Let’s face it: Miami is toast, at least for a while. There’s going to be a cloud hanging over the program for a few years. That goes for the coaches and administrators named in the Yahoo! story, too.
But that’s not the big issue here. Matt Hinton nails that one:
It’s also a test of the NCAA’s mettle: Just how far is it willing to go to continue to enforce the facade of “amateurism”? In the most extreme, unabashed affront to its most fundamental premise — hell, to its very existence — in 25 years, where does it draw the line?
I don’t know the answer, and I doubt anyone will for a long time. The NCAA process is well underway, and it’s response is going to be the usual long, protracted exercise in bureaucratic tooth-pulling, spanning many months and many bureaucratic steps and probably an appeal or two in the name of giving Miami its due process. At no point in that span will I write that Miami is going to get the death penalty, or that it should get the death penalty. Frankly, I don’t have an opinion.
But if the death penalty is in the bylaws, it must be on the table here. Practically speaking, if this isn’t a death penalty case, then the death penalty no longer exists.
Ignorance of goings-on isn’t likely to fly as a defense here. Especially with pictures like this surfacing.
Per Yahoo!, "Nevin Shapiro said this photo was taken during a basketball fundraiser in 2008, in which the booster donated $50,000 to the program. From left to right are men’s basketball coach Frank Haith, Shapiro and University of Miami president Donna Shalala. Shalala is holding Shapiro’s donation check. "
She looks so damned pleased there, doesn’t she?
It’s Mark Emmert’s worst nightmare.
Get The Picture 
Could not agree more-The death penalty should be discussed here. It’s time
LikeLike
If this isn’t a death penalty case, what is? I have nothing against Miami, but reading that Yahoo! Sports article made me mad.
LikeLike
So I guess Miami will not be the 14th member of the SEC….
LikeLike
Hated seeing orson charles’ name in that article, even if he did nothing wrong. “toast” is a good way to describe The U right now…
LikeLike
The sad part is that during that eight years of illegal benefits, they sucked. He should be suing the Athletic Director. He didn’t get his money’s worth.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
The NCAA could absolutely obliterate the Hurricane’s program, and few outside of it’s booster base would complain. Fairly or not, UM has never escaped its “Thug U” image, and this certainly isn’t going to help.
LikeLike
This is how bad this my be: when I read the story, I kept thinking “this guy Nevin (Navin?) is making this stuff up to make himself seem like a big deal”. Problem with that line of thought, though, is that most of it appears to be corroborated. Hoo, boy.
LikeLike
Was I the only one wondering why Bruce Pearl was in the photo (and wearing capri’s) until reading the caption?
If UM gets the death penalty I will be absolutely stunned. It’s not because they don’t deserve it rather the NCAA doesn’t have the backbone to do it.
LikeLike
Yeah, if they don’t get it for all of that then nobody’s ever getting it again.
LikeLike
Rick, your post is one of the alltime funniest I’ve seen – there is an almost eerie resemblance to Pearl …
Reminds me of when Damon’s girlfriend was revealed to bear an uncanny similarity to Joakim Noah ….
LikeLike
I don’t think anyone will ever get it again. Bammer would have if they still had the balls to do it.
LikeLike
The lesson here is that you’d better keep your rogue boosters happy, if you’ve got any shady folks hovering around your program. If this doesn’t give athletic departments motivation to clean up, I don’t know what would. I mean, the perfect crime in NCAA sports is just to have a booster with deep pockets who pays cash on the sly. The NCAA has no power to investigate that. And, in theory, nobody’s ever going to be the wiser about it as long as the player and the booster both stay quiet. In the past, the only problems with that arrangement have come from the players feeling abandoned or having some sort of axe to grind, and then outing the school. Now, we’ve got a booster who all of a sudden gets his feelings hurt that players or administrators aren’t visiting him in jail, and now he wants to out himself to the NCAA? I bet that sort of situation is pretty chilling to a lot of programs.
That said, I don’t think that anyone’s ever going to get the death penalty again. And, if it did happen, I think it would have to be a case where you can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that everyone in the university leadership knew what was going on and signed off on it. The scorched earth at SMU went further than I think the NCAA intended. Then again, maybe it’s time for another cautionary tale.
LikeLike
What better team to set an example with than a “big name,” but one that doesn’t factor into anything important?
LikeLike
Yeah, unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t see how this should result in anything less than the death penalty. And I think the NCAA has basically forced its own hand with all this “cracking down” talk.
LikeLike
“Shapiro and University of Miami president Donna Shalala. Shalala is holding Shapiro’s donation check. ”
I blame Bill Clinton. Donna “I was known for doing a certain thing that many of the other girls wouldn’t do.” — Michele Bachmann Laurie Bohner, “A Mighty Wind,” Shalala and her capris have some board work to do now
http://www.addletters.com/pictures/bart-simpson-generator/1540825.htm
LikeLike
Yeah, but Michele is still decent enough to lead a “Happy Birthday!” cheer for Elvis yesterday when they were commemorating his death.
