Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Trey Kaufman will announce decision at 6p – Pegram says choice will be Purdue; IU fans will not like that

Wherever Trey Kaufman goes to school, fans need to understand he’s a teenager who has the right to make a mistake.

There are very few coaches I would rather send my son to play for than Purdue’s Matt Painter, so I am sure Trey Kaufman will have a great experience as a Boilermaker, if 247sports Indiana Insider Mike Pegram was correct in predicting his commitment scheduled to be announced tonight at 6p.

Kaufman will have a great experience regardless of which school among his finalists he chooses.  How could playing basketball at North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, or Purdue suck?  Kaufman is not just the 31st best player in the 2021 recruiting class, he’s also the #1 student in his Silver Creek High School class.  He’s clearly smart enough to make the most of educational opportunities at any of those august institutions.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

The great thing about being Kaufman is that he wins no matter which school he picks.  The only losers in these recruiting battles are the coaches and programs who miss out on securing the services of a basketball player who can help win games.  And if Pegram is right, this would be a big loss for Indiana and Archie Miller.

To this point in Miller’s three-and-a-half years in Bloomington, he has kept his promise to successfully recruit kids from Indiana – especially those from southern Indiana.  Romeo Langford, Trayce Jackson-Davis, transfer Joey Brunk, and Khristian Lander all attended Indiana high schools south of I-70 before pledging IU.

Losing out on a recruit from the northern part of the state is understandable.  Caleb Furst, Sasha Stefanovic, Isaiah Thomas, Caleb Swanigan, and others from northern Indiana have recently opted for Purdue and Painter.  Back in the day, the same thing happened with Robbie Hummel, E’Twaun Moore, and Scott Martin  No problem there.  Staying close to home to play for the geo-friendly team makes sense.

When Rob Phinisee left his hometown of Lafayette for Bloomington to play for Miller, that seemed weird – even for IU fans.  Phinisee was warmly welcomed at IU, but it just seemed odd for a kid in Purdue’s backyard to choose to play for a program his neighbors hate.  Now Indiana may lose the same kind of recruiting battle for a recruit to their rival.

Indiana will survive this loss – again, assuming Pegram’s confidence in his crystal ball is well-placed.  Miller is still in the game for Mason Miller (6’9″, skinny, really good shooter) and Aminu Mohammed (6’4″, #14 in 2021 class).  To this point, Miller has been very effective targeting a small number of prospects, building relationships and closing the deal.  He’s hit on more than he has missed, and that needs to continue if ground will be made up between where IU wants to be and where they are.

Fans who were around during the glory days pine for the Hoosiers return to relevance.  A quick look at results tells us that IU has put together only one winning Big 10 season in the last seven, not been invited to the NCAA Tournament since 2016, and lost seven straight to Purdue (including all five games Miller has coached).  That may be part of the calculus Kaufman uses in making his decision. The great catch-22 of basketball is that good players are needed to win, but winning (or cash) is needed to get good players.

Miller has churned along moving forward in recruiting since replacing Tom Crean, but the results have yet to show similar growth.  The recruiting bridges that Crean burned within the state’s borders have been mended, so IU doesn’t have to call Boo Williams every time they have a scholarship.  They aren’t bringing in roster fillers anymore.  Indiana is going to be better this season, but that may not be enough for in-state recruits, regardless of proximity to campus.

We’ll find out at 6p tonight whether Pegram’s prognostication is accurate, and we can draw conclusions as to why a teenager made the choice he did.  Then we will overreact, make wild declarations about Miller as a leader of a program almost 34 years removed from its last championship, and continue to hope for better days.

Or, maybe Kaufman defies Pegram’s prediction and picks Indiana.

Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence has a decision – fun and happiness or immediate generational wealth

Should Trevor Lawrence jump to the NFL in 2021 or stay at Clemson? Only sure thing is that playing for the Jets would be an act of idiocy.

Trevor Lawrence has long been college football’s best quarterback prospect.  Because of what he said this week about the possibility of staying at Clemson for his senior year, he might also be the smartest.

