Until next year, old friend
The past week in collegiate athletics has been a busy one: From the Final Four to multiple reactions surrounding Louisville guard Kevin Ware injury, there have been more than a few news stories. Here are some of the stories you didn’t hear about:
Pac-12 officiating investigation
Before the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament in March, the conference’s coordinator of officials, Ed Rush, met with his employed refs scheduled to officiate the games and “jokingly” told them to target Arizona coach Sean Miller. I say “jokingly” because that’s what Rush claims. Tell that to Miller, who received his first technical foul of the season during Arizona’s loss in the tournament’s semifinal game for arguing a call that was wrong, according to video replay.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement that both the officials in the meeting and Rush knew the comment was a joke, and took it as that. However, the fact still remains that Miller received his only technical foul call for an argument that, according to Miller, included the sole words of, “He touched the ball,” referring to a defender stripping the ball from Arizona guard Mark Lyons’ possession – leading to a double dribble call.
Furthermore, in an interview on ESPN’s SVP & Russillo radio show, Scott claimed that Rush’s comments and actions were not fireable offenses. Thus Scott still has a job, albeit as the boss of the officials who ref the same games that Miller will coach in next season and years to come. In my opinion, this is a situation that shouldn’t exist if the NCAA wants a fair outcome in Arizona conference games in the future. The results of the games, and subsequent calls, will forever be in question as long as Rush has a job with the conference.
Verdict: Fire Ed Rush. Luckily, no one even had to do that. He resigned Thursday night.
Rutgers coach abuses his players
Back in December, Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice was suspended for three games with an accompanying $50,000 fine for his actions involving his players at practice. This week, the videos of these inappropriate actions were obtained by ESPN’s Outside the Lines and made public to the world. Rice can be seen hurling basketballs at his players’ feet, heads and legs; shoving and grabbing his players; kicking them; and screaming obscenities and homophobic slurs.
Now, to the Rutgers administrators’ credit, Rice was fired Wednesday for the aforementioned actions. However, this wasn’t a new story. This was video from earlier in the season before Rice was suspended in December. It’s impossible for those Rutgers administrators not to have seen the video footage months ago, before making their initial decision to keep him onboard as head coach. Yet now that the video has been made public, Rice was fired for “new developments,” according to Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti.
This case relates directly to the past and ongoing investigations of Penn State and former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s actions. The Penn State Board of Trustees fired the head coach, athletic director and president of the school after it was determined that Sandusky’s crimes were covered up by those aforementioned individuals. The current Rutgers case should be treated in the same manner. In December, the Rutgers administration dealt with Rice’s actions differently than now – after the video was made public and people called for the coach’s job.
Verdict: Fire Rutgers AD Pernetti and Rutgers President Robert L. Barchi
Auburn football’s National Championship is tarnished
In a report by Selena Roberts, a former New York Times and current Sports Illustrated writer, Auburn’s football program changed players’ grades to secure eligibility, offered money to potential NFL draft picks so they would return for their senior seasons, and violated NCAA recruiting rules under former head coach Gene Chizik.
Now, take all of that in, and ask yourself, “Doesn’t this sound familiar?” Well, yes it does. There’s the USC scandal that saw stars Reggie Bush (football) and O.J. Mayo (basketball) accepting various gifts from agents. The punishment? The football program was forced to vacate its 2004 national championship title and all of its wins in 2005, in addition to Bush voluntarily giving up his 2005 Heisman Trophy. Then there’s Ohio State football that saw numerous players accepting $14,000 in cash and tattoos for jerseys, rings and other Buckeyes memorabilia. Their punishment? A one-year bowl ban, among other suspensions, that just so happened to come the same year that the team goes undefeated.
According to our country’s judicial system, precedent takes priority in most cases. If this report is true about Auburn football during their national championship season in 2011, the punishment to the team and its players should be implemented in a similar fashion.
Verdict: Vacate all wins and 2011 BCS National Championship title, Strip Cam Newton of his 2011 Heisman Trophy
With all this being said, what are the chances anyone listens to me? Slim to none, considering I’m a sophomore at a school with thousands of students in a mediated society where everyone’s opinion is considered uninformative and stupid. People look to the headliners of sports journalism to call for people’s jobs and for a crucial punishment. Yes, there are well-respected journalists doing just that, but the fact remains that my verdicts mentioned above haven’t happened yet. Call me overly critical and uneducated for my claims, or just call me right for referring to precedent and the obvious.
