College players and booster kickbacks

[Errant Hothy]

So, the Reggie Bush story has busted open; and some say "meh" while others scream like he killed somebody. I've got two thoughts on the mater a)being..."meh" and the other being b) It still won't lead to teh Texans drafting VY; but that isn't the purpose of this thread.


The reason I'm writing this is to gauge how the board feels on a topic, that being:

Do you think college athletics is "dirty" ie, rule bending and breaking all in the name of a national championship or do you think that the NCAA has a good grasp on the school's and their boosters and the vast majority of school's run clean programs?

Personally I think that most of the star players at the elite schools (Reggie Bush and Vince Young being the prime examples) receive benefits and cash that if put to the light of day would have most school's getting punishments near teh SMU-esque "death penalty".

So please chime in, and lets keep it to the topic at hand. And please no talk about this weekend or this past season.

 

[Texans Horror]

I always figured that the big-name schools greased the wheels. Texas, USC, Miami, etc. and the ones who get caught get sanctioned. I assume that this is not so often the case in smaller, lesser known NCAA sports programs (e.g., most teams from the MAC). That is not to say that Miami of Ohio could one day throw out as much inventive as the Canes, but I doubt it's happening right now.

Steroids = MLB/Financial Incentives = NCAA

JMO

 

[swtbound07]

Women, cash, cars....every school, probably no exceptions. People being shocked at this is like being shocked that pro athletes use steroids. We dont live in a squeaky clean society. I think Reggie should have been more subtle about it, cause if it was uncovered this easily then he is a fool, but other than that...i dont begrudge anybody anything they can make.

 

[bad]

College athletics is downright filthy. I think the NCAA does a reasonbly good job of watch-dogging, but their punishment system needs to be fixed. All too often the transgressions of a player, booster or coach result in sanctions affecting innocent players the following year.

Fresno State basketball is notorious for this. The latest fiasco: previous coach makes prohibited phone calls to recruits. Coach resigns. Team hires new coach. Existing players (all innocent of any wrongdoing) find they cannot play in the postseason the following year.

 

[Kaiser Toro]

I had to skirt the line as a player, college coach and agent so I can say that at any moment if you are truly doing your job you will be playing in the grey area.

However, there are things that are an absolute no, no as a player and this is one of them. His parents should have known it as well and if they did not then it is on USC's compliance officers.

Does this stuff happen, it sure does. Is it illegal, no. But if you want to play for an entity you have to follow their rules.

 

[texasguy346]

I think it happens quite often on both the small school and big school level. A prime example of that is Baylor's mens college basketball program. They had numerous NCAA violations that went unchecked until the Patrick Denehey tragedy. It wasn't the NCAA, but the ongoing murder investigation that brought these violations to light.

It wasn't as if Baylor had a lot of success with their basketball program despite the cheating that was going on, and I suspect that is the same at a lot of schools. Particularly those smaller type schools in big conferences who feel they have to gain any advantage they can just to compete with the bigger schools in their conference.

I think SWT touched on a particularly interesting point when he suggested that women could be used as incentive to recruit a player to a particular school. I recall reading that an attractive young woman from FSU was invited to a party for HS football recruits by some players of the FSU football team. I imagine that this type of thing goes on at just about every school. The administration can't very well be held accountable for a player's party, and the coach could be accused of having less than disciplined players but that certainly isn't grounds for NCAA sanctions. The school coaxes the player to attend by inappropriate means, but the NCAA has no real grounds to punish the school. All the while I'm sure the coaches and/or boosters encourage and enable the players to do these sort of things to get the best HS football players to come to their school. This type of thing could, and likely does, happen at just about any school be it big or small.

 

[MorKnolle]

I"m sure this kind of thing happens all the time, I know of one specific instance where it happened at a Division 2 school back when I was in college, so I can only imagine what it's like at a big-time D1 program. It's somewhat similar to the steroids problem in baseball where it is a much wider problem than most people realize or want to believe, but at the same time so much damage has already been done that you can never really police it and fully eradicate it from existence, you can just pick and choose your battles and deal with any obvious or reported infractions. I'm sure Bush was more aware of this issue than he is letting on, at the same time I'm sure it is not as ugly of a situation as the article made it sound, the combination of the timing of the article's release and the way the article sounded made me think that it's main purpose was to create a bunch of noise and draw attention to the author rather than trying to just report the news of what happened.

 

[Grid]

What I dont really understand.. and im not trying to sugar coat this or anything...

But, if a company wanted you to come work for them, so they said they would give you a company car and access to the company beach house.. are you a horrid person for accepting?

I mean, I dont really understand the big deal here. Offering women and such I can understand people having an issue with.. and I can understand people having an issue with colleges giving handouts to get people to come to thier school..since not every college has as much money to throw around.

but, getting a house from an agent/sports marketing company? Just sounds like a business transaction to me.

Im sure there are some underlying issues that im not seeing though..otherwise people wouldnt be making such a fuss.

 

[Kaiser Toro]

What I dont really understand.. and im not trying to sugar coat this or anything...

But, if a company wanted you to come work for them, so they said they would give you a company car and access to the company beach house.. are you a horrid person for accepting?

I mean, I dont really understand the big deal here. Offering women and such I can understand people having an issue with.. and I can understand people having an issue with colleges giving handouts to get people to come to thier school..since not every college has as much money to throw around.

but, getting a house from an agent/sports marketing company? Just sounds like a business transaction to me.

Im sure there are some underlying issues that im not seeing though..otherwise people wouldnt be making such a fuss.

To piggyback on your analogy of work it is a big deal. Why would I want to hire an employee that as we can see did not comply with the rules of his past employer and put that company at risk for past, current and future receipts?

 

[Wolf]

What I dont really understand.. and im not trying to sugar coat this or anything...

But, if a company wanted you to come work for them, so they said they would give you a company car and access to the company beach house.. are you a horrid person for accepting?

I mean, I dont really understand the big deal here. Offering women and such I can understand people having an issue with.. and I can understand people having an issue with colleges giving handouts to get people to come to thier school..since not every college has as much money to throw around.

but, getting a house from an agent/sports marketing company? Just sounds like a business transaction to me.

Im sure there are some underlying issues that im not seeing though..otherwise people wouldnt be making such a fuss.

my thinking is the reason people hate the yankees.. they have a lot of money to throw around to bring in the talent. UT (among others) is a pretty rich school and you get into a deal when you run out of scholorships, then the other stuff takes in effect (i.e. free houses,cars etc)

slippery slope but I just may be a chickenlittle on that.