About his decision to either stay or bounce to the NFL, Lawrence said yesterday, “My mindset’s been that I’m going to move on, but who knows?  There’s a lot of things that could happen. I’m just really focusing on this year and not trying to look ahead. … That’s a tough one, but we’ll see how it all unfolds.”

This confounds the media and many fans.  How can a quarterback who would earn millions of dollars spurn playing for the New York Jets, the likely holder of the #1 overall pick, to stay for a fourth year at Clemson?  Let’s ask the question is a different way, in what way would Lawrence’s life improve by leaving Clemson before he had to to play for the NFL’s worst franchise?

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Well, there is the wealth he would immediately accrue.  Joe Burrow signed a rookie deal similar to what Lawrence would likely get.  It guarantees him $36M over his first four years with the Bengals.  There is also endorsement cash that would be substantial.

And then there is…well, the…hmmm…ummm, well, oh yeah, how about the chance to compete against the very best football players in the world?  Only downside to that is the best are on both sides of the ball, and very few of the best are on the Jets – hence what could be an 0-16 record this year that earns them the chance to draft Lawrence in the first place.

Being chased and pummeled by the best is not nearly as much fun as playing behind the best line while throwing to the best receivers.

Not much of a list on behalf of jumping to the Jets.  Not that there is anything wrong with cash, but the same cash will be there in a year, and if Lawrence’s career is anything like it is projected to be, he’ll never miss the money.  That assumes he would make less in the aggregate by coming out a year later, and that is no sure deal.  How much did current Jets QB Sam Darnold forfeit by reporting for duty with the Jets in 2018?  His career reversal could cost him tens of millions.

On the other hand, the negatives are significant.  Being locked into the Jets for the first seven years (minimum) could leave a mark.  That same organization drafted Darnold #3 overall, and they are ready to throw what’s left of his talent into the wood chipper.

Over Darnold’s 31 starts, the Jets are 11-20.  If losing is your thing, the Jets are for you.  This is a franchise that has not been to the playoffs in a decade (including this already lost season), and are 21-50 over the last five seasons.

At Clemson, Lawrence is part of a thriving football family that has gone to the four-team national playoff for five consecutive years, has won two of the last four National Championships, and is ranked #1 right now.

Lawrence is at home with teammates at Clemson who are not yet tasked with supporting families through football earnings (at least we presume so), and so the experience is not defined by the drive to earn that next contract.

Those around him don’t have their hands out – at least not yet.  No reason not to trust those who approach him.  There is a freedom to poverty that makes college very comfortable for everyone.  No one has great wealth yet, so a college campus is a melting pot for similarly resourced souls.

There’s nothing wrong with cash, but the way people like Lawrence are advised to pursue it at the cost of all else is absurd.  The measure of a man’s worth has nothing to do with the number of zeroes at the end of his bank statement – a concept Lawrence already seems to grasp.

Whether Lawrence stays at Clemson or demands a trade from the Jets, I wish him the best of luck. For a young man this smart, those have to be the only choices, right?

Colts are headed to 5-2 again – fans should know better than expect the roll to continue

You can hope Philip Rivers will be mouthing off to opponents through January, but don’t expect it.

If Colts fans feel a sense of deja vu this season, who can blame them?

November weather in Indianapolis tends toward the bleak, but the Colts need to avoid mirroring the weather if they are going to return to the playoffs for the first time without Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck as their starting quarterback since 1996.

In 2019, the Colts started 5-2.  Fans looked ahead to the playoffs with great anticipation.  Then starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett got hurt in Pittsburgh, and the season unraveled as Brian Hoyer and then a less than 100% finished the season’s final nine games with just two wins.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

A well-executed offseason plan brought a slight upgrade at QB with Philip Rivers, a significant free agent signing in DeForest Buckner to anchor the defensive line, and then a draft with weapons upgrades at running back and wide receiver.

The result has been a 4-2 record with a very winnable game looming this Sunday in Detroit.  The Colts should be back at 5-2 – as long as Matthew Stafford and the Lions cooperate.

And then, a very tough stretch of four games are immediately ahead that will determine whether the Colts are able to win the AFC South or return to the playoffs as a wild card.  Baltimore comes to Lucas Oil Stadium for the first test.  They are followed by a road trip to Nashville for a duel with the Titans – the only team capable of taking a division title from the Colts.  November ends with two home tilts – against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, and a second matchup against the Titans.

