In late August, the NCAA announced that it would be stripping the University of Memphis’ Men’s Basketball team all 38 wins (an NCAA single season record) that they obtained during the 2007-2008 season. The announcement came 16 months after the Tigers lost to the Kansas University Jayhawks in the championship game. The reason: academic fraud committed by a member of the team, alleged to be Derrick Rose, the star freshman of the Tigers that year.
The player (Rose) was accused of having another person take the SAT exam for him, making that player ineligible for the next season which would have been the players freshman year. SAT officials conducted their own investigation and notified the university, the NCAA and the player that the tests scores were going to be cancelled. The committee was not very lenient with its penalties based on the fact that the player was used for the entire season. Memphis has appealed the NCAA’s decisions and Derrick Rose is still denying the allegations.
The Kihl and Richardson article, “Fixing the Mess”, showed how an athletic program can be affected by academic fraud. Whether it is taking away wins, taking away money, losing recruits or losing trust, there are a lot of people who are deeply affected when an infraction occurs.
“Corruption impacts an organization in a variety of ways including via sanctions, a negative reputation, loss of public confidence, and assorted financial losses Organizational stakeholders who are not involved in malfeasant activities but continue to work within the organization during the post-corruption period experience various types of harm that is associated with their respective roles and responsibilities. (Kihl and Ricardson 278)”
The two people under the most heat for this infraction are no longer with Memphis. Derrick Rose departed from Memphis after that season and was drafted number one in the NBA draft. Head coach John Calipari is now the head coach at Kentucky. What about the people who are still at Memphis, the players and administration? What about the kids that worked so hard all year to obtain those record setting 38 wins? Every player on that team wasn’t taken in the NBA draft, so that record setting season was probably going to be the greatest basketball memory of their lives.
Both Calipari and Rose “allegedly” made a mess while at Memphis, abandoned the school before things blew up and left the mess for other people to clean up/suffer the consequences. This isn’t anything new with Calipari, academic fraud was committed while he was at UMASS in 1996. He left for the NBA that following year. If the allegations are true, Rose owes it to his teammates to come out and admit that he screwed around. Despite the fact that Rose is a great player and Calipari is a great coach, I think that they are both cowards.
Memphis will also suffer financially. Every single penny that the basketball program earned that year is going to have to be returned. The money that was earned for being in the NCAA tournament is going to be handed over to Conference USA. Memphis will also be prevented from receiving future shares doled out in the conferences revenue-sharing program.
The Stinson and Howard article came to the obvious conclusion that success will lead to an increase in financial donations to the athletic department. “Successful athletics programs, they noted, were successful at increasing the donor base.”(Stinson 18) After Memphis reached the finals in 2008 I am sure that donations were through the roof. Will the lingering effect of the Rose situation have an overall effect on donors? Will donors question the validity of the program the next time that it has a successful season?
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From a donor's point of view, a few selfish individuals screwed up Memphis's season. If I were an alumni, and a serious donor for the university, I would continue to help, but only if the university took this situation very seriously and made sure that this would never happen again.
ReplyDeleteBy the year 2002, The University of Oregon determined that over 50% of all their donations were going towards athletics (Stinson 2). This shows how serious people are about their local sports, whether they are an alumni or not.
Stepping away from the monetary perspective, the other effects that this treachery can have on the school, community, and individuals involved is extensive. Possible consequences could include sanctions, negative reputation, loss of public confidence, or assorted financial losses (Kihl 278). Corruption of this sort- or cheating most will call it- is intolerable, and I think that Calipari and Rose should be punished as well as the entire athletic program.
I would definitely question the Memphis athletic system for some time after this has passed. In my opinion, they would have to regain the trust of both the donors and fans. This can be compared to steroids in baseball because nowadays every time a player has a stellar season, he is questioned for using steroids. Now, this entire team will be questioned if and when they have a good season, for illegal recruiting violations.
In my personal opinion, there is more corruption within the NCAA that goes unnoticed than people realize. Yes it is only college sports, but you have to remember that with the USC’s, the UCLA’s, and the Texas’s of the world, that their colligate sports are treated like businesses. Focusing merely on football and basketball because those are the two primary revenue sources for the athletic departments, and as the school, communities, and other resources keep funding the athletics, the coaches must feel the pressure of producing winning teams. This coming from a neutral point of view, but when coaches are competing for top notch recruits to come in and help bring the program to the next level, sometimes the coaches will violate NCAA regulations in order to land that all-star caliber player.
