ncaa-the-scandals
As a father, I suddenly find myself looking for ways to explain the world we live in and the rules that society has created. Nursery rhymes are of course a tried and true method of passing social mores on to the next generation. Since the NCAA's rulebook and enforcement practices are particularly difficult to comprehend for a young mind, I thought I would share some of these great old rhymes, each with an important lesson to teach, which have been passed down generation to generation, so our children may too come to understand what the hell the league is doing.
This kinda started on twitter.
Little Bunny Foo Foo
After several warnings to Little Bunny Foo Foo
regarding his repeated field mice violations,
the Big Fairy vacated his head bops
and put him on probation.
Kids need to learn that if you are really flaunting the rules the NCAA always has two things they can do to you: threaten to watch you really closely for any other violations you may report on yourself, and pretend things that happened didn't happen.
Also there's no conclusive evidence, despite precautionary efforts, that the head injuries sustained by the field mice will have any long-term effects.
From BiSB:
In related news, the doctor eventually tagged Mama with a Lack of Institutional Control after too many monkeys fell off the bed.
Mama of course could have avoided the LOIC if she had reported to the doctor that after an exhaustive investigation only a few isolated incidents of falling monkeys were discovered, and Dada had retired with honors for his role in covering it up.
From Zone Left:
All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again because glue is an impermissible benefit.
Humpty may, however, be entitled to a medical hardship waiver.
Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
his wife could eat no lean.
But Jack was on scholarship,
so sharing would be a secondary violation.
You see? Children learn the value of sharing, but also that it's important not to share things you get as a student-athlete. If the scholarship stipend is more than you need to live as the poorest student on campus, then the stipend can be reduced. In a similar vein:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
Since her son's team had a deal with the shoe's manufacturer
the NCAA investigated this.
The value to a shoe company of having great student-athletes wear their apparel while performing great athletic feats is not generated by the athletes performing the feats in the apparel. Nay, the real value here was made by people in a board room who negotiated that deal. Anybody can split two defenders and take it to the house; it takes a truly special [company to hire a] guy who can wear a suit and shake hands with another guy in a suit over their mutual affinity for the word "branding."
Big man Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a stale hotdog bun.
He thought "I'm so lucky for this year at Kentucky,
I should thank David Stern when I'm done."
Name another job besides NBA player that requires you to have 1/4th of an SEC education?
Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Don't miss Jack's team
at New Candlestick
 |
| That's not all Bo's lost. |
Little Bo P. has lost his D.
And doesn't know where to find them.
Just bring down a guy, and play 'em one-high
And Borges will try to run by them.
Football is stupid.
This little piggy went to Fayettville
This little piggy should have stayed home
This little piggy crashed his bike
And that exposed the piggy's goomah
So the piggies hired the guy with warm whee-whee.
Whatever they say, John L. Smith is good for college football.
Old King Cole was a Maryland soul
And a building was name for he.
But they needed a new, so they offed swim and crew,
And sold the rest out to cable TV.
The Big Ten believes it can better fulfill its academic mission by adding the Comcast Center to its footprint.
Oh where oh where has my center gone?
Oh where oh where can he be?
With his back sewn up
And his tie once on
Oh where oh where can he be?
Some violations are absolutely inexcusable. Being that one guy who tested positive for pot during the latter half of March cannot be tolerated, even though 23% of NCAA athletes just told you they use it. With such numbers, and society's rapidly relaxing views on pot, there's never going to be another chance to really screw some kid over this, so you'd better find the nicest possible kid at the most model possible program, and absolutely duke him. Then they'll really know you're serious about enforcing the rule you were about to change.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How do your revenues yield?
With Title IX and creative fin-
-ancing for football's new practice field.
In a move that totally makes how much the athletic department spends on women equal to how much it spends on men's teams, the women's basketball team recently unveiled a $140 million renovation to their arena, which the fellas will also have access to so long as they ask nicely.
For the record. Let me know if I've missed anything. Right now it's just on the edge of plausibility that incidents are "isolated," reported solely by lint-brush-wielding madmen. Additions: Luchs/Holmes.
2003
That's a nice car/job/wad of money. Maurice Clarett sits out the season after claiming his expensive dealership car was robbed of over 10k in stuff. Questioned by the NCAA, Clarett refuses to give straight answers to questions 17 times because "half the team would've been suspended, and it would've been worse for everybody."
Clarett also claims his grades were total fiction, he got phantom jobs, that coaches would tell him to talk to certain people who just happened to drop thousands of dollars they didn't care about, that he got free cars and free rent. Ohio State fans discount Clarett as mentally unstable, which he is.
That's a nice tutor. Clarett's grad student tutor confirms the total fiction grades bit of Clarett's story to the New York Times. The internal response was lovely: "Goings attacked the teaching assistant's credibility, saying he found it difficult to believe her because she had a history of psychiatric problems and displayed what he called erratic behavior." Goings calls the tutor a liar and fires her after she meets with him about another player.
2004
That's a nice job. Booster Robert Q Baker gives Troy Smith $500 for a fake job, getting Smith suspended a couple games and himself dissociated from the program. A couple years earlier Chris Gamble also worked for Baker's company.
2005
AJ Hawk is a depression-era farmer. The apartment of AJ Hawk and Nick Mangold is robbed. Items declared missing include $1400 worth of movies, a $500 Gucci watch, and $3000 in cash, presumably kept under the bed and away from those fat cats at National City.
Santonio Holmes is taken care of. Former NFL agent Josh Luchs outed dozens of players in the SI cover story that served as promotion from his upcoming book, but he'd long stopped paying when he visited Santonio Holmes in '05:
"We met [Holmes] outside the football building," Luchs wrote, "and he said, 'Listen, I want to save you the time. We don't need to meet. I've been taking money from [an agent] the last couple years, and he's been taking care of my family too.'"
2010
Tatgate. Five Ohio State players are found to have sold memorabilia in exchange for tattoos. Jim Tressel is given a credible tip about it in April and does nothing.
That's a nice car II. Terrelle Pryor has been pulled over for traffic violations three times in his Ohio State career. All three times he was in a car registered to Auto Direct, a local dealership. The guy running the dealership is named "Kniffin"—not a good sign. He also has signed OSU memorabilia all over his walls.
Ongoing
You can't throw a rock on eBay without hitting an auction for the gold pants charms handed out after Michigan victories from as recently as 2009—which means there's a fair chance the players in question are still on the team.
Between January 1st, 2000, and May 2009 Ohio State reported 375 secondary violations, most of any D-I school.
5