Miami's dirty? Let's take a look at O$U
Question for Dr. Karen Holbrook, president of The Ohio State University, in light of this week's ESPN the Magazine report about alleged improprieties involving Maurice Clarett and the Buckeyes' football program: When will enough be enough? When will you heed Brand's directive, step in and do something about an athletic department that continues to bring more shame and embarrassment to your otherwise reputable university than any glory it may have achieved on the playing field?
Whether or not you believe Clarett's tale of cash-wielding boosters and free-wheeling car dealers -- the guy's credibility is more than a little suspect -- I can only presume that someone like you, Dr. Holbrook, who's devoted her life to the pursuit of higher learning, would be more incensed by some of ESPN's other findings.
In addition to Clarett, four other former players describe being steered by academic advisers to the easiest possible courses with the football-friendliest professors. One, ex-cornerback Curtis Crosby, left OSU in '02 and tried transferring to Grambling only to find out half his credits, which included courses called Officiating Basketball and Officiating Tennis, would be denied. "What are they doing up there at Ohio State?" he says a Grambling adviser asked him. Former running back Sammy Maldonado showed up at Maryland in '02 with a transcript that included four credits for playing football, three for Issues Affecting Student Athletes, 10 for remedial reading, 10 for remedial math and three for Jim Tressel's Coaching Football class.
The men's basketball program is under investigation by the NCAA for major rules violations, including head coach Jim O'Brien giving a recruit $6,000 (to which he admitted and was subsequently fired). Amongst the other allegations: Boosters lavishing former player Boban Savovic with gifts, including air fare to Hawaii (the booster in question, Kim Roslovic, admitted to such in a deposition) and professors changing Savovic's grades to keep him eligible.
Fourteen football players have been arrested since '01. Several of the charges were for petty crimes, but others included assault, felony drug abuse, possession of a concealed weapon, theft and lying to police.
Several current and former faculty members have alleged special treatment of athletes. "They're told exactly which courses are easy. They get every possible break," Marilyn Blackwell, professor of Germanic languages, told The Associated Press. The school conducted an investigation last December and found no instances of wrongdoing, prompting you, Dr. Holbrook, to declare, "We have no systematic problems in the way we work with our student-athletes."
Tell me my friend, what hides these scandals from becoming HUGE stories? It's simple, W-I-N-S. Did Miami flash into the spotlight suddenly again in the past few years because we suddenly began recruiting the top thugs in the South? Nope, we weren't an elite team anymore. There were plenty of instances of trouble during the dominating years between 1999-2003, but they were swept under the cover of WINNING. Look at Ohio St. right now, how much attention has been brought towards these problems and investigations? How much attention was brought to USC when Reggie Bush was accused of taking money and housing? Not much towards the school because they were WINNING. If you think Miami is running a crooked program below all the other major schools around the nation, you're wrong. It can be shown for almost any school, but why not show the #1 football and basketball university in the nation, right down the road...is their program clean? I'd say about as clean as licking Kami's bathroom floor on a Friday night...
