Maybe I’m overreacting to this story, but given what a mistaken TMZ report about A. J. led to a year ago, maybe I’m not. A slight sense of concern seems appropriate.
Columbus police interviews conducted during an investigation of the Parks and Recreation Department reveal that director Tony Adams and top lieutenant Herman Porter may have jeopardized the amateur status of two University of Georgia athletes who played on the Georgia Blazers, their city-funded, Nike-sponsored AAU basketball team.
Police records show that an unauthorized bank account controlled by Adams and Porter was used to pay for flights to and from Los Angeles for Jarvis Jones, a two-sport star at Carver High School who played football for one season at the University of Southern California, and for the cell phone bill of the mother of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a five-star shooting guard from Greenville High School.
NCAA rules do not allow amateur sports organizations to provide expenses for athletes in excess of actual and necessary travel, room and board, apparel and equipment for competition and practice.
Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren said the NCAA was “aware of the investigation, allegations and actions of the individuals we had under investigation.”
Nobody has anything to say about it now, at least not publicly. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Get The Picture 
Once again, the stench of AAU athletics comes back around. If this is true, I have a feeling this will bad for the two players involved. If these happened while the kids were in high school, how are they supposed to know the NCAA’s handbook? If it happened after they signed with their schools, they and the parents should have known better.
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Stephens told police investigators that after Jones signed with USC in 2009, Adams used the Georgia Blazers’ credit card belonging to Porter to pay for four different flights between Atlanta and Los Angeles for her and Jones:
From Atlanta to Los Angeles on June 1 at a cost of $339.20.
From Atlanta to Los Angeles on June 17 at a cost of $144.60.
To Atlanta from Los Angeles on Sept. 17 at a cost of $175.00.
To Atlanta from Los Angeles on Oct. 9 at a cost of $169.60.
The total cost of the flights was $828.40.
Read more: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/06/26/1633786/scandal-puts-eligibility-of-caldwell.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#ixzz1QNudIgW7
So if he does get crap for this…it will not even be UGA’s fault in the slightest. Yet we will get to reap the benefits of having to sit a starter for 4 games(maybe we can consider the first 2 special and get him to play those 2 then sit out 4 after that like OSU got cause they are so sweet n nice). The only up side is that at least we are deep at LB, but still it would hurt as he should be one of out better LBs.
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Bun of a sitch muther frickin crap lickin geeeeeeeeze! Come on!
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I hope nothing comes of this. This is BS. It happened 2 years ago. It would not be fare to make him sit and punish UGA for something that happened 2 years ago. I hate the NCAA. What a joke they have become. We need this kid to play in a bad way.
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Shouldn’t this just affect his basketball elligibility?
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I’m with Spence on this one. I was under the impression that getting paid to play one sport would not effect your amateur status in another one.
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Absolutely, otherwise every ex-minor league baseball player would be ineligible. No Quincy Carter….no Aaron Murray’s brother (whose name escapes me)….there are countless other examples.
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Am I paranoid to suspect Auburn partisans behind this given it’s Columbus and the timing?
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Yep…
http://www.blogger.com/profile/00653266257744434147
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Gee what a surprise. From the Auburn beat writer
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If he played for Auburn this would be no big deal. The NCAA will probably suspend him for half the season. Glad to see the Columbus rags are lock step with the AJC when it come to the Dogs
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What a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, ****less, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol? Now I feel all better about this.
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Outstanding, Clark.
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Would of been ideal for this to come out last year. Suspend and redshift instead of just suspend
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Would of been ideal for this to come out last year. Suspend and REDSHIRT
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Wow – might not be good!
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the thing that worries me, apart from this situation with jarvis jones, is that the ncaa, capricious bitch that she is, is eventually going to hammer the shit out of one program just one time–unexpectedly and disproportionately–in an attempt to save some public face for itself. you just have to hope it’s not your program that blips up on the radar screen when this inevitability occurs.
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And they’ve already shown with AJ that they’re willing to punish us disproprotionately …
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May as well get ready for the NCAA to rule these AAU coaches to be official representatives of UGA, declare both players permanently ineligible, and hammer UGA with bowl and scholarship sanctions.
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Didn’t this happen when Jarvis Jones was playing football for Southern Cal? Why isn’t this a Southern Cal problem? The guy wasn’t a UGA athlete at the time. If they want to do something to a school add some sh!t to the Southern Cal penalties. As for Jarvis Jones and the University of Georgia—stonewall, drag it out and obfuscate (see Cam Newton and Auburn, 2010). If the NCAA tries to suspend Jones, everybody meet at the Clark County Courthouse for a restraining order and (later) a permanent injunction hearing.
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and anyway, didn’t jones play in enough games at sc as a freshman (where he was as the infractions occurred) to have a likely suspension retroactively covered there? that’s probably too obvious to be a likely outcome. if history is any guide, we’re going to get screwed.
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And we need to not just “take it” any more. If we push back–hard–then they will leave us alone.
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+1 He just needs to use the Cam defense that he had no knowledge where the tickets came from. After all the NCAA believes that ignorance is an absolute defense. This one should be easy unless UGA once again chooses to shoot itself in the foot with tough penalties just to show how damn nice we are.
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+100.
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Could he just sit out the bowl games… and then serve his penalty in 2012?
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I used to know Herman and Tony personally when I was living in Columbus. They’re good guys, and they’ve always been advocates for the kids served by Columbus Parks and Rec. That said, they should have known better than this crap. They’ve dealt with enough kids over the years getting scholarships to know the NCAA rules prohibit this kind of thing.
This won’t be a Georgia problem in the sense that we’ll get in institutional trouble over it, after all, it happened before these kids were involved with Georgia. In fact, with Jarvis, it apparently happened while he was involved with Southern Cal. However, it’s going to be a Georgia problem in the sense that we’ll likely be without Jarvis Jones in some football games where we need to have him.
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At the risk of repeating myself, that is why we delay the thing as long as possible rather than follow the AJ Green model of rolling over and playing dead.
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Exactly how can Georgia delay the investigation of something to which it played no part, Mayor? If the kids aren’t made available to NCAA investigators, they’ll simply be declared ineligible. And none of the other parties involved have ties to the school.
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First of all I am only talking about Jarvis Jones’ situation, not the basketball players. If/when the NCAA tries to impose some sort of game suspension penalty against Jones we follow the Auburn model and immediately administratively appeal and under no circumstances hold Jarvis Jones out of any games voluntarily (particularly the first two). Jones’ defense is that the AAU officials did it and he didn’t know anything about it. When your coaches/administrators who are in a position to influence a kid are the ones who either didn’t know the rules or didn’t care then I think a 19 year old kid is in good position to avoid an individual penalty. At minimum make the “extenuating circumstances outweighs the letter of the rule” argument (see Newton, Cameron–2010). If the sh!t hits the fan, see the NCAA at the courthouse. The argument is disparate treatment and selective enforcement pointing to Auburn 2010 and tOSU Sugar Bowl participation. Let’s see if the NCAA can vacate any wins that were gotten with a player who played with a court order in place allowing him to play. What not to do: Kiss ass and hope that the NCAA will be kind. The bastards still remember the TV lawsuit that made them TV eunuchs. They are still pissed about that and also scared at the same time that litigation, if it goes against them, will undermine further any semblance of authority that worthless organization still has.
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Also, how in the hell is it the Columbus Police Chief’s place to communicate with the NCAA about this sort of thing in any way, shape, or form?! Does he have Auburn season tickets?
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He’s Cam’s godfather.
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“I had no idea the AAU guy paid for the ticket. They told me my parents paid for it.” If Newton can get off, Jarvis can get off.
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