If Not Now, When? Comment Count

Brian

napoleon-at-waterloo lane-kiffin-idiot

I posted about this on The Sporting Blog so this is going to be a rehash, but since this is the Leno-Conan tiff of college football right now I haven't thought about much else: holy crap in a hat, USC hired Lane Kiffin.

There are a thousand different ways in which that statement can be taken: wow, what a snake. Wow, Al Davis was right. Wow, even Charlie Weis shot down USC. Wow, I love hot dogs. In all ways the hire makes no sense, and the rest of the blogosphere is busily examining all of these angles plus dongs on a rock. Last night I had the same giddy reaction that the rest of the universe did. USC hired a guy who rose through the ranks thanks to nepotism and has time and again proven himself an idiot of the highest order. Woo.

Today, though, I'm bothered. That USC had to stoop so low as to grab Kiffin indicates the coming sanctions are harsh, but taking Orgeron and maybe picking off Chow and the thing stuck in my craw indicate that maybe USC is going to get off easy. The thing that is currently stuck in my craw is the thing I had to resort to all caps to properly express over at TSB:

LANE KIFFIN WAS THE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AND RECRUITING COORDINATOR WHEN REGGIE BUSH WAS ON THE TAKE AND JOE MCKNIGHT COMMITTED TO USC. USC is hiring one of the guys—possibly the guy—who was most responsible for the NCAA coming down on the program.

Can this be interpreted as anything other than a taunt? USC is going to get penalized in two different sports in February. They've fired one coach for directly paying a runner and lost another because he managed to ignore agents in his locker room. And they bring in Lane Freakin' Kiffin, a guy who

  • has racked up seven or eight very public secondary violations in one a year at Tennessee
  • is currently under investigation for employing Tennessee undergrads as a sort of USO show from sea to shining sea
  • pursued and acquired Bryce Brown when his recruitment and sketchy AAU-style handler became too much for Miami, which I remind you is Miami

argh… Spock… herecomethe… ALLCAPS

  • LANE KIFFIN WAS THE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AND RECRUITING COORDINATOR WHEN REGGIE BUSH WAS ON THE TAKE AND JOE MCKNIGHT COMMITTED TO USC.

USC is getting hit with football violations and they have just hired the guy most directly responsible for those violations occurring as their head coach. He is bringing Ed Orgeron and possibly Norm Chow back with him, giving USC more than one coach who had full knowledge of the shenanigans going down in LA and did zero to stop it.

USC has just double-dog-dared the NCAA to do something meaningful. They've thrown away the idea of contrition in favor of defiance. They are saying yes, we have had three separate incidents in two sports in a matter of years, but this is not a lack of institutional control. It is the institution. Insofar as we can, we cheat.

This is the NCAA's Waterloo. If USC does not suffer severe repercussions that make it all but impossible for them to compete on a national level for five years in both major sports, the idea that the rules mean anything is over.

Comments

wiscwood

January 14th, 2010 at 5:39 PM ^

Also, heretofore, thither, hither, and nevertheless yes USC is just as guilty if not more so. They won national championships. There would be the embarrassing "snatching down" of the banners. The NCAA will not do their job. Too many political issues.

Oh yeah, you forgot the extra "think" at the beginning of my other post.

jlvanals

January 14th, 2010 at 12:37 PM ^

IMO, Michigan Basketball deserved to be punished the way it did for boosters (or shady promoters or agents in USC's case) paying players. Unless there is some sanction against the program for boosters paying players, boosters can pay a player then only get in trouble themselves, thus allowing them to do it at will and accomplish their assumed goal (making their school's team that much better). In the case of shady "promoters" or "agents" it should go without saying that the NCAA has no control over them and the only way for the NCAA to ensure that their tentacles do not extend into college athletics is to give NCAA member schools a strong incentive for ferreting out that kind of behavior. We need USC to get punished severely to show that feigned ignorance isn't an excuse. It wasn't at Michigan and it shouldn't be at USC. I know this is hard for some people to admit, but WE DESERVED what we got.

Sometimes the NCAA goes off on ridiculous tangents, but punishing a school for when it knew or should have known that a player had lost his amateur status is not one of those situations as that status is the sine qua non of college athletics. Without it, we're just the NFL D-league.

Seth

January 14th, 2010 at 1:57 PM ^

Brian, the commenter gallery has done a pretty good job of tearing this post apart, so I'll refrain from repeating all their complaints.

I would, however, like to point out an irony in its title, "If Not Now, When."

