Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                            September 29, 2017

This week’s news about a number of college basketball assistant coaches being indicted for bribery and other forms of corruption after a two year FBI investigation rocked the sports world. Four assistant coaches at four NCAA Division 1 institutions were arrested for taking bribes. The shoe company, Adidas, is also involved in the corruption schemes that were made public, as are a couple of financial advisors. In all, ten different people were indicted.

The investigation revealed that athletes were being paid to, first of all, sign with a certain financial advisor, and second, to sign with certain colleges that have contracts with Adidas. The family of one high school junior was demanding a certain payoff for their son to sign with University of Louisville. A couple of other parents of two Auburn players were also receiving payments as a way to get the players to sign with a certain financial advisor.

The whole story stinks of entitlement, greed, and a total lack of ethical behavior. The FBI also hinted that there may be more indictments coming. That prompts the question, “How wide spread is this pattern of seeking to gain advantages and wealth by not following the rules?”

One of the principles we were taught was that cheaters never prosper. Well, obviously they prosper at least for a season! The purity of college athletics has long sense disappeared. Now, however, the smell has filtered down into the high school ranks. Even high school coaches are getting involved in the odor of sports’ underbelly.

There’s enough blame to go around. Parents push their kids into club sports to the point that a  number of athletes are burned out by the time they are high school juniors, and others robe themselves with a thick layer of entitlement. College coaches know that their job is based on how many wins they chalk up and, therefore, many are willing to edge outside of the legal lines to gain a few more victories. College athletes want to be paid to sacrifice their bodies and hours to being a part of that success. Receiving a full ride scholarship to that university no longer seems to be enough for a number of players. Others steroid up in order to be more dominating, and still others practice academic fraud in order to stay eligible.

Sports is turning into a pastime for cheaters, because cheaters kinda’ prosper! We would be naive to think that this scenario started just recently. I was raised in Bluegrass Country, listening to Kentucky basketball on radio in my growing up days. Although it was shortly before I was born, the history of Kentucky basketball still has the distant scar of the 1952-53 point-shaving scandal. UK’s basketball season was canceled that year due to the scandal in which four players were implicated.

Sports has worn expensive suits with stains for a long, long time! Hopefully, the recent evidences of what has spilled out from it will cause people to steer back towards doing what is right and what is good, but I’m sure there will also be other people who will simply seek to be sneakier in their addiction to prosperous cheating.