Please forgive me if this has already been posted, but I really enjoyed reading Sean Keeler's blog about the Lucca Staiger situation. Here's what he had to say:
ISU basketball: Hypocrisy is spelled with four letters — NCAA
And the stuffed shirts in Indianapolis wonder why folks roll their eyes when the NCAA hops on the high horse and starts lecturing about integrity. It’s hard to take an organization seriously that allows Kelvin Sampson to roam wild through its halls but wants to keep Lucca Staiger out of the party.
The Register’s Rick Brown reported this morning that Staiger, a freshman guard from Baulstein, Germany, has been declared ineligible by the NCAA, pending appeal.
According to the story, the German club Staiger played for — considered by that country’s government to be a non-profit, amateur entity — was recently considered professional because of the compensation received by two of his teammates.
Again, not because of anything Staiger did or didn’t do. Because his club team essentially hired two ringers, the kid suddenly became classified as a ‘pro’ player.
Which begs the question: So how is that any different than what’s alleged to have been happening at Duke the last, say, 18 years?
By that logic, anyone who played with Reggie Bush at Southern California should be considered ineligible immediately. According to an investigative report by Yahoo.com Sports, Bush, now a star running back with the New Orleans Saints, and his family allegedly received a slew of ‘extracirricular’ benefits while he was playing for the Trojans.
And how is a repeat offender such as Sampson still allowed to coach in the college game, let alone at a hallowed program such as Indiana’s? While working at his previous job, at the University of Oklahoma, an investigation found that he made 577 impermissible phone calls while coaching the Sooners. The Hoosiers, of course, knew this, and picked him over Steve Alford anyway.
In May 2006, the NCAA prohibited Sampson from calling recruits and make off-campus recruiting trips for a year. So what happens in Bloomington? You got it. An assistant coach hooks Sampson up by phone to recruits via three-way calls.
While that sounds like a clever and technically viable way to get around the rules, it turns out our man Kelvin was banned from making three-way calls, too. And here’s the kicker: It didn’t happen just once. According to a university investigation, there were 10 such calls. Which, given how schools report their own attendance numbers, means it was probably closer to 40 or 50.
Indiana lost a scholarship. Sampson got slapped on the wrist. Meanwhile, Staiger, apparently an unknowing and unwilling accomplice to a crime he had no intention of committing, remains in limbo. When it comes to college sports, hypocrisy is a four-letter word. One that starts with the letter ‘N.’
ISU basketball: Hypocrisy is spelled with four letters — NCAA
And the stuffed shirts in Indianapolis wonder why folks roll their eyes when the NCAA hops on the high horse and starts lecturing about integrity. It’s hard to take an organization seriously that allows Kelvin Sampson to roam wild through its halls but wants to keep Lucca Staiger out of the party.
The Register’s Rick Brown reported this morning that Staiger, a freshman guard from Baulstein, Germany, has been declared ineligible by the NCAA, pending appeal.
According to the story, the German club Staiger played for — considered by that country’s government to be a non-profit, amateur entity — was recently considered professional because of the compensation received by two of his teammates.
Again, not because of anything Staiger did or didn’t do. Because his club team essentially hired two ringers, the kid suddenly became classified as a ‘pro’ player.
Which begs the question: So how is that any different than what’s alleged to have been happening at Duke the last, say, 18 years?
By that logic, anyone who played with Reggie Bush at Southern California should be considered ineligible immediately. According to an investigative report by Yahoo.com Sports, Bush, now a star running back with the New Orleans Saints, and his family allegedly received a slew of ‘extracirricular’ benefits while he was playing for the Trojans.
And how is a repeat offender such as Sampson still allowed to coach in the college game, let alone at a hallowed program such as Indiana’s? While working at his previous job, at the University of Oklahoma, an investigation found that he made 577 impermissible phone calls while coaching the Sooners. The Hoosiers, of course, knew this, and picked him over Steve Alford anyway.
In May 2006, the NCAA prohibited Sampson from calling recruits and make off-campus recruiting trips for a year. So what happens in Bloomington? You got it. An assistant coach hooks Sampson up by phone to recruits via three-way calls.
While that sounds like a clever and technically viable way to get around the rules, it turns out our man Kelvin was banned from making three-way calls, too. And here’s the kicker: It didn’t happen just once. According to a university investigation, there were 10 such calls. Which, given how schools report their own attendance numbers, means it was probably closer to 40 or 50.
Indiana lost a scholarship. Sampson got slapped on the wrist. Meanwhile, Staiger, apparently an unknowing and unwilling accomplice to a crime he had no intention of committing, remains in limbo. When it comes to college sports, hypocrisy is a four-letter word. One that starts with the letter ‘N.’
