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March sadness Current circus further taints college basketball's reputationPosted: Friday March 07, 2003 3:39 PM
March Madness is nearly upon us, the fortnight (plus a little more) when college basketball briefly takes its place as the preeminent sport in the United States. When everybody from your neighbor to your mother-in-law will suddenly know the meaning of brackets. When it becomes damn near impossible to rip yourself away from the television set because you might just miss a finish or an upset that everybody will be talking about for weeks. That's why it's so sad that college basketball has spent the last couple of weeks dirtying itself and reminding us that big-time college sports (basketball and football, too), so wonderful at their best, remain ultimately corruptible, too often simply bad news waiting to happen. Georgia. St. Bonaventure. Fresno State. Three schools have made headlines -- large and small -- recently for indiscretions both alleged and admitted. One (St. Bonaventure) has ignominiously ended its season. Another (Fresno State) has bowed out of the postseason. A third (Georgia) remains in the eye of hurricane. An assistant coach has been fired, and there hangs in the air an ominous sense that much more controversy is coming. Let's dismiss Fresno State first. When the school hired Jerry Tarkanian in 1995, it climbed between the sheets with devil. Tark has spent his lifetime flouting NCAA regulations in pursuit of victory. I'm convinced it never occured to him to run a clean program. The downfall of Fresno State was as predictable as sunrise and sunset, and I feel a bit sheepish describing it as emblematic of a sport's problems -- except that any institution (Fresno State or college basketball in general) that enables a guy like Tarkanian has serious shortcomings and deserves a public scolding. Georgia is only slightly better. Jim Harrick won a national title with UCLA, but was run out of the job because he lied to college administrators about misuse of his expense account. At Rhode Island, he was named in a sexual harassment suit that was settled out of court, and he is now being investigated by the school amid allegations that players had their grades changed and had received money from Harrick's staff and boosters. Earlier this week Harrick defended himself in a softball interview with ESPN's Dick Vitale, and two days later Georgia fired Harrick's son/assistant coach, Jim Harrick Jr. That firing suggests strongly that there is substance to allegations of academic fraud and payments to at least one Bulldogs player. Georgia places a higher premium on winning than most schools do, and the Bulldogs have done so without cheating. To sacrifice Harrick pére so early in the investigation is a very ominous sign. The St. Bonaventure situation is most disturbing of all. Not because the school's players decided to quit with two games left in the season and before the Atlantic-10 Tournament, although that's plenty sad. What's much worse is that a small university with a proud basketball history (See: Bob Lanier), but seemingly modest goals in the present, so thirsted for success (In what form? An occasional NCAA bid? An A-10 title) that it admitted a player so unqualified I'm not sure even Tarkanian would have accepted him. Center Jamil Terrell transferred to St. Bonaventure last from Coastal Georgia Community College in Brunswick, Ga. Terrell did not receive an associate's degree from the school, but rather a certificate in welding. It would be hilarious if it weren't so discouraging. Worst of all, not only did St. Bonaventure head coach Jan van Breda Kolff sign off on the transfer, but so did St. Bonaventure president Robert Wickenheiser. It's not news that people will cheat to win --whether it's to get into the NCAA Tournament or to make a bowl game. There's big money involved, and college sports are expensive. Schools fighting to lure top players can increase their profile by appearing on television. The temptations are many and always have been. What it is most disheartening here is that the NCAA and university presidents have redoubled efforts to clean up major sports in the last two decades. Even those of us who are close to college athletics on a regular basis like to believe that things are better than they were during in the outlaw '60s and '70s, when there were no rules about satisfactory degree progress and scarcely any academic minimums. In fact, it's possible that cheaters are simply more sophisticated. Big-time college sports are a daily hypocrisy awaiting exposure. Universities shouldn't be in the sports business, except with students qualified to attend the school and graduate from it. Yet we wear blinders because the product is so enthralling. It takes uncommon decency and honesty to run an honest, clean college sports program. As we approach March Madness, I wonder how many schools are doing it. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment. |
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