Shapiro-gate: The Morning After

I feel like I spent the past twenty-four hours in a blender set on puree. Just over two weeks from kickoff, optimism abroad, the Al Golden era about to get under way … and then this. Nevin Nagasaki. Hurricane Hiroshima.

Accusations of a convict. Former superstars from the ‘U Family’ tied to something shady. The NCAA camping out in Miami’s backyard. The media landing another anti-Canes story they can run with. It’s a Gator or Nole’s wet dream.

Like the rest of Hurricane Nation, I’m trying to wrap my arms around all of this – which hasn’t been easy to do based on the accusations, the accuser or the program in question.

A pure scumbag in the mold of Bernie Madoff, running his mouth from the inside, miserable in every aspect of this thing he calls a life and proudly boasting that he’s looking to wreak havoc, taking down anyone and everyone from his lonely prison cell.

A “man” seeking vengeance against players whose affection he tried to buy, instead of making amends with the countless folks he swindled out of millions. More focus on writing a tell-all book and destroying a university that pushed him away than doing something meaningful with what time he has left on this planet.

Nevin Shapiro is a steaming pile of human garbage. Scum of the earth and a perennial hanger-on with an oversized ego to overcompensate for his paltry 5’5″ frame. A little jock-sniffer, mugging for the camera in every picture and seemingly working overtime to sell the world on believing that he was “one of the guys”.

Yahoo! Sports attempts to push the Nevinesque photo gallery as something torrid, but the trained eye can see an overzealous booster mugging with players, in a Facebook world where people attempt to turn a meaningless encounter into a lifelong bond.

When you think of the typical front-runner and bandwagon fan, Shapiro is your posterboy. An unlovable loser who started donating money to the University of Miami in 2001 (shock – when the program was at an all time high) and a nobody using stolen money to in an attempt to become a somebody, buying his way into the ‘cool’ crowd.

A hack with the self-appointed moniker “Little Luke” – something you imagine this little Ritalin junkie howling into a player’s ear when asking for another personalized autograph for his trophy case.

Fan support is all over the map right now, as expected. The Yahoo! expose and round-the-clock ESPN coverage has been calculated. Sensationalism at its finest, all in an effort to elicit emotion. Sports media is a big business … which is why Yahoo! went from a search engine to the Woodward and Bernstein of college sports investigations.

For those embarrassed by the actions of legendary Canes, it’s understandable. Seeing some of the greatest names associated with this program thrown under the bus – it’s like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. (Sorry kids.)

That said, let’s urge against a holier-than-thou stance and let’s remember the source. That’s not to say something grave hasn’t occurred, but let’s wait for the NCAA to report their findings, as opposed to basing everything on a jaded thug and two sports media outlets.

The Yahoo! report was extensive and detailed, but until it’s proven, it’s nothing more than a sensational story and which each hour that passes it seems more are speaking out, shooting holes in Nevin’s story. Either way, it’s time to shift the focus off of the report and put it on the NCAA investigation.

In all that’s gone down in college football this off-season, it’s amazing no one is painting a bigger picture regarding the overall issue that this type of behavior has become commonplace. A sports world that has elevated high school athletes to a level of stardom that yesterday’s professionals didn’t see and the coddling itself begins in junior high, or even the Pop Warner level.

Miami may be the scandal of today, but there were others yesterday and there will be more tomorrow. The game and culture are broken more so than UM as a program.

Today’s 18- to 22-year old star athletes have their asses kissed from middle school until their careers end – be that in high school, college or after reaching the NFL. Toss in the broken homes that many of these kids come from, overinflated egos, a sense of entitlement, a sports culture that elevates them to a god-like status and the allure of money to teenage-athletes-on-a-pedestal can prove too hard to turn down.

That doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it helps explain how things run amok and when you toss in a vulture like Shapiro, who swindled, schmoozed and won over smarter, older, more successful adults and professionals. Folks with strong resumes and banks accounts. Folks that should’ve known better and folks that make it easier to grasp how today’s entitled college athlete was ripe for the fall.

