University of Miami

Is the University of Miami the only ones or just the only ones to get caught? That is the real question brought about by the latest NCAA scandal. Are we to believe that they are the only university that is paying their player's to play? Other schools may not be doing it to this kind of degree but it is hard to imagine that if a player is being recruited by a school and he knows that he will be given anything he desires while he is playing there that he would turn it down just to get a scholarship. I don't doubt that the majority of the schools don't go to the type of excess that Miami did to get their players, but there are guys that were recruited by Miami that went to other schools so what did those schools do that Miami didn't?

There are definitely many players that will go to a school either because they have always dreamed of playing there or due to family roots. But for most it is who gives them the best chance to get them to the next level. And is there that big of a difference between LSU and Alabama? We always hear that a school has better facilities or that one coach is that much better then the other. Couldn't one of the reasons also be that one school has a booster willing to give several thousand more then the next?

Granted this particular booster was shady to begin with, but there are a multitude of booster's with legitimate money that would do/pay anything to get there team that elusive national championship just for school pride. How many other tattoo parlor owners are doing what Edward Rife did for the Ohio State players? It's pretty obvious that the Miami hierarchy didn't care that it was going on or they would have done something about it. It is hard to believe that the university knew nothing of what Nevin Shapiro was up to, especially when he says that coaches brought the players to him to finalize the recruiting. So if this is the accepted practice at Miami wouldn't it seem logical that it is the accepted practice elsewhere as well? Again maybe not to this degree but the old adage "where there's smoke..." comes to mind.

Does the NCAA really care anyway? They make more money now then ever before and they fight hard to  keep the non-bcs schools from getting their share of the pie every winter. Every time that they expand March Madness it isn't to get more small conference schools into the dance, it's to get one more major conference school that had a mediocre year onto the bracket. The more powerful and competitive the power schools are the more money the NCAA gets for television rights anyway.


Back to Miami, what is even more staggering is that their basketball program was so bad even with this kind of an edge. The coach could get any player he wanted for the right price and couldn't do anything with it. Does that mean he was not getting the players he was asking for or that he was a horrible judge of talent and didn't ask for the right players? For the right money Lebron could have taken his talents to south beach so much sooner.