There’s one thing about a scandal, it turns your life upside down. I didn’t mind the 5:30 am wake-up calls all week, home by midnight and able to ‘nap’ for a few hours. Early mornings are bleeding into long afternoon and late nights. Sleep? Overrated. My brain? Mush. So much for enjoying those last few days of summer with family. Duty calls.
As we continue dealing with the fog of war, I feel it’s important to discuss some things. For starters, it’s easy to take shots at Nevin Shapiro, but that’s the easy route. Yes, he’s a snitch. A liar. A felon. But none of that matters and there are two other groups of people we need to think about lumping some blame on.
The national media (and most non-UM fans) are focused on past and present players. The allegations are numerous and things don’t look good – but let’s be honest; this isn’t SMU. No recruit was given a house or car. There’s no cheating scandal going on and I’ve yet to see any allegation concerning the drugs. The kids made some bad decisions and there’s a price to pay, but “death penalty” talk is way over the top.
Regarding accountability, I don’t want to hear about the rules kids from inner cities live by being different than those that are in line with the rules the NCAA has put in place. Yes, the system is flawed and needs to be changed. The players absolutely deserve a piece of the pie. Playing college football is the only way one reaches the NFL, therefore making it an unfair system. Still, that doesn’t excuse breaking rules.
We have one road system in the United States and on all roads are speed limits. If I drive, I have to abide by speed limits whether I personally agree with them or not and there’s no other road system to choose from.
Student-athletes know right from wrong regardless of their background. Yes, the average English major can hit up Club Mansion, have relations on a yacht, gamble on billiards and nobody will care. To that point, they also didn’t sign a contract mandating that they don’t do such things. The rules comes with the territory, even if you feel they’re unfair.
The media and anti-Miami fans will focus on the players, but the more I’m hearing, this investigation is going to be about the adults in charge. Yahoo! wrote a thorough article (yes, I’ve seen the blog that points out holes), however they only had one source – the jailed Shapiro. The NCAA has another source; the University of Miami.
One would assume if there was some internal discussion about Shapiro there would be a paper – or electronic – trail on that. Hypothetically speaking, what if there were emails sent around late 2007 after Shapiro got into it with compliance director Dave Reed at the Orange Bowl during the Virginia debacle? What if those emails were ignored?
What if lower staff members that were doing research on Shapiro warned higher ups and those warnings were blown off? It’s this type of information that Yahoo! wouldn’t be able to get a hold of, but the NCAA will.
It’s going to be very hard to prove that “player x” was at a hotel on South Beach with Shapiro recreating a scene from “The Hangover”, thought it might not be as difficult for the NCAA to find evidence that Miami knew about Shapiro’s ownership stake in a sports agency or that some assistant coaches had “interesting” relationships with Mini Madoff.
In the end, this investigation will come down to what Donna Shalala, Kirby Hocutt, Paul Dee, Frank Haith and a handful of both football and basketball assistants knew or didn’t know. What they did or didn’t do. Of course that’s not as sexy as the thought of some of today’s biggest NFL names allegedly engaged in shady activity on a yacht with an Ponzi schemer while going to school in Coral Gables and spending down time on South Beach, which is why Yahoo! did what they did.
It’s been a circus in the Gables the lat few days, but I have a feeling the show is about to hit the road. Lubbock. Louisville. Columbia. Gainesville. Tuscaloosa. Brace yourselves folks, the circus is soon coming your way.
IN OTHER NEWS : We’re most likely doing allCanes Radio next Thursday at a special time (4-6pm ET) due to a scheduling conflict. The show will move back to its normal time (4-7pm ET) on Thursday September 1st and more good news on the radio front, our great friend The Wizard has gotten us back up on iTunes. Click here to subscribe to the podcast.
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My question is, What about recruits that didn’t sign with Miami, or players that transferred to other schools. Coaches, both basketball and football. What happens to them? Are these schools gonna be under investigation next? I sure think these programs should be, that is if the players signed have “connections” to Mr. Shapiro. Can’t blame the Universities? Oh yes you can. If Miami is in trouble, then the other schools should be held accountable, for the young men that they sign also. Where are the “compliance” officers (the adults of the bunch) How come they DIDN’T do their jobs? Yes these players should know better, but there were adults too.
Bryce Brown and maybe brother Arthur mentioned? I think I remember these names. I think KSU should be next!!! In my opinion, if you look into “MOST” universities (compliance) there would be “dirty” programs all over the country.
Why has almost everyone named in the allegations from EVERY other school been cleared??? Not understanding this…?