LikeLike
She knows how to celebrate but I worry that the migraines cause interference with her gaydar, even when she’s got a bogey right on her six,
and impair her ability to remember important things like the day Elvis left the building,
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/2011/08/16/happy-birthday-deathday-elvis/
despite the oversized skull
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/08/voice-of-empire-ctd_14.html
LikeLike
Sebastian the Ibis may be the “bagman”…
LikeLike
Give Shalala a break, folks!
Donna’s just double-checking the number of zeros.
LikeLike
Well, now perhaps ESPN won’t keep running that 30 for 30 movie about the U and their self glorification every other day. “Hey,It’s all about the U baby!”
LikeLike
That did become offensive. Never watched it, but anytime you went by the network they seemed to be advertising it or showing it. Wonder what they are showing now? The Cam Newton/Ohio St story?
LikeLike
If Miami gets the death penalty in football, what happens to the ACC Football Championship Game. NCAA rules only allow for a championship game if you have 12 or more teams and split into divisions.
LikeLike
ACC championship? What is this thing you speak of? Anyone attend it?
LikeLike
If a tree falls in the woods….
LikeLike
One thing I’ve learned from watching the NCAA and its investigative resources is it is almost like the Almighty…it works in mysterious ways.
You have to wonder how universities and boards select a president. Everytime you saw a picture of Donna Shalala, that thought had to cross your mind. Perhaps remininiscence about our own university president and his association with the former football coach before CMR came on board. In all one can never tell what goes on beyond the classroom, the practice field, and the stadium with players, coaches, and administrators. Was Shapiro a registered agent? Perhaps Cam Newton can shed some light on that. And did MSU receive a sanction because they were approached by an agent of a player? With regard to Orson Charles, a minor, I do not see how the UGA will be impacted by this. But I damn glad for red panties now.
LikeLike
Looking at the pic. You can see Donna thinking, man this is a big check, I should have joined Fannie and Freddie Mac like most other Democrat big wigs and got these kinds of checks defrauding the American people, in the form of bonuses.
LikeLike
Except that was happening during Bush’s tenure. Most people overlook that Tarp was signed by Bush before leaving office. And why not, it all went to crap on his watch.
LikeLike
Don’t forget the Bush Administration wanted to reign that in, but of course, Barney Frank, whose lover also worked there put a stop to that.
Saying it would hurt minorities, not that he was worried about minorities, just helping his boy toy keep his job.
LikeLike
You give way too much power to Barney’s boyfriend to think that he could stop the Deciderer from doing anything.
MORGENSON: The partnership offices were set up by Fannie Mae across the country to spread the word about [the] good deeds that it did. Now, Newt Gingrich was there on the scene at one of these ribbon-cutting ceremonies in Atlanta. We had of course one incidence where Barney Frank actually helped his partner get a job at Fannie Mae, Herb Moses who was just a graduate of B School out of Amos Tuck in Dartmouth. He was…The red carpet was rolled out for him at Fannie Mae because of course Fannie Mae knew they would have a favor that they could call in because of this hiring. This was the shrewdness of Fannie Mae under Jim Johnson. This was the you know, calculating idea of understanding how Washington worked and how to really profit by it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2011/07/joseph-stiglitz-barney-frank-r.html
“The revelation of Frank’s ex-partner’s job application, made in a new book by New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson, suggests a certain coziness to the relationship between Frank and Fannie Mae, if not necessarily an exchange of favors….
On Tuesday, the GOP-controlled House Financial Services Committee voted along party lines to delay by 15 months the implementation of rules authorizing federal regulation of derivatives. The new rules, part of last year’s Dodd-Frank bill, were intended to bring needed transparency to derivative trading. Among other things, the rules would keep traders from operating solely on credit — that is, from buying murky securities with vast quantities of borrowed money.
So while Republicans happily invoke Frank as a foil for the failures of Fannie Mae, they quietly strip away new regulations on their own allies in the private financial-services market. Frank’s lack of oversight — of Fannie, and of his own closeness to the agency — shouldn’t distract from more overt lapses in oversight by the House GOP.”
http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-28/bostonglobe/29600991_1_fannie-mae-freddie-mac-dodd-frank-bill
LikeLike
Down goes Barney!
LikeLike
Surely you are not telling me that they were not lying about the profits? Or the fact that ex-high ranking democrat officials got cushy jobs there that paid well. With bonuses attributed to the bad numbers. If it had been an Enron, most Democrats would have been screaming for their heads, but since it was just the tax payer defrauded, who cares right.
