OT: Blue Chips and Recruiting Violation Musings

Submitted by Magnum P.I. on
Just saw part of the movie Blue Chips for the first time in a long time. I remember being so excited about seeing Shaq on the big screen as a kid (and Penny Hardaway, although it's hard now to use "excited" and "Penny Hardaway" in the same breath). Anyway, it made me wonder what the real state of recruiting violation is in major college sports. People joke about it a lot, and rarely are official violations made or punished. Part of me is inclined to think that it's absurd to imagine that programs pay their players--just conspiracy theory. Another part of me, though, wouldn't be shocked if it were much more commonplace than is publicly assumed. What do you think about the regularity of cheating in basketball and football recruiting? We often joke(?) about OSU and USC paying players on this board, and people often get negged for it, so what does that mean: is it simply despicable to even assert that it happens or are we being naive? Poor Nick Nolte, such internal conflict (forward to the 5:00 mark for the classic speech):
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cpt20

November 27th, 2009 at 11:23 AM ^

When agents get involved, like with the Reggie Bush thing. I think paying players is more in basketball, especially with the one and done. Look at John Callipari, when he leaves for a new job, the older school gets punished, like UMass and Memphis. More of the paying players or benefits come from the agents.

Joined: 11/02/2008

MGoPoints: 377

GOBLUE4EVR

November 27th, 2009 at 11:33 AM ^

that schools hide it a lot better now then they used to. look at michigans basketball program, no one really knew what was going on there. but then there is a FBI/IRS raid on ed martins house and they found all of the evidence linking webber, traylor, taylor, and bullock to him. after that more and more came out about what was going on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan_basketball_scandal as for USC there is proof that there is something going on there, just look at the reggie bush issue and what went on with oj mayo. the problem is that the NCAA takes their sweet dear time when it comes to the bigger schools, but yet find the time to investigate practice time issues.... as for OSU the NCAA is watching them for possible recruiting and academics violations...

Joined: 01/09/2009

MGoPoints: 4273

BlockM

November 27th, 2009 at 11:44 AM ^

I don't come from a poor family, and I've never been good enough at something to be recruited heavily, but that combination has got to be incredibly difficult. I can't imagine coming from a family where it's a struggle to put food on the table and having to turn down an offer that would change that immediately.

Joined: 07/03/2008

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