All four of those teams are 5-1 right now, and the Colts are unlikely to be favored in any of them.  Beat the Lions and then two of the following four, and the world is the Colts’ horseshoe.  Lose against the Lions, or tank the following four against teams that are superior on paper, and a trip to the playoffs becomes a pipe dream.

Not to burden you with additional scheduling minutia, but if they can hold it together through November, December provides significant relief.  The Texans and Jags suck, and they comprise three of the final five opponents.  The others are the 3-3 Raiders and currently undefeated Steelers.

If you are excited and optimistic about the Colts, that’s good.  We need something to keep our spirits up, and I’m not trying to take a leak on your Frosted Flakes.  The Colts have been about what we thought they would be.  Rivers can keep them in games, but is unlikely to bring them back from the nearly dead.  The defense has been better with Buckner up front.

They should wind up 9-7 or 10-6, and that might put them back in the postseason.  From there, who the hell knows?  Those of us 40 or older remember a very mediocre Colts quarterback earning a spot on the Colts Ring of Honor by winning a couple of playoff games before falling just short of Super Bowl XXX.

Funny things happen.  Maybe this year will be funny.  Maybe not.  But make sure expectations are informed by a dash of reality.  A 5-2 record will not become 14-2, and Rivers is not Manning.

While the Colts await the next Manning, Rivers will have to do.  And maybe he will catch lightning in a bottle, but remember he took the Chargers to the playoffs only once during his last six years in either San Diego or Los Angeles.  He is who he is.  We’ll see whether he’s good enough to play in the middle of January, when Indiana’s weather goes from bleak to miserable.

As River is fond of saying, “Nunc Coepi.”  The Colts need to begin again at least 11 more times this season.

If LeBron and the Lakers want to sit for a few weeks while the Pacers ball – GOOD!

If LeBron James would rather lounge around Kate Hepburn’s old digs. who are we to argue?

If the Lakers don’t want to play for the first month of the NBA season, I’m good with that.  I don’t like the Lakers.

Take a bunch of L’s and then play catch up.  Cool by me.

The NBA is targeting December 22 as opening night, and Lakers guard Danny Green told The Ringer podcast Monday,  “If we start in December, I think most guys like, ‘I’m not going to be there.’ … I wouldn’t expect to see (LeBron) there. I wouldn’t expect to see him probably for the first month of the season. He’ll probably be working out with us … but I just don’t expect guys to want to be there, or show up willingly.”

Good.  Great.  See you in February!

The Lakers finished winning their championship in the Bubble on October 11, and normally players get a solid three or four months off after the end of the NBA Finals to recuperate.  But these are not normal times, and given TV audience levels during the playoffs, it would be beneficial for the NBA’s premier franchise to be front and center with its best player every night.

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That’s how the NBA will look at it.  They hope the Lakers show up.  For me, please stay home.  LeBron can sit at the breakfast bar in Katherine Hepburn’s old house, play a little tennis on her lighted court, and enjoy life.  That’s fine.  Love it.  When you spend $38,600,000 on a house, eat and play there once in a while.

I would love to see the Miami Heat act likewise.  They played until October 11 too.

The clearer the path for the Pacers, the better, so I hope Jimmy Butler has scones in the library at Jackie Gleason’s old home in South Beach, although I have no idea whether Butler lives in The Great One’s former domicile or not.

In fact, I would like to see the top 37 NBA players, ranked by analytics, sit out the entire season! The Pacers would win their first NBA Championship in a walk.  They don’t have a single player in the top 37, but four Pacers fall immediately outside it.

The Pacers wrapped their season on August 24, so they are going to have almost four months between games even if the goal date of December 22 is met.  They will be eager to ball whenever the commissioner Adam Silver says “Jump!”  If that gives them an advantage – good!

Let the Lakers enjoy the SoCal warmth until President’s Day while the Pacers stack wins.

 

Bears fans and Chicagoans need to look south two hours to find a new team – Da Colts – and hometown

Bears fans shouldn’t blame Nick Foles or Mitch Trubisky for their misery. The miserable are responsible for their own misery.

