Tater

September 19th, 2011 at 8:09 PM ^

The ol' ball coach should just retire now while he can still hold a negative handicap on most golf courses.  He could play Carolina courses all summer and Florida courses all winter.  He could probably get paid pretty well by leveraging his golf into "personal appearances."

Besides, if the Gators have a bad season, he will suddenly become very popular in the Gainesville area again.

JClay

September 19th, 2011 at 8:15 PM ^

Clemson and South Carolina are perennially tied for #2 in my Least Suprising to be Comitting Violations list behind TA&M.

SC Wolverine

September 19th, 2011 at 9:30 PM ^

Not so sure about Clemson.  That is a legitimately gorgeous place and everybody loves it.  Speaking of which, I was watching the Clemson-Auburn game and every time Sammy Watkins made a great play I yelled, "That guy was supposed to go to Michigan!"  But as for USC, there is no obvious reason at all why someone would choose to go to Columbia, SC.  For all the lakeside, Upcountry beauty of Clemson, USC has, well, nothing.

Tater

September 19th, 2011 at 8:16 PM ^

Hotels routinely give breaks to volume customers.  They also sell rooms at half price or less on the big internet sites like priceline, hotelsdotcom, etc.  If South Carolina is being penalized for negotiating a volume rate, there is even more wrong with the system than I thought.  

I think the NCAA should pay more attention to THE Ohio State University and less to South Carolina.

Mr Miggle

September 19th, 2011 at 8:56 PM ^

You think the university should be negotiating discounts on housing for their athletes?

This sounds like a pretty serious infraction. These players were getting 2 bedroom suites for $14.59 a night. I checked hotel.com as you suggested. The average rate is $169 per night. Additionally many of the players were staying the better part of a year without paying anything. The hotel, owned by a booster, only started trying to collect rent after the NCAA started asking questions.

expatriate

September 19th, 2011 at 8:19 PM ^

Awesome, another opportunity for the NCAA... to do absolutely nothing of note to the offending school.  We get all hyped up for the NCAA to actually punish a program and they get wins retroactively expunged and a few years probation.  Honestly, if I was a school that only cared about winning I would just put a lot of effort towards looking the other way- get my championships, hope no one notices, and if they do throw the coach under the bus.

This is small potatoes compared to what we have seen in the last couple years, but even if it wasn't it wouldn't amount to much in the end.

LSAClassOf2000

September 19th, 2011 at 8:27 PM ^

“Additionally, the Whitney Hotel made special arrangement with nine student-athletes to pay their rent at later dates, thereby providing an impermissible loan to the student-athletes.”

I wish my old landlord had been this reasonable when my paychecks were smaller than expected....

Logan88

September 20th, 2011 at 10:04 AM ^

S. Carolina (the state, not the school) has generated plenty of talented football players in the past and very few of them have bothered to go to S. Carolina (the school, not the state) before. If they stayed in-state, they usually went to Clemson, but many ended up at other (read: good) SEC programs.

Something has definitely changed at USC (NTUSC) in the past few years. Maybe it can be explained entirely by the presence of Spurrier....but I doubt it.

jackw8542

September 20th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^

Steve Spurrier has a big enough name to attract a lot of good football players.  The fact that recruiting would pick up upon his arrival is hardlly surprising.  Further, I have always had a lot of respect for him as someone who always seemed to me (perhaps I am naive) as a straight shooter.

mGrowOld

September 19th, 2011 at 9:40 PM ^

Is this for real?  Schools are in trouble for negotiating volume discounts at hotels and the NCAA thinks they should pay rack rates instead?

Nothing for Auburn and a wink wink, nudge nudge sham trial for OSU and now this.  No wonder people think the system itself is broken and corrupt.  

It is.