Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun may be on a forced retirement tour this week.
The Huskies play in their third Final Four on Saturday under a Hall of Fame coach who has won 805 games and two national titles. And yet, the smell of scandal is everywhere.
Fueled by a Yahoo! Sports reports alleging serious recruiting violations for a player who was later expelled, the NCAA is investigating a program that will be tried in public court this week. The national championship weekend will be more about scandal than basketball. People will suddenly root against Connecticut for the appearance of illegal recruiting.
The NCAA can’t move quickly enough to sidestep the coming media storm. Calhoun certainly won’t resign before the weekend. No, this will be a bloodletting. And, that’s a good thing for college sports.
First, it’s impossible to run a completely clean program. The NCAA has 508 pages of rules. For instance, as a Maryland alumnus, if I were to meet a player in the student union for an interview and buy them a soda while we talked, it would be a violation because I attended Maryland. When returning to cover the basketball team in 2005 as a beat writer for another paper, college officials and I actually met over this.
The NCAA is extremely obsessive because of situations like Connecticut’s. They have to rule harshly because basketball has leeches all the way down to the elementary-school level looking for potential phenoms. Like the recent Washington Nationals scandal where Dominican buscones develop teen prospects, Americans do it with basketball players. Nate Miles played at five high schools in four states under his “guardian.”
Yahoo! Sports cites former team manager Josh Nochimson, who later became a pro agent before being decertified amid scandal, as being an intermediary for 1,565 phone calls and texts with Miles, who signed with Connecticut. The NCAA permits one per month.
Calhoun lauded Miles as having as much ability as any player ever at UConn. However, Miles was expelled for violating a restraining order brought by a female classmate.
This will get messy and Calhoun may decide to “retire” after possibly winning the national crown on Monday. That would be the easy way out.
Let’s hope the NCAA makes it hard on him. If guilty of a dirty program, Calhoun should be banned. If innocent, he should be left alone. Fans deserve the truth.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com or e-mail [email protected].