ReplyDeleteAs a fan and as a competitor in Division 1 Athletics, it is tough to admit that there are violations of the NCAA rules, but there are. Some are solely a mistake, but in other cases, it was on purpose. On a few occasions over the past few years or so, it has come out that coaches at big time schools have violated major NCAA regulations in trying to get the signature of an outstanding recruit. The first name that comes to mind is O.J. Mayo, who played one year of college basketball at USC and then went into the NBA Draft. It said in an article on ESPN.com that Mayo accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from a guy who basically develops fake relationships with players who are projected to turn professional, ultimately trying to lure them to specific sports agents (ESPN). I mean if someone offered you plasma televisions, thousands of dollars in clothing and other needs, who wouldn’t accept it? Regardless if you would accept it or not, it is wrong.
Now, I realize that the Memphis situation, but they still violated NCAA rules by using Derek Rose throughout the entire season when someone took the SAT’s for him. Who knows what the conversations were about between Calipari and Rose. Did Calipari tell Rose to somehow get better scores and everything will be taken care of? Did the admission’s department at Memphis realize the situation? Or did Calipari tell them to put on “blinders”? Well, whatever happened, it is over now and the past cannot be changed, but the NCAA as a whole must learn from this particular incident because I am sure this is not the first case of academic corruption in order for an athlete to be admitted and cleared to play their sport.
Now, what I would really like to discuss is something that I am sure coach’s think about prior to committing a major violation in which their job could be taken away is that of, “Is it worth it?” Is putting their job on the line for one single player that may or may not be a part of their program for four years worth it? In the eyes of a donor or a supporter, I would personally rather see a coach recruit and teach with integrity rather than cheating. For instance, was it worth it for that academic secretary to complete 400 assignments for the players of Minnesota? Kihl and Richardson discuss in their article, “Fixing the Mess”, the notion of the amount of money programs lose due to violations because of the games forfeited, decline in donor money, and reductions of competitions is extraordinary. Is that extra four thousand dollars worth the risk of possibly losing triple that amount in total revenue? I personally do not think so, but I know that if I donated tons of money to a specific program, I would certainly put an end to the donations because I do not support cheaters.
I am sure it is a totally different ballgame when you are the head coach and the pressure of fielding a competitive team is growing and growing, but again, no matter what, it always comes down the question of, is it worth it? I think no, but that is just me.
What people fail to realize, like bkuttley said, every college and university does the same thing when it comes to following the rules, its just the matter of some schools getting caught for committing or breaking a NCAA rule or violation. Coaches will do anything to get a high rated recruit and if it will help the chances of winning. The whole coaching business is corupted but like i said earlier its just a matter of those who slip up and get caught and those who don't.
ReplyDelete"Before the release of the penalties, the biggest concern is dealing with the sanction of the “unknown,” which is conceptualized as the period of time where uncertainty exists about potential penalties that will be
imposed by the University and NCAA. Official sanctions generally will not be imposed until the completion of institutional and NCAA investigations and reports"(Kilh and Richardson 285). So a school can committ a violation and it will take moths or even years for the NCAA to figure everything out.
As far as the donors go, i think they are willing to still help out. I know if i was a alumni and a situation happened involving the basketball team, i will still donate but keep a close eye out and hope and pray that nothing else happpens.
"On-the-court performance has a statistically significant, yet practically marginal influence on the amount of total gift directed by donors to support athletics programs at I-AA and I-AAA institutions"(Stinson and Howard 15). The bottom line is that every college and unviersity basketball coach has pressure put upon them to win and in some cases most coaches will do anything to do that.
This Memphis problem is just an example of what has happened at plenty of schools around the country. Memphis was developing into a serious power in college basketball, now with these sanctions the program will have to overcome some serious adversity to get back to the top (not to mention losing Calipari). Along with the sanctions they face, all the recruits they were bringing in have the option to go to a different school, in most cases the NCAA will sign a waiver granting this for them.
ReplyDeleteThis is hardly the first time it has happened. Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas was once a power in College Football until they were docked an extensive amount of scholarships and had their ENTIRE next season cancelled. Many people refer to this as the "death penalty" for a program. However this cheating was all done in an enviroment where winning brings in money. "Successful programs, they noted, were successful at increasing the donor base" (Stinson, 18). This causes so much pressure from the coaches even down to the players that sometimes they make mistakes when trying to improve their school.
