Yet another poor schlump becomes a speed bump
 July 13, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Gregg your opinion!
 
Ohio State has until July 26 to respond to NCAA allegations of improprieties under former basketball coach Jim O'Brien, but July 26 is not just a deadline. It's a detail.
See, the meat of this story has already been written. It was written at Purdue, Auburn and Missouri, and the formula never changes:
Identify a plausibly culpable assistant coach. Back up the bus. Run him over. Repeat, until the NCAA is satisfied.
At Ohio State, that assistant was Paul Biancardi, now the head coach at Wright State. The NCAA already has left tire marks on Biancardi's back, and on July 26, the Buckeyes will finish him off.
In its May 16 notice to Ohio State, the NCAA labeled Biancardi as the Buckeyes' primary offender. Ohio State will agree, possibly for self-serving reasons. Even though the Buckeyes fired O'Brien in June 2004, it's not in their best interests to find more dirt on O'Brien because -- if such dirt exists -- that would leave OSU vulnerable to double jeopardy: violations and the dreaded "lack of institutional control."
Better to paint someone else -- Biancardi -- as the bad guy and move on. Whether it's true won't matter. Biancardi's career will effectively be finished.
"There's precedent in these cases that a school will throw an assistant coach under the bus to avoid 'lack of institutional control' charges," said Biancardi's lawyer, Jim Zeszutek, who said he can't comment specifically on an ongoing NCAA investigation.
"An often-used argument of a school to the NCAA is that, although under NCAA terms there may have been a lack of institutional control, 'We've done everything we can to clear our name -- don't hold us out of the postseason, don't take us off TV and make us lose money.'"
This investigation isn't necessarily about finding the truth. It's about assessing blame -- and assessing it in a way that minimizes the damage to O'Brien, and therefore to Ohio State. If an assistant coach has to go down, so be it.
"I hate to say this, but assistant coaches are expendable," said Montgomery, Ala., attorney Donald Jackson, who has represented a number of coaches before the NCAA. "They get mulched up in the system. I once had a compliance director at a school -- and this was for football, not basketball -- tell me, 'Look, if anyone goes down, it's not going to be our head coach.'"
Officials at Wright State, Ohio State and the NCAA cannot talk about the investigation, but if you were wondering which way the wind was blowing, HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel made it clear. Last month, HBO did a lengthy segment on the OSU scandal without mentioning O'Brien's name or showing his face. The bad guy, according to HBO? Paul Biancardi.
It's hard to say who should be happier about that, O'Brien or Ohio State. The school already fell on the sword once because of O'Brien, removing itself from 2005 postseason consideration. Protecting him now is the best way to insulate the current staff and players -- who had nothing to do with the allegations -- from additional sanctions.
Protecting this innocent OSU regime is the right thing to do. Sacrificing Biancardi is the wrong way to do it, unless he's as guilty as Kathleen Salyers says he is.
Salyers is the infamous ex-nanny who started this mess by seeking repayment for services rendered to ex-OSU player Boban Savovic. Salyers says she gave Savovic thousands of dollars, fed and housed him, completed some of his schoolwork and had at least one grade changed, mostly at the urging of Biancardi.
"He told me to do whatever I had to do to keep (Savovic) eligible," Salyers told HBO, referring to Biancardi.
Biancardi's response to the allegations, also due July 26, is expected to attack Salyers' credibility. That includes a Feb. 27, 2004, letter Salyers' attorney wrote to O'Brien's attorney. The letter, written before Ohio State or the NCAA knew of Salyers' allegations, seeks a cash settlement. CBS SportsLine.com obtained a copy.
"I believe that this case can be easily settled and in such a way that it is tax deductible and I firmly believe that Coach O'Brien's reputation and intervention can aid in making the settlement happen," wrote Salyers' attorney, Jeffrey Lucas. "An LLC can be formed which buys all of the movie and books rights from Kathleen Salyers ... and this ugly case can be put to bed."
Hush money, in other words.
After O'Brien and Biancardi declined, Salyers went public with her story. The rest is history, sending Ohio State onto the path trod by Purdue, Auburn and Missouri.
Purdue happily agreed when the NCAA fingered assistant Frank Kendrick for a $4,000 bank loan secured by the family of a player in the mid-1990s. Head coach Gene Keady wasn't implicated, but Kendrick has been out of college coaching since. Maybe that's justice. Or maybe assigning blame to Kendrick was the path of least resistance for everyone else involved.
At Auburn, the school fought the most serious NCAA allegations of recruiting violations from September 2003, but tried to appease the NCAA by self-reporting a former assistant, Mike Wilson, for a lesser violation. When Wilson tried to fight the charge via conference call, Jackson said, neither the NCAA nor Auburn would get on the phone. Wilson was eventually cleared, and head coach Cliff Ellis was eventually fired (for performance reasons).
At Missouri, the school got rid of assistants Lane Odom and Tony Harvey last year while keeping head coach Quin Snyder, who vowed to do a better job of monitoring his staff.
In the case of Ohio State, it's possible that the NCAA and OSU are right -- that Biancardi is the Bogeyman, and O'Brien the kind-hearted coach who trusted his staff too much.
That's the story being pursued by Ohio State and the NCAA, anyway.
If it's the truth, well, that would be a bonus.
|