jones, Patriot-News

Regardless of who wins and who loses, the NCAA comes out a winner. The annual self-affirmed lunacy known as March Madness now extends into April prime time and generates some 81% of the annual revenues of the promoting organization (hitherto known as the rule-making body) from the television deal alone.

How do the so-called student athletes fare? Well, they’re amateur athletes, so the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat constitute the only above-board recompense for their efforts. One could point to the promise of great NBA careers, but the NBA, with an entry age limit of nineteen, has already snarfed up the talent before they become pretend upperclassmen. ???? ????? So the winners get the glory and the girls, but the NCAA gets the money.

For this reason, March Madness should be called the March Charade, a tournament of left-over talent peppered by the occasional superstar with enough foresight to eschew a couple of years as a millionaire for some essence of education. Brackets and pools are cool, though, and I suspect that most of those who gamble on the tournament don’t really give a rat’s ass about who’s playing, other than as it affects their choices and their chances. Cinderella teams make great stories, too, and gee whiz, wasn’t Florida Gulf Coast’s run really way cool?

Yeah, well, who cares.

Follow the money. See Mark Emmert? Emperor Mark. Total revenue for his organization for the current fiscal year is projected at $797 million. You would think that being responsible for that size budget would make him a target for all kinds of questions and revelations. Well, not by watching the Teflon Don of Collegiate Athletics operate in public, but just by virtue of the situation.

So, last Thursday, in the wake of allegations by USA Today that, among other things, he mismanaged a construction sildenafil online india project at the University of Connecticut to the tune of $100 million in slush while he was president there, Emmert showed up at the NCAA tournament press conference with a filibuster for an opening statement. His withering soliloquy was perhaps designed to bore the media representatives to tears or just outlast them, but it didn’t work. The media slung arrows and Emmert raised his shields. But the first chink in the heretofore impenetrable armor bearing the Emmert coat of arms has been realized.

I won’t be watching the NCAA tournament final match tonight, much the same as I haven’t watched a single tournament game along the way. It’s kind of the American Idol of college sports, and I gave up on American Idol many years ago, even before Simon Cowell left. The last NCAA tournament final I got excited about was 1979, when Magic Johnson’s Moo U. Spartans clobbered Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores or perhaps 1982, when Michael Jordan’s Tar Heels (with James Worthy, Sam Perkins, and Matt Doherty) edged Patrick Ewing’s Hoyas. I can watch recordings of those games if I really want to see some basketball. I’m not going to generate a penny more revenue for the NCAA then they’re already getting.

I bet David Jones of the Patriot-News will be watching, because it’s his job, but maybe he actually cares. Who knows? Jones wrote about Emmert last week in none too flattering terms. ????? ????? It’s worth a read. He “breaks down” Emmert’s press conference soliloquy, and with his usual sarcasm, he coins a new term: studentathleteservants. I think he wanted to write studentathleteslaves, but his editors wouldn’t have allowed that. In any case, he hits the nail on the head. Underneath the charade of the student-athlete, the NCAA is putting a bunch of performers on stage to rake in megabucks and maintain its stranglehold on collegiate athletics.

Furthermore, as the USA Today article brings out, its leader is anything but a pristine example. This turkey gonna love to watch him squirm. Will he be able to squirm out of this dark, cold cavern of disdain? Damn, I hope not!

Lest you think I’m hitting Emmert while he’s down, I am. ?????? ??? ???? ?????

 

Good God, Rod!

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The Centre Daily Times  happened into some emails between former NCAA Chief Investigator Ameen Najjar and Nevin Shapiro, the jailed booster of University of Miami scandal fame, in which Najjar blasted Penn State University President Rod Erickson for handing Mark Emmert the dagger to do what he would.

“The Penn State deal is a travesty. The NCAA did not impose anything. Penn State agreed to and self-imposed the penalties, waived all due process and waived any right to appeal. The NCAA has/had NO authority to impose any penalties in that situation and PSU’s president sold the school down the river.”

Of course, we all know the story of how Erickson claims to have been threatened with the death penalty before he rolled over for Emmert. He said his hands were tied and it was either agree to the draconian sanctions or lose the football program completely for a long time.

But was it really that cut-and-dried a negotiation?

Najjar’s email might be the rant of a guy who had sour grapes for the NCAA, having been fired as the anointed scapegoat in the Shapiro case; however, what does he have to gain by demeaning Penn State’s president? By the same token, one has to question what Najjar really knows about the Penn State situation, as he was not involved in the (non-) investigation.

Nevertheless, if he is right, who knows how far back the deal goes? The Freeh Report led to the NCAA sanctions. Perhaps the whole course of affairs was a pre-ordained deal to hang Curley, Paterno, Schultz, and Spanier while saving the hides of the Board of Trustees and diverting attention from the sordid workings of Pennsylvania government and from the Second Mile. If anyone was following the money, they were headed off at the pass.

Meanwhile, Erickson saves his own ass by saying he had no choice.

So, our friends at PS4RS have requested transcripts of communications between the NCAA and PSU. As you might recall, Ed Ray, president of NCAA’s executive committee, claimed that PSU was never threatened with the death penalty. Later, he recanted somewhat, but this is enough to cast doubt on exactly who did what to whom.

Saith PS4RS spokesbabe Maribeth Schmidt:

“If the deal indeed went down the way Rodney Erickson has explained, then there should be nothing to hide. However, we now have two different representatives of the NCAA asserting that there was no such coercion as Dr. Erickson has described.

“Should we ultimately find that Penn State was complicit in the imposition of the sanctions, or that President Erickson misrepresented the events that led to the execution of the consent decree, then it is reasonable to conclude that the Board of Trustees and administration have been dishonest with the Penn State community and have failed wholly and completely in their fiduciary responsibility to the University.”

None of know what really happened behind those closed doors and secured telephone lines. It’s about time we did.