That gets to the worst part. "The enviroment where corruption occurs, along with the type of corruption displayed, produces significant consequences for organizational stakeholders not involved in the malfeasant activities" (Kihl, 298). The kids are the ones who end up suffering the most from this. They go to this school to get a good education and to play the sport they love, then when these things happen it takes away from their experience causing many of them to transfer, because the enviroment and program they originally decided to attend has changed drastically. That, in turn negatively affects the performance of that team the next season, it's an ongoing cycle that once the violations and sanctions come down is hard to stop for most schools.
-Nate Porter
Corruption and scandal in college athletics is something that I have learned to deal with. Perhaps it would affect me more adversely if I went to a school with a larger athletic program, but that just isn't the case at Quinnipiac.
ReplyDeleteThat said, academic cheating really bothers me, especially at public institutions where taxpayers are footing the bill.
Jeffrey L. Stinson and Dennis R. Howard wrote about donations in their piece entitled, "Winning Does Matter: Patterns in Private
Giving to Athletic and Academic Programs at
NCAA Division I-AA and I-AAA Institutions."
In it, they write, "While basketball team performance can modestly alter individual allocation patterns, team success increases the amount donated to both athletics and academic programs" (15).
Why would any person donate to Memphis after the Derrick Rose fiasco? Yes, the team has been tremendously successful, but that near-championship season essentially never happened.
Lisa Kihl and Tim Richardson wrote "'Fixing the Mess'": A Grounded Theory of a Men’s Basketball Coaching Staff’s Suffering as a Result of Academic Corruption." In it, they talk about the effects of recruiting violations.
They write, "Recruiting sanctions cause a program to be 'behind the eight ball'— a situation where the sanctions place a coaching staff in an immense disadvantage with their competitors in terms of recruiting and subsequently in an almost impossible position to overcome" (Kihl and Richardson 287).
These violations could set back Memphis years in terms of recruiting and donations.
I have to agree with some of the above posts that talked about the recruiting game in college basketball. It really is crooked and so competitive that coaches need to cheat. In reality, this is their job. This is how they feed their families. It is just a matter of who gets caught and who doesn't. Some coaches, though, have had some baggage wherever they go like Coach Calipari. There is no question that the guy is going to get you wins. He took an Atlantic 10 program in UMASS all the way to the Final Four. Of course he did have his issues with academics there as well. He also turned a Conference USA team in Memphis into a national powerhouse. I'm not even sure if I can name any other teams in the Conference USA right now off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Derrick Rose is concerned, I would not call him a coward because I know that if I had the choice to be the number one pick in the NBA draft, I would take it without a doubt. If he did make this mistake, he should admit because it really does not affect him anymore since he is making millions of dollars a year to play the game still. I think that although Memphis is stripped of these wins, it still does not take away the experience that they had. In no way am I saying it is right what they did to get Rose, but the players will still all have the same experience of winning 38 games and making a run to the National Championship game.
I think that Memphis is going to lose a lot of their donors. I do not think this has to do with the fact that they cheated. I feel like losing Calipari, they will not land the big time recruits. As you could see many of them left after Calipari left. Memphis is just not on the same level as a UNC, Duke, UCLA, or a school like that where regardless of the coach, they will land big time recruits. Many kids grow up dreaming to play ball at a UCLA or a UNC. Not many kids have this same dream of Memphis especially now with Calipari gone. Therefore, their win total and success will go down. In the article by Stinson, the author states,"The performance of football and men’s basketball teams appears to influence donors at NCAA Division I-AA and I-AAA schools. While some of the practical effects are marginal and trail the influence of other institutional factors (i.e., academic ranking,private status, religious affiliation, etc.), it is clear that successful athletics programs
often lead current donors to make larger gifts, and perhaps more importantly, attract
additional donors to the institution" (Stinson 17)
I think that the new coaching staff at Memphis had a lot of cleaning up to do with the reputation of the school. Obviously, it is not their faults but if they want to be successful in their profession, they are going to need to clean up the baggage that they are stepping into. Accoring to the Kihl and Richardson article, the authors noted, "Recruiting sanctions create the greatest amount of grief for a newly hired coachingstaff, in both the short and long terms" (Kihl and Richardson 286).