Being a Bears fan was tough back in the day.  Every year, it was the same old thing – I would talk about Bobby Douglass, Wally Chambers, and Cecil Turner, and Dad would shake his head like I was a dopey little kid.

He was right.  I was a dopey, pie-eyed loon who bought into the hype every year.  I walked over to Lake Forest College to watch them work during training camp, hoping this would be the group that got things right.  It took a few years, but the Bears finally made the playoffs in 1977.  I was bouncing off the walls telling Dad how this will finally be the year.  Of course, when the Bears were destroyed 37-7 by the Cowboys in the first round, there was Dad shaking his head again.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Another trip to the playoffs came and quickly went in 1979.  Walter Payton was in the midst of his prime, but there were few quality players around him, so Dad’s head shaking continued uninterrupted until 1984.  That’s when things changed for the Bears.

Abandoned by general manager Jim Finks in 1982, the old man took over.  George Halas, the guy who owned the team and formed the NFL over 60 years before, orchestrated one of the great drafts in NFL history, selecting six rookies who quickly became starters.  And he hired Mike Ditka to wrangle his roster.  Then he died at age 88, but Halas’s last gasp brought one more brief glimpse of greatness.

With Jimbo Covert, Willie Gault, Tom Thayer, Mark Bortz, Dave Duerson, and Richard Dent added to a roster with Payton, Jim McMahon, Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Gary Fencik, and Otis Wilson, the Bears went from promising to dominant.  Dad stopped nodding, and the Bears won Super Bowl XX.

Then things took a turn.  General manager Jerry Vainisi was fired, Payton got old, Mike Ditka embraced celebrity over football, diminutive QB Doug Flutie was signed, and the Bears became a stale shell of their former great selves.  Dad started nodding again, and two months after Ditka was fired in 1993, I moved to Indianapolis with my wife and son.

For two seasons, I was a free agent fan with no rooting interest.  The Bears had moved on from an effort to be great, and the Colts were the most irrelevant team in the NFL.  And then, out of the blue, 1995 happened.

A weird group of spare parts were cobbled together by former Bears GM Bill Tobin – the guy who tried to replace Vainisi – and somehow, someway, the Colts eked their way into a wildcard berth with a 9-7 record.  Two of their wins were outrageous comebacks from 21 points down, and Indianapolis all of a sudden figured out that basketball wasn’t the only sport in the world.

The playoffs were as magical as the regular season.  With Marshall Faulk nursing turf toe, the Colts still found a way to beat both San Diego and Kansas City to earn a spot in the AFC Championship Game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Thousands of fans showed up at the airport to welcome the Colts home from Kansas City.  This was before 9/11 when people could roam through the terminals as they pleased.

I took my son to the airport too.  Why not?  We were right there in the middle of the delirious throng as the Colts walked from the gate to the parking lot.  Sensing a need to beat the traffic – something I inherited from my nodding father – I slung Ryan on my shoulders and walked with the team, high-fiving fans on either side of us.

The Colts lost a classic against the Steelers the following Sunday, which was ultimately a good thing because I made the trip to Pittsburgh and sat among Steelers fans while wearing a Colts jersey.  Everything was cool between the Pittsburghers and me until Floyd Turner caught a Jim Harbaugh pass to give the Colts a 16-13 lead in the fourth quarter.

There were shirtless guys in front of me (it was 48-degrees) who turned to stare at me after Turner’s TD.  It seemed like they were sizing me up.  I had an odd feeling that if the Steelers lost, I would be the stooge who paid for the Steelers fans’ disappointment.

Fortunately, the Hail Mary that would have sent the Colts to the Super Bowl rolled off Aaron Bailey’s stomach and I was spared.  But not before glass bottles shattered against fencing just over my head and on the cement ramp to the parking lot at my feet.  I thought it was odd that all those bottles were breaking very near me, until it dawned on me that Steelers fans were targeting my jersey.

That weird and beautiful Colts season eradicated the final vestiges of my Bears fandom, and replaced it with a more convenient love of the local team.  That group of Colts would be destroyed by Tobin’s decision to whack virtually the entire offensive line, and replace coach Ted Marchibroda with Lindy Infante.