The quote is from the end of a famous quote by the Jewish scholar (rabbi) Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth:*

"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"

If I am not for myself

The first sentence purports the virtue of standing up for oneself, though there is a potential double-meaning ("who will be for me?" can be interpreted as rhetorical, i.e. "nobody will be for me," and suggestive, i.e. "would somebody please be for me?") This seems contrary to your assertion that USC should be seeking contrition.

Humility can be a virtue. But it also can invite attack, particularly when dealing with the NCAA, which, with regard to enforcement of collegiate amateurism, has a pretty arbitrary record. Michigan learned this ourselves with the Fisher fiasco: we took down the banners, fired the coach, blackballed anyone related to someone under suspicion, and then held onto Tommy Amaker for a few extra years just in case anyone wondered. Did all of that contrition help one iota with the NCAA? More than anything, our response hinted at greater guilt, and made it easy for NCAA to dole out a punishment which for those weak-asses was actually harsh.

At this point, you and I haven't seen proof. We don't know the level that people were involved, particularly Kiffin. I like to make fun of Kiffin as much as the next Big Ten fan, and I know he picks up secondary violations like a car in Ann Arbor picks up parking tickets, but that's a far cry from knowing he was the guy who set up Reggie Bush with an agent, or used the potential for bribes to lure McKnight, or knew about any of that. Or further, that USC knows any of that.

Or, for that matter, that USC knows all of it and decided to bring in Kiffin anyway because they want to show the NCAA that they cannot touch the Trojans.

I think they're standing up for themselves. Until we prove that they're guilty, I think we should respect that.

If I am only for myself

The second sentence of that quote is the more important; it's about the sentiment of reciprocity, i.e. the "Golden Rule" (which is the subject of another surviving reminder of Hillel's famous pith).

"Smack talk" is expected between rivals of all types, even if it's just from meeting each other in a lot of Rose Bowls, and having to be reminded how many of those we lost. But when talking about NCAA sanctions, I wouldn't be so quick to point and laugh.

We're a huge program. We recruit a lot of guys out of high school with NFL aspirations and pretty good chances of attaining them. Is it unimaginable that some sleaze in Ann Arbor could saddle up beside some Brandon Graham or another, and offer some cash in return for the chance to represent him in his pro career? If that's possible, is it not possible that some great player in our future or past would accept the deal? And if that's possible, is it possible for this player to spend his money without Rich Rod and his staff realizing the kid seems a little too flush for his means, finding the source, and taking action?

It took somebody noticing McKnight driving an SUV around campus to bring this stuff at USC to light. Did he drive it to practice? Did his coaches watch the players parking, or question whose car was whose? Even if he did, I have known the 150 or so people at my office for at most six years -- I could probably match about five to their cars.

My points are thus: we don't know if the coaches/program had any involvement, and if this can happen without the coaches'/program's knowledge, we are probably not immune from the same violations.

And we also know first-hand, thanks to Snyder, Rosenberg, and the Detroit Free Press's SpOHMYFUCKINGGODHOWWEHATEMICHIGANrts Section, what it's like to be on the receiving end of a witch hunt and a nuisance suit, and what it's like to have our well-reasoned defenses fall on deaf ears amidst Drew Sharp columns and rivals' cackles of "lolscUM," from local radio hosts. We don't think USC's troubles are anything like our little hometown scuffle -- they don't sound like it -- but we do know what it feels like when others pile on after a horrible season, and what it feels like when they do this with things that are a lot more serious for our program than a true freshman who throws four interceptions to Ohio State.

I, for one, would prefer that we advocate the kind of justice we ourselves would prefer to be availed of.

And if not now, when?

If it turns out USC knew this was happening, that it was widespread, that they used this agent-bribery thing in recruiting, that Lane Kiffin was Pete Carroll's guy in charge of putting the deals together (and that this was the true source of his ninja recruiting skillz), and that USC knew this and brought Kiffin back to keep the operation going, well if all of that turns out, your ALL CAPS vitriol will be vindicated.

That's when.

Until then, keep this:

LANE KIFFIN WAS THE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AND RECRUITING COORDINATOR WHEN REGGIE BUSH WAS ON THE TAKE AND JOE MCKNIGHT COMMITTED TO USC.

to the Rivals Board comment sections.

It's regression fallacy. And bad blogging.

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* I don't think anyone has ever found any evidence that they knew each other (Hillel was born in Babylon) but I should like to think they would have gotten along pretty well.