Last week, the FBI announced that NCAA basketball is corrupt.
Wait, this just in……….Archbishop Franz Ferdinand has been shot. I repeat….the Archbishop of Austria has been shot!!!
Yeah, thanks FBI. Like anyone in America didn’t know college sports is a cesspool of illegalities.
Apparently this investigation into the crime-ridden world of NCAA basketball has been a continued effort for over 5 years. And so far, the FBI is very proud to announce that they have caught 4 assistant coaches dealing with shoe reps and athlete agents in a not-so-legit manner. Basically, outside forces such as Adidas and Nike are giving assistants money to help persuade certain college (or high school) players to sign with their agency once they turn pro. The penalty for this kind of transaction….DEATH!!!! No no no, not death. But possibly up to 70 years in prison.
First off, sending anyone to federal ‘fucked in the ass’ prison for this is absolutely ridiculous. There are real criminals in this world; some even violent and scary. This is about as harmless of a crime as you can get. It is not like anyone is stealing money from anyone. This is just like underhanded shady stuff, but nothing that deserves prison time. But I am sure the FBI will use this threat on the assistants and reps to catch bigger fish.
Secondly, the FBI has patted themselves on the back and boasted about catching 4 programs thus far with their hand in the cookie jar. Yeah, four. Oh yeah, the FBI promises there are more to come. Well, if that ‘more to come’ falls short of all 330+ programs, you have not your due diligence. You are telling me after all the years, man-hours, and surveillance into this matter, you guys have only caught 4 teams so far? Well, ask any ESPN commentator, street agent, or AAU coach and they can tell you off the top of their head many many programs do this, and none of this is new at all. I guarantee that North Carolina, Virginia, UConn, Syracuse, UCLA, Ohio St, etc, have done this stuff as well. To what degree, I am not sure. But if Chuck Person is getting money to funnel kids to Auburn yet Kentucky is clean, why in the hell does Auburn suck so bad? When more teams in violation are being revealed, I will bet my mortgage that Duke is NOT one of them; despite having top 5 recruiting classes every year for 20+ years, recruiting against other high level schools in the area, having ‘academic’ values that may prevent some recruits to be accepted (ala ‘The earth is flat’ theorist Kyrie Irving or ‘I don’t read too good’ Corey Maggette.), and a coach who is assistant president of the damn university!!
Anyway, my alma mater, the University of Arizona, is one of those schools behaving badly. And yes, this may cost the head coach his job. Now I am not the biggest Sean Miller fan; he is a bit of a used car dealer wrapped in a $1000 suit. But I can pretty much bet his transgressions are on par with all other big time schools. Including Duke.
So FBI, I know you are going to gloat and praise yourself to no end after you release all the gory details of your investigation. But when you really think about it, not only does everyone know this stuff is going on, does it really matter?