Improper benefits at the U?

[KronoRed]

It's not hard to believe this has going on in South Florida for at least 25 years.

It's a shame the NCAA is so skittish now about the death penalty, SMU got exactly what they deserved being a program built from the bottom up on cheating.

[George Foster]

Originally Posted by paintmered

Could this be grounds for serious consideration of the death penalty? There's receipts, bank accounts, credit cards and other forms of corroboration to back many of these allegations. This scumbag felon obviously has an axe to grind, but he's apparently backing it up with hard facts.

No matter the name of the penalty, the NCAA schwackhammer is going to come down on The U. It's going to be painful, and it's going to linger for years.

Miami will not be issued the death penalty because the football team funds other non-revenue sports at Miami. To many people will be hurt...girls volleyball, softball, mens golf, etc. I look for the NCAA to go after the existing students that were given the "gifts."

On a side note the former A.D. at Miami when all of this went down was the head of the infractions committee on the NCAA...what a joke! This is the same guy that cleared Derrick Rose to play at Memphis through the clearing house then over a year later said he was ineligible...this jokers name is Paul Dee. The phase he used against Memphis was "strict liability." Coach Cal today sent out a tweet and all it said was....Paul Dee....strict liability! Classic....

[Todd Gack]

Originally Posted by KronoRed

It's not hard to believe this has going on in South Florida for at least 25 years.

It's a shame the NCAA is so skittish now about the death penalty, SMU got exactly what they deserved being a program built from the bottom up on cheating.

Miami is a small private school. Their boosters pale in comparison to FSU and Florida and the rest of the SEC. They have been mediocre the last 5-10 years. UM lost many recruits to LSU and the likes because of a last second 'change of heart.' If they're paying recruits, then they're doing an awful job at it.

[bucksfan2]

Originally Posted by Todd Gack

Miami is a small private school. Their boosters pale in comparison to FSU and Florida and the rest of the SEC. They have been mediocre the last 5-10 years. UM lost many recruits to LSU and the likes because of a last second 'change of heart.' If they're paying recruits, then they're doing an awful job at it.

I don't really buy this. You can say schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton are small private schools yet they have endowments topped by no one.

South Beach is a cesspool of people who want to flaunt their money and be famous. I haven't been to Gainsville or Tallahassee but I would imagine there is more money and flaunting down in Miami than in either of those two cities combined.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by Scrap Irony

This. Though that didn't stop the NCAA in regards to SMU.

Yeah, this is the very definition of dirty. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Emmert's NCAA.

SMU was different in that the payoffs could be traced to the University, not just boosters and their recruits had a paper trail--yes signed contracts of what they were to receive. It was over the top

[Stray]

I think it's kinda silly to even talk about Miami deserving the death penalty right now. The SMU scandal was really really bad.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by Stray

I think it's kinda silly to even talk about Miami deserving the death penalty right now. The SMU scandal was really really bad.

The SMU scandal was about as bad as it possibly could get...

[IslandRed]

Originally Posted by George Foster

On a side note the former A.D. at Miami when all of this went down was the head of the infractions committee on the NCAA...what a joke! This is the same guy that cleared Derrick Rose to play at Memphis through the clearing house then over a year later said he was ineligible...this jokers name is Paul Dee. The phase he used against Memphis was "strict liability." Coach Cal today sent out a tweet and all it said was....Paul Dee....strict liability! Classic....

I expect Miami will be hoisted on Dee's own petard, so to speak, since the primary logic behind USC's sanctions was that the only way USC could not have known about the Bush and Mayo situations was for compliance to actively avoid doing their jobs. Hammer, meet another nail.

However, I will quibble with one thing -- the infractions committee does not have anything to do with clearinghouse operations, so it's not factual to say that Dee cleared Rose to play. And I doubt any other leader of the infractions committee would have made a different decision given what the organization's rules are.

[cumberlandreds]

Originally Posted by jojo

The SMU scandal was about as bad as it possibly could get...

Yes it was. For anyone who has not seen it,they should watch the 30 for 30 program produced by ESPN about the SMU scandal.

[Scrap Irony]

Originally Posted by Todd Gack

Miami is a small private school. Their boosters pale in comparison to FSU and Florida and the rest of the SEC. They have been mediocre the last 5-10 years. UM lost many recruits to LSU and the likes because of a last second 'change of heart.' If they're paying recruits, then they're doing an awful job at it.

Proof?

[Todd Gack]

Originally Posted by Scrap Irony

Proof?

Of course I don't. If I did, I'd be working for Yahoo!

[HeatherC1212]

Originally Posted by cumberlandreds

Yes it was. For anyone who has not seen it,they should watch the 30 for 30 program produced by ESPN about the SMU scandal.

It's called "Pony Excess" and I agree that it was an incredible movie. It wouldn't surprise me if in the wake of all these college football things that they reair it sometime very soon. Really great film. Riveting IMO.

[paintmered]

And the death penalty is not off the table...

