NCAA Could Finally Have Some Credibility- Part 2
By Justin Donofrio
So far we have seen one head coach get fired from this. Rick Pitino got fired from Louisville back in 2017 for having a part of paying 5 star prospect Brain Bowden $100,000 to attend Louisville, Bowden ended up getting suspended indefinitely and left school to play in Australia. To be fair this was his second time he was in trouble at Louisville with an escort scandal where the team had to vacate their title in 2013. If you have not heard he is back on the coaching circuit taking a job at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. He can very well be suspended for some games and may have some recruiting resections as well in the near future.
Now some other coaches who should be in trouble are Bruce Pearl at Auburn who was fired in 2011 from Tennessee because he was charged with unethical conduct for lying to NCAA investigators for recruiting and received a 3 year show clause for it. He was also fired when he was an assistant at Iowa in 1988–1989 when he blackballed a recruit after he committed to a different school. In 2018 it was reported that Pearl would not cooperate with the internal investigation by the school they found him not guilty because the FBI had taken his computers and cell phones for their own investigation. After that season Auburn gave him a contract extension through 2023. Chuck Person, a former Auburn standout and associate head coach to Pearl, was arrested after being accused of paying $20,000 to two players’ families. I have a feeling that Bruce Pearl had some involvement in this because of his past history.
Just west of Auburn, Alabama to the bayou is Louisiana State’s head coach Will Wade was suspended indefinitely back on March 8th 2019 a day after reports stated that there was a wiretap of Wade offering a recruit. He would not talk to school officials about wiretap. He was reinstated a month later after finally meeting with school officials. Tigers Athletic Director said this “Coach Wade’s explanations and clarifications offered during the meeting, absent actual evidence of misconduct, satisfy his contractual obligation to LSU,” he said. “Accordingly, I have recommended that Coach Wade’s suspension be lifted and that he should be allowed to resume his coaching responsibilities”. Just recently an article came out from ESPN that WIll Wade either arranged for or offered “impermissible payments” to potential recruits or others around them. To this day he still won’t cooperate with the University about it. Come on everyone knows LSU has always been a football school and Will Wade has elevated this basketball program , but how can you make a statement like that especially when in April a documentary called “The Scheme ‘’ where they play the audio of his wiretap. As an Athletic Director how do you just ignore this like nothing happened it looks awful on the school for not taking action. The big part of the wiretap is Wade talking about making a “ strong blank offer”. When will LSU finally realize that this guy should not have a job. If the NCAA comes down on him like they should it should not be out of the question that he gets a 10 year show clause or receives a lifetime ban. Five days after renaststing Wade Tigers AD Joe Alleva skips town and leaves to take the AD job at Texas A&M.
Next Sean Miller who has been caught red handed at the University of Arizona. He has been caught on a wiretap allegedly paid or promised to top recruit Deandre Ayton $10,000 a month to attend the school. The basketball program at Arizona has been one of the most constant programs in the sport but Miller has taken the next step 7 NCAA tournaments bids in 11 years with no final four appearances and is 0–3 in the elite eight. I do not know why the school has not terminated Miller, also in the documentary “The Scheme” they play his wiretap talking about paying Ayton that should be enough evidence to fire him. Even after “The Scheme” came out in April nothing still happened to these two coaches. When do Miller and Wade get their compuppets.
Things may not be as clean as everyone thinks down in Durham with Duke. Recently Zion Williamson and his family have been accused of taking benefits to play at Duke. This is the 3rd Duke player accused of taking benefits; the two others were Wendell Carter Jr and Marin Bagley, Wendell’s name came in the FBI Report the only thing that was found was an agent Christen Dawkins could have paid for a lunch with Carter’s mom. Over to Marvin Bagley his father was given a head coaching position at a Nike sponsored team in the Phoenix area just for Marvin to play for a Nike team and for his dad. Duke is sponsored by Nike so it is not a coincidence. The Bagley’s filed for bankruptcy in April of 2008 and four years after Nike came to them about the AAU team they were living in a house that would go for from about $750,000 to $1.5 million. The conclusion Nike did all of this to get Marvin to commit to Duke University. Right now one of the NBA’s top new sensation Zion Williamson is in the middle of a case regarding allegations of his family receiving $400,000 to play at Duke. It’s complicated because when Zion declared for the 2019 NBA Draft a contract with Prime Sports Marketing to represent him and handle all of his endorsement deals after already signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) a few weeks early. He is in the middle of a lawsuit for a breach of contract. Duke conducted their own investigation in January of 2020 when allegations were made, no surprise they found no evidence about this. Ford and Prime want Zion to admit to a couple of things, that his mom and stepfather got money from people acting on behalf of Duke, and Nike, to attend Duke. They demanded the same from Adidas. Down below is the court document on why testimony from Coach K is warranted he has been around long enough to know the rules of recruiting and that he can’t do something like offer his family a job. It smells very fishy to me. It won’t shock me to see the NCAA let this go right over their heads and I think that is going to happen. If these allegations are in fact true especially for Bagley and WIlliamson the NCAA can really send a message to college basketball’s poster child.
Even if the NCAA makes the right decision it could lose some big name teams in March but it would be for the better for the sport to clean it up. If the NCAA really wants to shut this down they would make the right decision and really bring the hammer down so we never have something like this again. The NCAA has one chance to show that they are a little less corrupt and gain some credibility.
Owens, Jason. “Report: Marvin Bagley’s Family Reaped Significant Financial Gains While Fostering Nike Ties.” Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo!, 29 Mar. 2018, sports.yahoo.com/report-marvin-bagleys-family-reaped-significant-financial-gains-fostering-nike-ties-003436661.html.
Rapp, Timothy. “Report: LSU AD Joe Alleva Expected to Resign Amid Will Wade Bribery Scandal.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 17 Apr. 2019, bleacherreport.com/articles/2831790-report-lsu-ad-joe-alleva-expected-to-resign-amid-will-wade-bribery-scandal.
Justin co-hosts a podcast called Sports Talk with R & J which is released Wednesday’s at 2pm. You can learn more about his podcast here:
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