Booze? Hookers? Yachts? — IT CAN’T BE TRUE !!! …..item 1..UM scandal shouldn’t leave us ‘shocked’ (August 25, 2024) …

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We’ve told these men since about seventh grade that their value is physical, not mental, and we’ve made excuses for them — padding grades, waiving rules, cleaning up messes. We’ve got television spending billions and colleges spending millions and coaches whose high-paying jobs depend on winning — which is done by honing skills that will bring fame and wealth to the few players who make it in the pros.

…..item 1)….Florida Capital News…..Originally published August 25, 2011…..Bill Cotterell: Stop the NCAA charade……UM scandal shouldn’t leave us ‘shocked’

Bill Cotterell
Capital Curmudgeon

floridacapitalnews.com/article/20110825/COLUMNIST03/10825…

We’re at another one of those Capt. Renault moments in college football, showing why they should quit the pretense of "student athletes" and let the guys earn a living.

Everybody knows that scene in "Casablanca," when the police captain blows his whistle and shuts down Rick’s cafe — proclaiming himself "shocked, shocked" to find gambling. As a puzzled Humphrey Bogart asks what’s going on, a croupier hands Capt. Renault his winnings, which he pockets with a curt "thank you very much."

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In the current drama, the role of the mortified gendarme will be shared by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and administrators at the University of Miami, who pocket millions from what are supposed to be amateur games. And the casino is any of the college football and basketball arenas on campuses across America.

You’ve probably heard about Nevin Shapiro, doing 20 years for running a near billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, and his devotion to UM football. He has confessed to providing cash, booze and prostitutes to Hurricane athletes who — he was amazed to discover — wanted nothing to do with him, once he could no longer provide all of the above.

Shocked, shocked! Nothing like this has ever happ … oh, wait a minute. It happens a lot, usually on a less-lurid scale.

Let’s see what we’ve got here:

We’ve got men, always the sensible gender, in the age range of 18 to 24, when they’re known for caution, judgment and maturity.

We’ve told these men since about seventh grade that their value is physical, not mental, and we’ve made excuses for them — padding grades, waiving rules, cleaning up messes. We’ve got television spending billions and colleges spending millions and coaches whose high-paying jobs depend on winning — which is done by honing skills that will bring fame and wealth to the few players who make it in the pros.

Then we’ve got wealthy boosters, some of whom will do anything — by which we mean anything — to bask in the reflected glory of their heroes. And, in the instant case, it all happens at a campus just across the bay from South Beach, which is not exactly Amish country.

Really, what could go wrong?

It’s not surprising that so many players or whole teams or entire athletics departments get in trouble. It’s surprising that so many men like Warrick Dunn, Tim Tebow, Myron Rolle and Christian Ponder emerge from this system with academic and ethical principles intact.

Just as news broke about Shapiro hosting parties in the VIP rooms of Miami Beach night clubs, lavishly entertaining Hurricanes at his million beachfront mansion, finding pelvic affiliates du jour for athletes and giving the university money he’d scammed from Ponzi victims, the NCAA was making another of its periodic reform efforts.

NCAA President Mark Emmert called about 50 campus presidents, athletics directors and other big gamers to Indianapolis this month for what he billed as a no-foolin’-this-time summit. Straight-faced, they announced a minimum "Academic Progress Rate" for eligibility in post-season tournaments, along with a proposal to raise the minimum grade-point average for recruits from 2.0 to 2.5.

That one will need some thinking. Universities that turn away nonathletes with 3.8 GPAs must agonize over a 2.5 for sports.

Emmert’s group did not address any new steps to handle sports agents, or their go-betweens, who court basketball and football prospects. It’s been more than three years since the NCAA Committee on Infractions asked the board of directors to really hammer coaches who cheat — nothing yet.

The obvious reason is that the NCAA, university presidents, TV networks, boosters, coaches and the pro teams that use colleges as a farm system like things just as they are. Everybody is making money — except the young men who sweat through two-a-day practices in the summer, risking crippling injury for the dream of a pro career that awaits only a few.

Like turning an aircraft carrier, it would take a while to change direction. But there are two honest choices: Revert to true amateur play — your students play ours — or stop the pretense and do openly what a lot of them are doing (or want to) anyway.

Nobody, least of all TV networks, would pay to see a pick-up team from FSU play just any group of Gator students. So that’s out.

Then let the NBA and NFL sponsor college teams, like baseball farm clubs, paying the coaching staffs, promotion departments and travel expenses while developing talent for their squads. Pay each player a salary, along with a guaranteed four-year education — but not necessarily in the same four years they play.

Unless they want to be students, and some can handle both academics and athletics, they should concentrate on sports. Then they can pursue a career in the big leagues — just as regular students try to find jobs.

If they don’t make it in pro sports, or if they last only a few years, they’ll have four years of college to fall back on. Those who wind up set for life with million-dollar seasons, fat endorsement contracts and broadcast jobs could pass the scholarship along to some kid who needs it — athlete or not.

And what about the boosters? Well, they could still do all their good works, if that’s what they’re interested in. And if they spent millions fawning over their heroes, who’d care?

If the criminal Ponzi schemer had thrown parties in the champagne room of a South Beach nightspot for members of the Miami Dolphins, rather than the Miami Hurricanes, would anybody be shocked, shocked?

— Contact Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or at [email protected].
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