But there’s also the other side; that point where morality must come into play. Rugged upbringing and street mentality aside, there’s a world of difference between the temptation of a handful of cash on a recruiting trip and a decadent lifestyle. When discussing a one-time occurrence versus repeated bad behavior, at some point shouldn’t conscience take over? The line between right and wrong isn’t that blurry.

You read the reports and sadly it goes hand-in-hand with today’s sports culture. Wild parties. VIP access. Strip clubs. Loose women. Money to burn. Tales of crazy night life in the big city.

It’s much of the ‘stuff’ that lures kids into this world in the first place. The same way every kid with a guitar wants to be a rockstar so he can get girls and party ’til sun up, today’s average football player wants the NFL “lifestyle” as much (if not more) than he actually wants to play the game itself.

Stories like this have surrounded professional sports for years. The New York Mets in the mid-80s and the Dallas Cowboys in the early 90s were the most prominent. Where this thing goes new levels of sideways is the fact we’re talking about amateurs, not pros, but all the jaw-dropping needs to stop – all the feigned ‘shock’ as if this is new news for those who follow America’s favorite past-time, treating athletes like heroes because they run faster, tackle harder or catch better.

On a Miami-based radio show earlier today a caller referred to the NCAA, universities and administrators as the “pimps”, the fans as the “johns” and the players as the “whores”.

I dare someone to disagree.

The NCAA has descended upon Coral Gables and they’re doing their digging – as they should. Even if these allegations are from a vindictive thug trying to give his meaningless life purpose, red flags are raised and a full investigation is warranted.

UM was first alerted to Shapiro’s claims just under a year ago, but neither he or his lawyer would provide any additional information. They were saving it for the NCAA, and Yahoo!, who one would assume paid Shapiro a pretty penny for his story.

Once UM knew was in the know, the university itself notified the NCAA and began looking into the matter. The NCAA is said to have been investigating UM for upwards of five months and to date, no suspensions have been doled out.

All we have are one-sided claims from a desperate felon. Until the NCAA cracks down, it will have to remain business as usual for first-year head coach Al Golden, his staff and for these distracted Canes about to embark on the 2011 season.

From a fan’s perspective, you hope that the majority of this is embellished. Nothing more than desperate claims from a desperate man. Pictures at a nightclub and line-item credit card statements from just shy of a decade ago – not exactly concrete proof when talking about shutting the doors on a program.

The majority of the pictures on display appear to be from 2002-2003, which is definitely puts a black eye on that era of Miami football – but it’s also eight to nine years ago, featuring players long gone and guys who played for a head coach five years removed.

There are a handful of current Canes on the master list and again, you hope at worst those are claims of recruiting violations and that the days of yacht rides and hotel parties are as far removed as Kellen Winslow II and his infamous ‘soldier’ rant.

In all that Shapiro did spill to Yahoo!, there was nothing about former head coach Randy Shannon and if you read much of what’s been released, Shapiro loathed the fact that Shannon shunned him. Wouldn’t even speak to puny man or make eye contact (though Nevin tied several no-longer-with-the-program Shannon assistants to the scandal).

Shannon had been around the program – and the city – long enough to know that even a white collared booster could spell trouble. Thuggery isn’t proprietary to street agents and other bottom feeders.

The majority of what went down happened on the watch of former head coach, “substitute teacher” and after this, arguably the worst hire in Division-I football, despite a ring and a 24-0 start, Larry Coker.

Like a grandpa who didn’t want to actively parent, Coker warned his players about guys like Shapiro, but also like a grandparent, there obviously was no real policing – just a blind belief that kids knew right from wrong and would inherently stay away.

On a surface, this is a disastrous story, but as we sit here today, it’s also very one-sided. Unlike Shapiro, Yahoo! and ESPN, the NCAA is obligated to look at this situation, logically and not emotionally. Whether it does or not, we’ll see. With scandals at Ohio State, Southern Cal, Auburn, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, et al – this is a fork in the road for the NCAA.

