Let’s not kid ourselves.
The scandal surrounding the Colorado football program was brewing for a while. It was just a matter of time before a big-time program slipped up.
Colorado head coach Gary Barnett slipped up. Athletics director Richard Tharp slipped up. The entire program slipped up.
And rightly so.
But let’s not get past the fact that the Buffaloes aren’t alone. They’re not a coincidence. Their kind of parties are not central to Boulder.
From Tallahassee, Fla., to Seattle, Los Angeles to Portland, Maine, the landscape of competitive collegiate athletics demands a little bending of the rules.
A little bend here, a little bend there. Make sure not to break the rules — or lest be found guilty of a hypocritical crime.
Everybody does it, why shouldn’t State U?
That’s the sad and ugly truth of the matter. It just turns out Colorado got caught.
In the past two years, scandals have broken out in college sports faster than wildfires. Jim Harrick was caught at Georgia for academic violations. Dave Bliss was run out on a rail at Baylor after a player’s death. Rick Neuheisel lost his job at Washington because of gambling on collegiate sports. Minnesota has seen its share of reports that players took recruits to strip clubs.
Even Oregon saw its share of controversy with the Lynell Hamilton “incident” last year.
It’s everywhere, and it’s a black eye for academia all across the nation.
This is not an “everybody does it, so we should too,” type of situation. Flat out, it’s wrong. Whether that means free rides from professors or strip club parties for recruits, it’s wrong. Most folks in the good old United States of America would agree.
Even if it’s technically not a crime.
Colorado took it one step further with allegations of sexual harassment and rape. What Barnett and his boys are doing over there needs some serious cleaning up. Whether that means he loses his job — which is almost the case already — or the program puts itself on suspension via the death penalty, something has to be done.
In this case, it would be reactive. For the future, it needs to be proactive.
Who’s to say this kind of thing won’t happen down the road? Even if that means one year, five years, or 10, it should be a concern for all involved.
The root of most of the problems documented in collegiate athletics is the practice of recruiting. A tool used for as long as most of us can remember, it’s supposed to be a way to entice potential students to a campus.
That, at least, is the way most of us visited campuses. We were recruited from high school and got the general tour. Meanwhile, student athletes get the royal treatment.
That’s where the line between right and wrong — too thin and too far — is becoming blurred.
Recruiting visits, as documented by players in recent months, are getting dangerously close to acting as singles clubs.
“Well, you’re single, we’ll hook you up,” player hosts are saying. That’s the way it seemed to go at Colorado.
That led to alleged sexual harassment, alleged rape and eventual shame for the Colorado program.
Here’s the catch: As long as Colorado wants to have a successful program — meaning lots of wins — these parties will happen. That, for the most part, will be the case for most programs, whether it involves alcohol, or in extreme cases, sex.
Whatever a recruit wants, especially if he’s a big-time catch, the recruit will get.
According to NCAA bylaw, under article 13, section recruitment (13.01.2): “A member institution may provide entertainment (per Bylaw 13.5), at a scale comparable to that of normal student life and not excessive in nature, to a prospect and his or her parents (or legal guardians) or spouse only at the institution’s campus (or, on an official visit, within 30 miles of the institution’s campus). Entertainment of other relatives or friends of a prospect at any site is prohibited.”
That’s a tad bit ambiguous, a statement that makes “entertainment” in the eye of the beholder.
No wonder this is becoming a curious situation — the NCAA is involved.