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NCAA: schools should sue
As clouds hover over the Michigan men's basketball program and elsewhere, NCAA is advocating taking players involved to court
Sunday, May, 23, 1999
By RICH THOMASELLI
NEWS SPORTS REPORTER
TThe NCAA is encouraging its member schools to get even if they lose money because their players break the rules and take money from boosters.
That scenario could apply at the University of Michigan if the FBI concludes that Ed Martin gave cash payments or cars to several former Wolverines, and the NCAA penalizes U-M.
"We have suggested to our institutions that they consider taking action against athletes that break the rules and infringe upon the institution," said Bill Saum, who oversees agents and gambling issues for the NCAA.
Only then, experts say, would another scandal produce enduring, positive ripple effects for college basketball.
"How many times have we seen a scandal come down, and everybody shakes their head and sits on their high horse, and then after a while it goes right back to the way it was? Too often," says Art Taylor, director of urban and youth studies for Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sports and Society, located in Boston.
"There's been scandal after scandal after scandal, and not much seems to change. It's hard for a school to go after one of its own, but maybe if it did, you might see some change."
College basketball has been hit again this spring by two storm clouds, both in the Big Ten. At Minnesota, claims of academic fraud in which term papers were allegedly written for players has put the Gopher program in the spotlight. And at Michigan, the FBI is interested in former U-M players' links to Martin, who is under investigation for his involvement in a gambling ring at Detroit-area Ford plants.
Scandals dot the history of college basketball, beginning with the City College of New York game-fixing episode in the early 1950s. Now, 40 years later, not much has changed. Two players from Northwestern were found guilty last summer of sports bribery charges for fixing basketball games.
But now there exists a new layer of behavior, along with the specter of gambling.
"What we've seen across the board is that what makes up ethical behavior is different from what we've seen 10-15 years ago," said Richard Lapchick, who heads up Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sports and Society.
Lapchick says that gambling scandals are rare compared to incidents of players taking money against NCAA rules. Point-shaving is "rarely at the crux of these things," he says, adding that the root of college basketball's problems may be more sociological.
"Kids are going to school whose families are poor, but the kid himself may or may not be so poor because other feeder institutions - and I'm not talking about high schools here - have been taking care of these kids for a long time," Taylor said. "(Street) agents take care of these kids, and then when colleges bring them in these kids are expecting a certain lifestyle. That's a problem that goes a little bit deeper."
That's why Taylor, among others, says he believes that all it would take is one school setting the precedent.
In the book "Bo," written by Bo Schembechler and Mitch Albom, the former University of Michigan football coach writes about his former defensive back, Garland Rivers.
Rivers and fullback Bob Perryman were two U-M players who took money from agents Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom in the mid-1980s before their eligibility expired - something Schembechler says he did not find out about until after the athletes had played their final season. The coach, who says he repeatedly warned Rivers about agents, calls the incident "the biggest off-field disappointment of my football career."
Walters and Bloom were eventually convicted in federal court on fraud charges.
Rivers, Schembechler wrote, was ordered by the courts to pay back his free tuition after he accepted money from the agents. But U-M itself did not pursue any legal action against Rivers. The NCAA would advocate doing so today, based on Saum's statements.
Through history, many players have walked away - to the pros or away from campus - unscathed. Coaches have walked away to new jobs unscathed. The program gets punished.
For every Rick Kuhn, there is a John "Hot Rod" Williams. Kuhn served two years in prison for his role in the Boston College point-shaving scandal in the 1970s. Williams was acquitted of charges of point-shaving at Tulane in the 1980s, but the school shut down the basketball program for four years nonetheless.
For every Jim Boeheim, there is an Eddie Sutton. Boeheim was, and is, the coach at Syracuse who had to pay the price when the Orangemen were deemed guilty by the NCAA of dealing with a street agent. Sutton was the coach in charge at Kentucky when the $1,000 Emory packet from an assistant coach to a recruit mysteriously opened. Kentucky was nailed with probation; Sutton went on to coach at Oklahoma State.
Saum says the coaches, the schools and even the NCAA must do a better job of educating the players about money that is available before they make a fateful decision.
"I don't think anyone wakes up one day and says, 'I'm going to change the outcome of the game tonight,'" Saum said. "So many poor decisions have been made that they get to the point where they feel there's no way out."
That's why, Saum said, student-athletes need to know about the NCAA's Needy Student Assistance Fund, a multi-million dollar account that helps needy athletes get a pair of glasses, or a jacket or a flight home, if need be.
Saum says they also should know about the federally funded Pell Grant. If athletes qualify financially for it, the grant goes along with scholarship money for room, board and tuition.
Still, Saum says, such awareness alone won't prevent scandals.
"At some point," he said, "it comes down to personal integrity. It comes down to agreeing to play by the rules."
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