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/feed/2011-08/um-violations/story/miami-players-eligibility-others-already-cleared-marve-brown-brothers-ncaa
Great point Beast. While the activities of a bunch of 18-21 year old men will make for great headlines, the fact is that it is the ADULTS who could be the linchpin in the entire affair. If they (the administration) knew (or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN) what was going on, then the penalties are going to be severe, and Miami football is done for a decade or longer. Post-season bans and scholarship reductions will send most of the current and future recruits running to the hills (rightfully so), and a program and a community will be crushed. Sadly, as Alonzo Highsmith and others are rightly pointing out, the real culprits (the administrators) will not suffer direct sanction from the NCAA. That is the problem with the infraction-punishment system. A program is punished for the actions of a few. Why can’t the penalties only apply to those who broke the rules? If a coach is involved, then the NCAA can ban the coach from coaching. If an administrator is involved, then they should be fired and prevented from working as an administrator. If a player is involved, then they should be prevented from playing and have their scholarship revoked. But why must the entire program and team be penalized more than they already are, along with future players who are not even on the team yet? (i.e., the future recruits)
I believe Randy Shannon distanced the player and coaches from this scum bag.
If that is so, why in the he’ll would we be in trouble? It seems MOST all of
the accusations are beyond four years! so, the last four years have Randy has ran
“clean program”. Maybe Randy Shannon’s legacy will be that he kept
Miami from receiving major penalties! I still believe Randy ran a
Tight Ship! What say you?
Looks like Aubrey hill was cleared as well as panuzio and stoutland by their respective schools. It’s not the same as the NCAA clearing them but I’m assuming the NCAA is going to come to the same conclusion. For football that leaves Hurtt and for basketball that leaves haith and two assistants. We may see a more severe punishment on the basketball team than the football team. Dee is retired and most of the bad stuff happened under him. Looks to me like Shannon saved the football team from the last four years. I’m pretty sure everyone knew which is why everyone left but can it be proven. The fact that reed tried to keep boosters away and that Shannon kept Shapiro specifically away tells me while there was some type of institutional control, hocutt and shallala ignored the red flags for the money. I personally don’t think the punishment will be as severe if the NCAA waits to rule in another six months or so. This story will die down. But one thing is crystal clear for all the evidence loser Shapiro said he had it wasn’t much especially in the last 4 years. Worst case scenario we get punished similar to USC which means we start gettinging back on our feet in 3 years. Nothing the NCAA does to us will kill us for an extended period of time. We are in the most talent rich area, once we recruit players from Florida we are automatically in contention. Our biggest threat to not recovering quickly though is if al golden leaves. That would be a disaster.
Finally the current 12 should be cleared just as marve, brown bros were cleared. All are accused of similar violations and keeping our team and coaches and specifically the 12 players guessing and wondering is unacceptable. If we can go out this season and play with a chip on our shoulder we will do some great things. If we don’t voluntarily suspend our own players I have a feeling this is going to be a very good season.
Can we finally see an updated article related to what the canes are doing on the field?
JBCANE – When you add up one of the bigger scandals as of late, combined with little media access at practice, local media now playing catch up with national media (trying to break new news) and an impending tropical storm / hurricane, you’re going to be hard-pressed to get any real practice scoop this week. Unfortunately you’re going to have to ride this wave with the rest of us.
Although I appreciate the effort “The Beast” puts into covering our Canes, I think the word he has done over the past week is disgraceful. Right now our fan base is hurting and desperately grasping on to any positive news that we can find. Frequently that manifests itself as personal attacks against Nevin Shapiro or the integrity of the Yahoo! article. While it is true that these may be misguided, it is in very poor taste to simply dismiss these sentiments in the arrogant manner you have and use allCanes publicity to attack those trying to defend our athletic department. Few Cane fans truly think we are not guilty of some egregious wrong doing here, but just because you are contributing to CBS Sports does not mean you have to be retweeting Gregg Doyle and others spreading anti-Cane ideas. Yes, I’m sure the adults are the NCAA focus, but do you need to stuff it down our throats in the sort of taunting tone that you have, claiming you have an “inside source? Is this the same “inside source” that fed you all that great info during the whole Gruden fiasco? Because that stuff was very far off when the dust settled. This is a fan blog and we are looking for positives here, I know we are not innocent but that does not mean there isn’t a rational point of view that is not being explored. I don’t follow allCanes on Twitter and read this blog for negative coverage, the rest of the sports world is taking care of this just fine, I come here so I can get a Cane fan’s take. Yes, its bad, but there are much more eloquent an gentle ways of saying that then the manner you have. Again, I am appreciative of the work you do, but I am very disappointed in how you have handled this story over the past week, especially on Twitter.