Do they clean things up across the board and move forward, or do they pin it all on the perfect scapegoat; a universally loathed program with decades worth of image problems. Not to mention, a private school that does little on the revenue generating side regarding the NCAA’s bottom line.

Taking down Ohio State hurts the NCAA fiscally. Again, there’s a reason five superstars were allowed to participate in the most recent Sugar Bowl, with penalties pushed towards this season and there’s a reason the hammer didn’t fall in Columbus as swiftly as many expected it to. But in Coral Gables, the NCAA could reign hell without any serious fiscal ramifications, while satisfying the masses who demand that “something” is done.

Scandal rocked the college football world this off-season, which begs the question, when does the NCAA get to the heart of the matter? When do they start cleaning up the game across the board? Boosters are part of the problem, but so are generally out of control players, as well as coaches with a “win at all cost” mentality.

Even in ‘retirement’, former Florida head coach Urban Meyer is still revered. Two national titles over a three-year span and some great, teary-eyed speeches about his All-American everything Tim Tebow … but what about those thirty-plus arrests that always wound up back page news?

Shapiro’s nasty little tale is disgusting any way you spin it, but does it really compare to firing off AK-47s in public, aggravated assault, drug possession, stalking, battery, DUI, resisting arrest, violation of a sexual restraining order, felony counts of burglary, domestic violence, as well as stealing a credit card off the deceased girlfriend of a deceased teammate and running up months worth of charges?

Where was the Yahoo! expose on UF’s five-year run under Urban or all the other SEC programs – Georgia, Tennessee, etc. – who were hovering around two dozen arrests each over a similar span?

How can the NCAA claim “lack of institutional” control when a booster opens up his wallet, but allow a university to police itself when criminal laws are being broken left and right by “student athletes”?

Meyer suspended or booted kids that didn’t matter (in the grand scheme of winning), while letting superstars fly under the radar. (Safety Tony Joiner was arrested on a Tuesday but played at LSU the following Saturday – his punishment, being stripped of his captaincy.)

If the media is going to bring a witch hunt, then sack up and go balls out. Don’t go for the US Weekly cover story – go for Watergate. Take down the entire corrupt system, not just a few pawns in the game.

For Miami, the million dollar question; what did administrators know or not know? Was university president Donna Shalala really sweeping everything under the rug or turning a blind eye for a $150,000 donation? A woman with an impressive resume and the ability to raise tens of millions of dollars for the medical school, making UM a globally-respected university? She doesn’t seem the type to taint her legacy for the sake of the football program.

At the time everything about Shapiro screamed overzealous white collar booster / know-it-all fan. Before the Ponzi scheme this is a man who had hundreds of people fooled into opening their checkbooks. How is it so far fetched to believe that Shapiro could fool someone he was actually giving money to instead of stealing it from? How are critics so aghast that a world-class con-man was able to fool school administrators, coaches and college kids? Is that really so far fetched?

All this nonsense about access to the Orange Bowl press box and the university president dropping by a sky box on game day – standard procedure with big time boosters at major universities. Same to be said for sideline passes, locker room access, leading the team on the field and even flying on the team jet to and from away games.

Of course that’s only part of Shapiro-gate. The tip of short-stack’s iceberg. Yahoo! spent months carefully crafting Tuesday’s bomb, so the attempt of making sense of it in a day – it’s impossible.

It’s another waiting game in Coral Gables and while instinct has everyone angry, hurt and freaked-the-hell-out, alas, patience is the only emotion that should inhabit this fan base.

Right now it’s about supporting the innocent – namely Coach Golden, his staff and the gross majority of current Canes who have zero to do with this scandal. Nineteen days until kickoff and if you thought this program needed your support before, after this news, Golden and crew need you more than ever. Step up and support their cause. – C.B.

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