All was not lost as Tobin’s antics led to his dismissal.  Bill Polian was hired as his replacement, Peyton Manning was drafted #1 overall in 1998, and the Colts were set on a course to become absurdly successful until the end of Manning’s reign after 2010.

Watching the Bears get manhandled by the Rams last night reminded me of the futility of being a Bears fan.  The team has never really recovered from Halas’s death in 1983.  His grandsons have mismanaged countless iterations of the roster, and the team has been more or less irrelevant since Ditka was replaced.  Yes, there have been trips to the playoffs and even a Super Bowl appearance (against the Colts), but the days of expecting success at Soldier Field are long gone.

The McCaskeys keep hiring and firing GMs and coaches, but nothing ever changes.  That’s because the ownership never changes.  So the Bears are doomed to mediocrity, and a fanbase I am no longer a part of languishes.

For many reasons, I feel bad for those in my old hometown.  Chicago is cratering financially, withering culturally, and suffering as it watches the football team that it still dearly loves.  I often wonder what keeps Chicagoans tethered to a city and football team that relentlessly punishes them, then I take a deep breath and look out the window at a town and team I am proud to call mine.

That’s all the answer I need.

Justice will come slowly if at all for Arizona Basketball and Sean Miller

Sean Miller and Dandre Ayton are laughing all the way to the bank as the NCAA and IARP take years to hold Arizona accountable for accused cheating.

Arizona Basketball is in trouble – kind of.  At least it should be.

The university received a Notice of Allegations listing nine violations, with five of them falling into the Level One category.  That’s reserved for the most serious – those that should derail the careers of coaches and administrators.

Arizona has asked that the case be referred to the Independent Accountability Resolution Process that was established by the Commission on College Basketball, chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  Remember them?  They were supposed to finally put an end to the rampant cheating in college basketball.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Rather than explain exactly what the IARP is and how it works, let’s just say it is a layer of bureaucracy that allows schools like LSU, Kansas, Memphis, and now Arizona to kick the can down the road another couple of blocks as they continue to cheat in order to gain an on-court advantage before they face their day in court.

To this point, the IARP has accomplished exactly nothing.  Of the cases referred to it, none have been resolved, which is ironic because the word “resolution” is right there as the “R” in IARP.

Arizona stands accused of paying basketball players Deandre Ayton and Rawle Alkins while they were student-athletes at the school.  There are wiretapped conversations between then Arizona assistant coach Book Richardson and street agent Christian Dawkins where it is mentioned that head coach Sean Miller was playing Ayton $10,000 per month.

That’s a pretty strong smoking gun that was revealed in court a year and a half ago.  The conversation itself took place more than three years ago.  God only knows how long the IARP will take to hold hearings, issue a finding, and bring a consequence to bear upon what appears to have been a rogue operation.

We don’t know how long it will take because the IARP has not completed its work in any of the cases referred to it.  In fact, the Arizona case has not been referred to it yet.  Arizona has only asked that the NCAA refer the case to the IARP.  How long it might take for the NCAA to grant or deny that request is unknown as well.

In the meantime, according to people within college basketball, the beat goes on.  Rice’s committee was supposed to clean up college basketball, but as anyone with a brain surmised at the time, its work has achieved the opposite result.  When a group of do-gooder bureaucrats is convened, the smart money is always on the outcome the committee is designed to stop.  That’s because do-gooders have no idea how to think like bad actors.

And so corruption in college hoops has accelerated.  The crooks and coaches have been emboldened by the glacial process the NCAA and its IARP have enacted.

Crooks are always more efficient than the judicial process because those who mete out justice are paid regardless of the outcome, while swindlers cash in based upon speed and agility in avoiding or delaying culpability.

Arizona’s comeuppance might come, but it’s going to be far enough removed from its crimes that it will serve as a rationale for cheating rather than a deterrent.

If you would like your head to explode, please click on this link to learn more about the inanity of the IARP, and why its formation stole any potential for ending corruption in college basketball.

ONIONS! Tom Allen goes for two! Indiana beats a top 10 opponent for 1st time since 1987!

Tom Allen and Michael Penix celebrate the program’s first win over a top 10 opponent in 43 tries!