Overall, I think that college basketball recruiting is going down hill. So far to the point where it is almost necessary to cheat in order to be successful. I do not think cheating is going to effect the donors becuase I think winning is still more important than anything in sports these days. Many people, especially alumni, do not care how the wins come, as long as the team wins.
Say I went to Memphis. I'm a big fan and I'm rolling in the dough. Why would I send my money there now?
ReplyDeleteAs Stinson and Howard wrote in "Winning Does Matter," "Private support at I-A institutions
now provides 18% of athletic department budgets, up from 15% in 1995 (Fulks,
1995, 2005)" (Stinson and Howard, 2).
If I'm looking send money back toward my school, I won't be sending it back to the Memphis athletics program.
When I hear about corruption in college basketball, I'm no longer surprised. On one hand, I blame the coaches for breaking the rules. But on the other hand, I think it's partially the NCAA's fault for all these rules and regulations they have laid out for the teams.
As Kihl and Richardson write in "Fixing the Mess," the rules are sometimes a hindrance.
"The NCAA and self-imposed sanctions generally restrict a coaching staff hired
to “clean-up” a corrupt program in their ability to effectively carry out their roles
and responsibilities" (Kihl and Richardson, 8).
I know it's an extremely complex issue, with sixth graders being scouted and whatnot, but something needs to be done to save the sanctity of the sport and the programs.
Posted on behalf of Will Cavallo:
ReplyDeleteWhen March Madness and the Bowl Games come around, it seems that everyone becomes huge sports fans. That is because those are the sports for college athletics. There are no other college athletics that are shown on a weekly basis on major networks. Considering that these are the money making sports for colleges it is pretty understandable.
In the article “Winning Does Matter” Stinson and Howard “Both alumni and non-alumni donors increasingly supported the intercollegiate athletics program, often at the aren’t expense of support to academic programs.”(pg.2) People are now supporting schools based on their athletics programs. A great sports legend, Vince Lombardi once said, “If winning isn’t everything, then why do they keep score.” This quote pertains to college athletics greatly. It is becoming more like a business, seeing how the coaches of major football schools make millions of dollars. Each school will do whatever it takes to get the top recruits at their school. It may be the case dealing with USC running back Reggie Bush, or this most recent case with Memphis and Derrick Rose.
The pressure on these athletes is tremendous. When the case of Kevin Hart went all wrong, he posed as a California recruit and had the press conference that most Division 1 football players do. The exception was he actually wasn’t being recruited, he staged the entire process. In knowing a Division 1 football player I can see the pressure placed on the athlete.
When cases like the Derrick Rose and Reggie Bush’s become public the NCAA must take action. For Memphis they had to forfeit 38 wins. Reggie Bush was lucky because they were unable to prove any wrong doing. With these public allegations it hurts the schools reputations, and possibly may hurt their chances with certain recruits.
In the article, “Fixing the Mess,” Kihl and Richardson mention, “It was theorized that student-athletes suffer due to three main consequences of academic fraud: negative treatment, sanctions, and a sense of loss.” Most athletes would like to feel the protection of their athletic program. Each athlete wants to be treated like the football and basketball players at the big Div. 1 schools.
Football and Basketball are the money makers, so they will be spoon-fed whatever they need to win. This is all because “Winning Does Matter.”
I think people are a little too harsh on the whole Memphis situation. What happened to the whole "innocent until proven guilty" concept? As Dick Vitale said, "The NCAA -on two occasions- has emphatically stated that Calipari was not involved in the benefits that Marcus Camby received at Umass and was in no shape or form involved with someone allegedly take the test for Rose." Calipari has coached well over 100 players at both Umass and Memphis and not once has anybody read or heard of a scenario where his athletes were receiving cars, cash, or any other illegal benefits.
ReplyDeleteHowever where this is really unfortunate is for the new Memphis basketball program. Memphis is going to be under question for the rest of the next upcoming seasons. Similar to my favorite NFL team, the New England Patriots, every time we win a good chunk of games, we are questioned about cheating. Now whenever Memphis wins a lot of games, they are going to have that red flag that no team wants to be faced with.
In the article, "Fixing the Mess", by Kihl and Richardson, they state, "A coaching staff is assigned the responsibility of fixing the corruption's mess through effectively managing imposed sanctions, restoring integrity to the program while simultaneously maintaining a competitive program." (Kihl and Richardson, 279) Unfortunately it is going to take a few years to get this program back on its feet. Already the recruiting is taking a hit. In both 2008 and 2009 when Calipari was there, the Memphis Tigers had 4 recruits in the top 100, including a prospect in the top 5 both years according to scout.com. In 2010, Memphis only has 2 recruits in the top 100 and in 2011, no recruit has committed to Memphis out of the top 100.