LikeLike
Like a George Will?
“George Will Spreads Some Lies About the Economic Crisis”
“However, George Will and Co. are determined to blame this disaster on government “compassion” for low-income families.”
The facts that Will musters to make this case are so obviously off-base that this sort of column would not appear in a serious newspaper. But, Will writes for the Washington Post….
In other words, the private issuers were very clearly the big actors and Fannie and Freddie were jumping in as a business decision to preserve market share. In other words, it was profit, not government compassion that drove this bubble.
Just to be clear, Fannie and Freddie were horrible actors in this story. I criticized them throughout this period and raised the possibility of these two mortgage giants being sunk by the bubble as early as 2002. Housing is all they do, how could they have totally missed the largest housing bubble in the history of the world?”
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/george-will-spreads-some-lies-about-the-economic-crisis
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/07/reckless-endangerment-of-the-truth.html
http://real-estate-and-urban.blogspot.com/2011/07/mark-thoma-and-dean-baker-are-correct.html
LikeLike
People usually “miss” bubbles because that’s the nature of bubbles. They represent a misallocation of resources, an over-investment of capital into projects that are not actually sustainable, but which APPEAR to be sustainable due to present misleading economic conditions (in particular, artificially low interest rates, but there are other theories as well though I side with that “Austrian school” explanation). The whole point is that the bubble-investments look like good investments. To whatever extent some people do smell a rat, they are faced with the choice of following along with their competitors or getting left behind. Bubbles are bad news, but to individual investors making decisions within the bubble economy itself, they are nearly impossible to discern.
Economically-savvy people can do a “step back” approach and blow the whistle that something ain’t right, but that’s still a far cry from actually outlining any kind of concrete alternative investment plan for those investors who might want to listen.
And now I say simply, google Ron Paul’s comments in 2003 about the housing bubble. Some people do see it clearly, but nobody listens. Even when they’re proven right, it seems.
We tend to try too hard to blame the crisis on one special culprit, or a select cabal of a few culprits (so, Rush Limbaugh and George Will want to rail against the Community Reinvestment Act and against Freddie and Fannie’s low-interest loans to the poor, while progressives want to rail against “greedy” investors). It is, as usual, a combination of factors. If I was looking for the biggest culprits, though, I would look at those who “run” the monetary system itself. (i.e., the Federal Reserve system) That’s where artificial credit and expansionary money comes from, which is what makes everything look profitable even when it’s not and which puts all individual decision-makers in a hopelessly confused position. Along the way, lots of other folks do their part to contribute to the impending disaster, including government bureaucracies, government-supported organizations (like Freddie and Fannie), and corporations in the industries most directly fueled by the expanded credit.
Just my opinion, of course. 🙂
LikeLike
Greenspan is shocked!
LikeLike
You really need to read the link furnished by Dog in Fla. Entirely and with an open mind for truth.
LikeLike
Guys, I am not blaming Fannie and Freddie of causing the housing bubble. I never said that, I was just talking about her looking at that check and how a lot of the ex-Clinton Democrat staffers ended up there. Making huge salaries with huge bonuses all based on Enron style accounting. Lies basically. I could care less about how it was managed, other than it taking tax dollars that could be used elsewhere to cover their asses and not taking anything from the people at the top reaping huge monies.
Read what I wrote, never blamed anyone. You guys brought that into the conversation, because by god, can not ever blame anything on Democrats.
Me I am conservative who for 2 years before 2006 sent emails to our representatives asking them to reign in the F’ing spending. Telling them they were going to get their butts kicked come the 2006 election if they did not.
Again, not blaming the housing situation on them, they had a hand in it, backing a bunch of loans that were overvalued made by people who should not have had loans to begin with.
TBH, the real reason the housing bubble happened is because Europe is not having enough children and that money that would normally be invested in Europe for houses, small businesses had to flow somewhere and that somewhere was America were people are still having kids.
Heck it was the Real Estate bubble in the late 80’s that helped Japan into the lost Decade. All that extra capital floating around Japan had to be invested somewhere, where? America, causing a bubble.
Money is worthless setting in a mattress or in a safety deposit box. When it is in a bank, it will be loaned and when there is excess cash bubbles form. That is my two cents.
LikeLike
“I never said that, I was just talking about her looking at that check and how a lot of the ex-Clinton Democrat staffers ended up there. Making huge salaries with huge bonuses”
Oh
LikeLike
James- It’s the fiscal blame that you put on the Clintonites that I take issue with. Clinton came before the country and had a dog and pony show on the state of the economy just before leaving office and there wasn’t a dissenting peep made in the country. He showed the 500 billion surplus and how it came about. It’s also little appreciated that we were 11/2 trillion down before 9/11.