Since 1987, the Hoosiers played 42 top 10 teams, and lost to all of them. If eighth ranked Penn State played Indiana 43 times, the Nittany Lions would likely win 42.  But that 43rd game came last night in Bloomington.

The Hoosiers were outgained 488 yards to 211, but yards don’t always equate to points.  Penn State also controlled the clock, winning the time of possession battle by better than a two-to-one margin – 40:25 to 19:35, but time of possession isn’t how winners are determined.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Penn State turned the ball over three times and committed 10 penalties, accounting for 100 free yards for Indiana.  They were undisciplined and foolish, and on a crisp autumn afternoon in southern Indiana, that was enough.  Oh, and Indiana has a head coach with a set of man-sized onions helped push the Hoosiers across the finish line.

People who cover Penn State are moaning about the mistakes that cost the Nittany Lions the game – including the brain dead moment when they scored a touchdown with 1:42 left, rather than collapse on the one and kill the clock.  I would rather write about Tom Allen’s onions.

The onions came into play during the overtime, which was improbably forced by an Indiana offense that until the last 1:42 was inert, led by a quarterback whose deliveries were as inaccurate as Newman the mailman’s on Seinfeld.

All of a sudden, passes from Michael Penix that earlier sailed out of bounds or sliced through receivers’ hands found their mark and IU scored a touchdown and converted a two-point conversion to make the OT necessary.

Allen showed his substantial onions after his Hoosiers scored a touchdown that answered Penn State’s during the first overtime possession.  Instead of kicking the extra point to tie the game and send it to a second overtime, he went for two.  Penix rolled left, tucked the ball, and dove for the end zone.  The ball was extended toward the pylon, and appeared to touch it before it hit the sideline.

The ruling on the field gave Indiana the two points.  A replay review ensued, and the call stood without being confirmed.  Indiana was a winner because Allen understood his defense was gassed, and when there is an opportunity to finish off a superior opponent rather than allow him another chance to assert himself, you take it.

Yardage is important, and so is time of possession, but it’s points on the scoreboard that matter, and Indiana ended the night with 36 to Penn State’s 35.  That’s all that matters.

Indiana University’s football team won the kind of game they had lost previous 42 times dating back to a time before the Earth cooled, and it was won by a coach with the guts to put the game in his offense’s hands for one play – winner take all  Allen decided the chances of getting three yards on that final play gave IU its best chance.

Allen was almost wrong, but the great thing about being almost wrong is that it’s just a different way to be right.

College basketball’s rules meaningless as long as NCAA refuses to punish accused violators like Will Wade

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.” Dalai Lama

No list of the worst human beings in sports is complete without LSU’s Will Wade at the very top.

I doubt the Dalai Lama was talking about college basketball when he came with that bit of wisdom, but coaches sure seem to have heard it.

The rules are being broken, and nothing is being done about it.  SI’s Pat Forde had a nice piece yesterday detailing the anger from some coaches, especially within the SEC.  Coaches cheat without meaningful immediate consequence because schools and rogue coaches have decided the rewards are greater than the consequences.

Like all intellectual doofuses, the bigwigs at the NCAA, in concert with presidents of its member universities, have devised an enforcement system so complicated and labyrinthian that it rivals their ridiculously thick rule book.  To the smartest men and women in the room, and all university presidents believe they are the smartest person in the room (even when the room is filled with university presidents), more is always better.  So instead of creating a simple route for a violation to be punished, they have added layers of bureaucracy that allow known cheats to operate for years without repercussion.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

The result is rampant cheating, including payments by head coaches to players.  LSU’s Will Wade has been accused of paying many players, and is heard on wiretaps released to the public talking about a “strong ass offer” he made to one.  His peers believe him to be guilty.  People within the SEC believe him guilty.  Hell, anyone with a brain believes he is guilty of this third rail offense that should result in a swift ban from his profession.

Indiana’s Kelvin Sampson made impermissible phone calls in 2007, and was quickly hit with a five-year show cause order by the NCAA.  Wade is believed to have paid student athletes out of his own pocket, and he is still coaching at LSU three years into a six-year, $15 million contract.  Of course, Indiana showed a modicum of class in self-reporting the violation, while LSU sits on its hands waiting for the NCAA to sweep up its mess.

