Beech Tree News Network

Corruption Junction, what’s your function? Schoolhouse Rock reference aside, college sports has quite the sticky issue on their hands.  Don’t be fooled into thinking the Louisville Cardinals are the only university playing fast and loose with the rules.  And yes, I realize the irony of the words “fast” and “loose” in a prostitution issue. 
Louisville fired Rick Pitino with “just cause” amid FBI investigation.  Of course, Rick says there’s “no cause” for Louisville to fire him.  Really? I could go off on that but will refrain.  Before you think this is a Louisville bashing column, allow me to bring up some other schools who are, let’s face it, still skating by on reputation. 
The North Carolina Tar Heels have gotten themselves into quite the academic scandal.  Their academic fraud scandal is pretty lengthy.  The Af-Am program at UNC might have been egregious, but regulating it would’ve meant checking in on every “Rocks for Jocks” course and on every strange major at every institution.  By the way, those courses exist at every institution.  They are just more careful about it than UNC.
The NCAA wasn’t designed to do this.  They don’t want more responsibility.  It was designed to police the athletics portion only.  Many believe they can’t even do that correctly.  The phrase “fumblin’, bumblin’, stumblin’” comes to mind when describing the NCAA. 
The scariest thing about this, aside from, you know, the actual evilness and smugness of “let’s break federal laws, is the realization that no school is immune here.  That’s especially true when shoe companies are involved.  If Nike gets popped, loads more schools will face sanctions.  This will not be pretty for a lot of universities, coaches, administrators, etc.  This will not be pretty for the NCAA.  Things have to change.  The NCAA may have no choice but to change.  Anytime the acronyms “FBI” is uttered, people get nervous, and big things happen.  I can think of some more schools who may want to hold their breath: Kansas, Kentucky, pretty much any big-time college program as well as some smaller ones. We certainly haven’t seen nor heard or read the last of this issue.