The money donated to the school now is going to take a hit until Memphis starts winning again and gains back the respect from fans that they lost. Jeffrey L. Stinson and Dennis R. Howard states in their article, "Winning Does Matter" that in a case study of giving to Clemson University indicated that increased winning by the football team led to increased donor support of athletic programs (pg. 4) True Memphis fans are still going to give money back even after this alledged case of fraud, especially once they start winning again.
I guess all I can say is that until Calipari is indeed proved guilty in these illegal actions, I can't say harsh words towards him. Like the respected hall of famer C.M. Newton said, "Calipari is the master at bending but not breaking the rule." (ESPN)
What Derrick Rose and John Calipari did to the University of Memphis is a complete shock to me. All of the hard work and accomplishments of the entire team have now completely gone to waste. If I were an alumnus of the University of Memphis, I would ask myself, “Why am I going to donate money to an athletics program that allows cheaters to come in and tarnish our school’s name?”
ReplyDeleteI do feel that college athletics are very political and corrupt, as many have already mentioned. There is definitely an immense amount of cheating that goes on under the radar. However, I feel that since Memphis did get caught, they are going to suffer tremendously financially, especially from a donations standpoint. This is illustrated in Kihl and Richardson’s, “Fixing the Mess”: A Grounded Theory of a Men’s Basketball Coaching Staff’s Suffering as a Result of Academic Corruption, when it states, “In the long term, institutions may experience a decline in charitable giving and overall student enrollment and struggle to recover from precorruption fundraising capabilities” (280). I would want to give money to my school’s athletic program to build if they were doing poorly and also if they were doing well, but I would not continue to give them money if I found out that they did extremely well by cheating.
Although for many, athletics can be a major part of campus life at schools; however as an alumnus I feel that I would donate more to my school’s academic program than athletic program. Most of us are not NCAA athletes, and are more directly affected by academics than athletics at our respected universities. However, this seems to not be the pattern at all. In Stinson and Howard’s, Winning Does Matter: Patterns in Giving to Athletic and Academic Programs at NCAA Division I-AA and I-AAA Institutions, they state, “The percentage of the total gift that donors were allocating to support athletics programs was increasing more than the percentage increase in the total gift amount. Thus, even when donors increased their total giving, athletics programs were the primary, if not sole, beneficiaries of the increased total gift” (3).
On another note, I think that after realizing that people actually do have others go in and take the test for them, I think that the NCAA and the SAT board need to come up with a solution to this problem. They should be stricter, perhaps requiring that photo identification be checked before a student hands in his or her test. I understand that this brings up the issue of fake ID’s and other ways of beating the system, but I feel that something really needs to be done about this issue.
The situation in Memphis reminds me of the situation at my favored college team USC. USC also had a player and a coach who basically screwed up the entire program, and are now off to bigger and better things. USC, known to be a football school, was really going in a good direction basketball wise. They had some really good recruits come there, and even had a top recruiting class coming in. Then everything went to hell with the whole OJ Mayo issue, and now Mayo is in the NBA, and Tim Floyd is gone. And oh yea, all the top recruits are going somewhere else, and all those good players declared for the NBA draft. So just like in the Memphis case, a coach and a player screwed things up.
ReplyDeleteBut back to the issue at hand, which is about the Memphis Basketball team. The problems that Memphis is facing are rough. Not only did they lose their 38 wins, but they also lost a ton of money. Lisa Kihl and Tim Richardson summed it up perfectly in their article entitled “Fixing the Mess” by saying: “For example, economic corruption impedes organizational development and growth as illegal activities reduce investments, compromise the state’s ability to collect tax revenues, and add to the overall cost of production.” (Kihl and Richardson, 279)
What those two gentlemen did to that program wasn’t just hurtful on the athletic side. The lost their 38 wins, but they also lost a ton of money. A run to the NCAA finals probably brought in a ton of money, and they had to give every penny back. This greatly affects your team in recruiting, and many other things. They may not have enough money for equipment now, and they also might have to fire some of the assistant coaches or strength and conditioning coaches, due to budget cuts.