Many of Wade’s peers feel like fools because they follow the rules, lose out on recruits, lose games, and finally get fired.  Wade continues to get paid handsomely for doing the wrong thing while achieving the right result.

Among the many shames of the NCAA’s unwillingness and/or inability to police the rogue actors of college basketball is that the primary purpose of college is to instill lessons that will serve students for a lifetime of success.  Sadly, the chief lesson of college hoops is that a society’s rules and laws have importance only when consequence outweighs reward – and with the NCAA, there is no consequence.

Doing the right think is punished by the loss of a career built on respect for rules, while pirates continue to feather their nests through brazen violations and dares the NCAA to grow a pair (or simply do its job) and do something about it.  It’s as though college basketball coaches read a book about Chicago’s gangsterism of the 1920s and decided that sounded like the right play.  Wanton corruption without righteous cops equals great wealth, right?

The NCAA exists as a shield for venality, not as a corrective device, and coaches are adapting quickly.  People thought the federal probe into college basketball was going to finally put crooked coaches, shoe guys, and street agents out of business.  The opposite has happened.  They have been emboldened, according to Forde’s post.

Coaches understand they need to cheat to compete.  They have families who need to eat, pride, and a loathing for losing, so they adopt the methods of those to whom they they fear losing.  And the NCAA sits idly by – condoning through its inaction what it publicly condemns.

Who are we – or the NCAA – to argue with the Dalai Lama?

Pat Chambers out at Penn State; time for coaches to empathize and adjust – or embrace career change

Patrick Chamber is no longer the basketball coach at Penn State because he said the wrong thing to the wrong player – whether he knew it at the time or not.

Patrick Chambers has left the Penn State basketball program because he and his family “need a break to reset and chart a path forward.”

What has exhausted the former coach for the past year is an allegation by a former player Rasir Bolton that Chambers referenced a noose around his neck during a conversation.  That allusion bothered Bolton to the point that he transferred.

Times are changing.  Young men and women are changing, and leaders/coaches/managers better change with them because if they don’t, a couple of very bad things are going to happen. First, they will cause unnecessary damage to the psyches of the young men and women they lead through language tand imagery.  Second, they will be subject to the same type of “reset” Chambers is in the midst of.

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Back in the day, part of being an athlete meant figuring out how to tolerate abuse – both verbal and physical.  It was a point of pride to be able to tell stories about the garbage we had to endure, and how nothing could rattle us now because we had faced the wrath of Coach (insert name here.”

We can debate whether this absolute intolerance of hateful imagery and rhetoric is good or bad for society, but there is no denying that people are both tired of – or more accurately – incapable of listening to grotesque unpleasantries.

A few years ago, I was at a bar with a friend talking to two girls.  One of them went to Purdue, so as an Indiana guy, I began offering a stream of amusing insults about Boilermakers.  The girls walked away.  My friend and I tried to find them because he was dating the non-Purdue grad.  Turned out they went home because the Boiler was boiling about my witty rebukes of West Lafayette.  I remarked to my friend, “Don’t people know not to listen to me?”

These days, everyone listens.  For better and worse, everyone listens.  When a line is crossed – or approached – social media is activated, lawyers are called, compliance officers/HR professionals are engaged, and “resets” are mandated.

It’s time for empathy to trump what is perceived as hate speech – for the crass to examine their priorities and accept that this is not 1975 anymore, and “All in the Family” is no longer America’s #1 show.

It’s not OK to upset people because our hearts are pure even if our mouths aren’t.  No excuse or apology is good enough to stem the tide of angst against those who offend.  There is no such thing as unsaying something that has already been hurt.  There is no seven-second delay in real life as there is at radio stations.

It’s time to erect additional gates between our brains and mouths where offensive language we may not even know we are uttering is checked, re-checked, scrubbed, and then deleted.

My dad never would have survived this, but maybe with some hard work and empathy we can learn that words aren’t heard as they are offered but how they are interpreted through the filter of the listener, and maybe we can avoid “resets” like the one Chambers has been forced to embrace.