So these people associated with the Clinton Admin should be viewed as fiscal conservatives for the country to be in high cotton plus a surpus when they left office. How do you get otherwise about their fiscal responsibility history?
LikeLike
I refuse to go to a link with the intro “down goes Barney”!
LikeLike
You’re just shy about your cartoon characters, aren’t you Mike? Purple with a triangle symbol has not been found to be gay linked except if you don’t like gays, but then, how would you know?
LikeLike
that’s a perfectly safe for work, corndog-free, link
LikeLike
I feel badly for the University of Miami. This sleaze was a legitimate realtor before he started the Ponzi Scheme. Having a legitimate businessman to contribute is what we all want because it benefits the school at large. Because he chose to make underhanded payments/gifts to basketball and football players outside of legitimate gift-giving is a ruse that not many Universities can get around if no players complain. Why would you look? Who complained or drew attention to the jerk.?
What gets me is that all universities are wide open for this activity. The ball players approched have no reason to open their mouth when approached. If they take, then certainly they won’t literally bite the hand that feeds them. It shakes me that we are open for this at UGA unless players invoke a buddy system or have “minders”. Wide open.
Would any of you feel as if you can vet info from players on a volunteer basis? Would you want to for fear that info would be divulged that calls for Compliance to be notified? I, like most of you, don’t want to know. This jerk parked himself in front of players, waving money, knowing full well what he was doing and what the consequences were. He didn’t give a shit about the school, it’s reputation. It was all him and how little he must have thought of himself to buy adulation from needy individuals. Of course some of the recipients could be like Lee Trevino who stated that the day he went pro, he had to take a cut in pay.
The idea that a sleaze-ball in sheep’s clothing with regard to the U could ruin individuals, the University and the Sports he proclaimed love for, is obnoxious. The fact that he is confessing out of revenge for no one loving him for what he did is absurd. The god-like position these pariahs wish to buy into exists only in their minds. And if such an individual can place himself between your university, the players and the NCAA so easily……. should give everyone pause.
That any of these hyper-crook egotists can bring down your University through sports payoffs rattles us to the core. That you know of these things in other programs in proximity to UGA should make your skin crawl because you’re powerless to stop it.
LikeLike
I would feel worse for Miami if at least some members of the institution didn’t appear to be involved with his shenanigans.
LikeLike
Who could have possibly known that Navin was just following the South Florida Ponzi scheme checklist to donate other peoples’ money?
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2010/09/13/daily39.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2011/08/the-nevin-shapiro-scott-rothstein.html?page=all
LikeLike
The irony of the whole thing is that the head of NCAA’s Infraction Committee and the guy that screwed USC over Bush is the former AD of the U during the time in question. Cowherd played his statement about USC and it was karma looking for a butt to kick. He said that USC should have known that it was happening and USC had a duty to watch it’s high profile guys for signs that it was happening. This guy will soon be out of his NCAA job and USC has got to be thinking how it feels to be F’ed by a total and complete hypocrite.
The U being a private school would be the perfect candidate for the death penalty. USC was a little too high profiled with great history, the U has always been a pain in the NCAA’s backside. 1995 SI had an article calling for the U to drop football because it was by far the “dirtiest program in college football”. I say the NCAA drops the hammer.
LikeLike
I don’t give two shits about Miami. However, I do care that this will directly benefit our most bitter rival, Florida. It could benefit UGA if Richt and Co. make an effort to capitalize on the opportunity. Every school in the country would love access to that fertile recruiting ground – UCF, USF, and some smaller schools will get their share but Florida and FSU are the obvious winners here.
LikeLike
Couldn’t agree with you more and that was one of my first thoughts when the story broke. We needed for both FSU and Miami to come back to spread out the talent pool.
You’re right though, UGA could benefit if the effort is made. But, I can just hear the DawgVent now the first time a top Georgia recruit slips past us, “We need to recruit the State of Georgia!” I agree, but the Southern third of Florida generally has two to three times as many top recruits as the State of Georgia in its entirety. It comes down to population. More people, more of a chance to grow a good athlete.
LikeLike
That’s where we harvest our placekickers from. Plus, since Lane got promoted, Pahokee is an open town.
LikeLike
Excellent! Now if we could just find a kicker who can consistently kick a 97 yard field goal, we could score every time we touched the ball.
LikeLike
Dog in Fla- It is so much funnier reviewing comments the next day. Now that remark was funny. Does that mean the “Glades” is open also what with the mosquito-borne infestation of AIDs and all that?
Man, Oh Man! Pahokee! An open town!
LikeLike
Looking at pictures of this guy, I am still amazed he was able to set up a 930 million dollar ponzi scheme. I wouldn’t give that cheese dick a dime.
LikeLike
Pingback: Time to Play Catch Up | Football Problem