Mark Emmert says he's 'fine with' death penalty

Posted by Jerry Hinnen

NCAA vice president of enforcement Julie Roe Lach said Wednesday the "majority of ... support" she encounters within the organization is for sanctions like bowl bans and scholarship reductions that stop short of the death penalty--even in the event of mammoth scandals like the one unfolding at Miami. But apparently, she didn't talk to the NCAA's own president.


http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/e...56338/31398694

This being said, the death penalty isn't necessary to drive a stake through the heart of the Miami football program. With serious sanctions coming down the pipe, The U is certainly going to lose some recruits they previous thought they had, and future recruits will be less likely to consider Miami. Al Golden is probably out the door as soon as the season ends. So even if the investigation takes 2-3 years, Miami will start to feel the effects much sooner. A five-year bowl ban and a loss of 10 scholarships per incoming class for at least that long will have a similar impact as the death penalty without all the messy details (scheduling, TV contracts, conference realignment, etc.). It would take Miami a decade to recover from a punishment that severe.

[George Foster]

There are many reasons to follow and mock the Miami Hurricanes scandal, ranging from the large dollar amounts to the spectacle of a 40 year old man sad that his college “friends” would forget about him after he stopped giving them money. But in addition to the national part of the story, there are many local angles as well. We have talked a great deal about Clint Hurtt, the Louisville Recruiting Coordinator who is at the center of the scandal, but UK fans should not forget about the former Miami Athletic Director’s role as well. Paul Dee was in charge of the Miami program for 15 years, from 1993-2008 and as such, had the job of overseeing the out of control Hurricane ship. He hired Butch Davis, followed him up with Larry Coker and then finished the sundae with Randy Shannon. In addition, he headed many fundraising efforts and became very close with one Nevin Shapiro, the booster who is alleged to have given over $2,000,000 in illegal inducements to Miami athletes.

Shapiro’s relationship with the players has been well-documented in the thorough Yahoo Sports report But Shapiro was also very close to Dee himself, taking a number of donations from the booster and at one point, having Shapiro lead the Hurricanes on the field before the game. He either knew of Shapiro’s relationship with the players or was willfully negligent in discovering why this 40 year old man seemed to be “boys” with all of his football players, while donating huge sums of money to the school.

The Yahoo story shows that Dee is clearly an incompetent, or potentially dirty, Athletics Director. However it is also clear that Dee is a hypocrite in every sense of the word. From 2008-2010, Dee was in charge of the NCAA Committee on Infractions. He oversaw two high profile cases in USC football and Memphis basketball. During those two hearings, Dee decided to use his power to move the NCAA into a different realm of enforcement than it had previously ever enter into. Whereas before, some form of knowledge was usually required to give a school sanctions, Dee began the notion of “strict liability” in NCAA enforcement. He essentially claimed that anything that happens on a school’s campus or in connection with its programs, should be known by the administrators and if it is not…well that is tough.

In both the USC and Memphis cases, knowledge of the infringing actions was never shown, and in the Memphis case never alleged. Still Dee took the position that the programs and coaches such as Calipari should be punished on a strict liability basis. He famously said, “high profile players demand high profile compliance.” While making those comments, Dee set himself out to be a new renegade enforcer of college athletics, sick of excuses and forcing compliance to all rules. And yet now we find out that Dee oversaw what potentially may be the most egregious rule-breaking over the past two decades in college athletics. Whereas USC had one main player (Reggie Bush) who took money from outside boosters/agents and Memphis had one player (Derrick Rose) whose ACT score was in question, Miami has 72 CONFIRMED players who took illegal benefits. And all of those benefits were taken from a booster so connected to the program that he was allowed to run out on the field with the team at a home game.

Hypocrisy is a word thrown around all the time in the world and it is often not appropriate for the situation. But in this case, hypocrisy doesn’t even seem a strong enough term. Paul Dee oversaw a committee that took down John Calipari and the Memphis basketball program by creating a new “no knowledge needed” standard never before enforced. Now Calipari is somewhere likely seething as this same man who took away his program’s accomplishments with a self-righteous standard that he was clearly not capable of following, is now proven to have been the head of the greatest rogue program of them all. All Miami games should, and one would presume will, be vacated and the program must receive the maximum punishment. But more importantly, Paul Dee has been shown to be the worst type of leader, a hypocritical weasel of a man who believes his calling is to chastise others while he willfully neglects the own rot under his nose. Matt Jones....Kentucky sports radio 8-18-11

[Todd Gack]

Trust me. Miami isn't getting the death penalty. I'm not going through everything, but the whole story is based on pretty flimsy evidence and the word of a convicted felon/liar. I'll give you an example:

There were 33 texts between Phillips and Shapiro between May and December of 2009 and Phillips was a frequent guest at Shapiro's house and boat. What's the problem with this argument? Phillips was playing in the NFL at this time. How is this a problem?

Originally Posted by paintmered

And the death penalty is not off the table...




This being said, the death penalty isn't necessary to drive a stake through the heart of the Miami football program. With serious sanctions coming down the pipe, The U is certainly going to lose some recruits they previous thought they had, and future recruits will be less likely to consider Miami. Al Golden is probably out the door as soon as the season ends. So even if the investigation takes 2-3 years, Miami will start to feel the effects much sooner. A five-year bowl ban and a loss of 10 scholarships per incoming class for at least that long will have a similar impact as the death penalty without all the messy details (scheduling, TV contracts, conference realignment, etc.). It would take Miami a decade to recover from a punishment that severe.