While this can be detrimental to a smaller Division 1-A basketball team, it shouldn’t be too much trouble for a big school with a lot of alumni. As Jeffrey Stinson and Dennis Howard mentioned in their “Winning does matter” article, “Private support at Division 1-A Institutions now provides 18% of athletic department budgets, up from 15% in 1995”. Among other things, this means that more and more people are donating money to their alumni. In most cases, people aren’t going to care if their alumni cheated. They want to see their old school do well, and be the best. They will keep donating money, even in Memphis, and even after their team got in trouble.
In my opinion, the NCAA is facing a ton of problems with Division 1-A basketball. There’s a ton of cheating going on that we don’t find out about, and those getting caught really get in trouble. John Calipari and Tim Floyd certainly aren’t the two only ones that are doing these types of things, and I believe that there should be more research done as to who else is cheating.
-Robin Schuppert
The fact that so much money does go into these programs creates the biggest problem in the first place, which is the enormous pressure to win. When athletic programs are taking in as much money as say Memphis was, the donors will be disappointed if the teams are bad. And when there is so much money being thrown around on highly rated recruits, anyone will take any edge they can get.
ReplyDeleteMany of these massive, division one-A get ridiculous amounts of money going towards their athletic programs. Schools such as Oregon in 2002 had 50 percent of their annual donations going towards sports, (Stinson 2) However, these athletic programs are not monetary black holes. As the legendary UCONN coach said when asked about his huge salary, the basketball team pulls in a fortune for the school in revenue from television sales to merchandising. This all shows how much college athletics has turned into a big money business, and why many players are taken advantage of and told to do things they probably shouldn't do, such as cheat on their SAT exam.
The sad part is that this probably happens all over division one sports, but Memphis was the only school to be caught. And now with new rules eliminating high school players from the draft, the race for these new prized recruits will become even more desperate, possibly resulting in even more situations like the one we saw with Memphis.
Did anyone really expect Memphis to receive the same donations or even greater donations after the Derrick Rose-John Calipari incident?
ReplyDeleteKihl and Richardson's studies that academic fraud has a negative effect on donating was proven true. And rightfully so.
The idea of donating to a school comes from a general positive outlook on a school - most likely one's alma mater. When something of this magnitude puts a big dark shadow over the school, nobody should be expecting an excess of donations.
"...the authors concluded that on-the-field athletic performance had a direct effect on both the athletic component of a donor’s total gift, and on the percentage of the total gift allocated in support of athletic programs" (Stinson and Howard 2).
This makes sense too. If Memphis makes the NCAA Tournament, they are going to get a lot of exposure, especially if they make the finals like they did in 2008.
Now, this shadow over Memphis will not last forever. It will go away slowly over time, and once it does, the heavy donations will be coming in once again. Memphis will have to fight hard to regain its integrity among the NCAA. Even persuading recruits might become more difficult, resulting in less-talented players. The process could take some time.
I also agree with John Fitsch's point about the NBA eliminating high school players from the draft. This new rule has a great effect on the pressure to do well on the SATs to be able to play for the most talented schools - I think, far too much pressure. Perhaps this comes from my hate for the SATs in the first place, and the belief that one's high school classes and the grades they received in those classes should be weighted far more heavily.
The major conference schools can bounce back from these situations far easier than a mid-major. Schools like Southern Cal and Oklahoma have a larger collection of deep-pocketed alumni, and therefore more who will continue to back the program after the scandals those schools had.
ReplyDeleteA school like Memphis will have a much harder time bouncing back, as they play in Conference-USA, their coach jumped ship, and they don't have the decorated athletic program as many of their major conference counterparts.
The same thing happened at UMass (ironically a team also coached by Calipari.)
Men's college basketball and football are big money sports. Therefore, there is a high level of competition to bring in the top recruits. The article could not be more accurate in its title. Winning does matter. Finishing 16th in the Big East is not going to bring revenue in. There will be no national TV games. There will be people clamoring for the coach's firing. Nobody wants to pay to see a loser.
It's often said pro sports are a business. College football and men's basketball are too. These sports are not cheap to maintain, and depend on donors. According to the "Winning Does Matter" article, 18% of I-A athletic budgets comes from private funding. That was in 2005, before the latest BCS television deal, and it is a number that is sure to continue rising.
Memphis's men's basketball program will have a hard time recovering. They are a mid-major, and were the only competitive team in their conference. Their high-profile coach has jumped ship, and many of his recruits have followed him to Lexington. Whether they meet the same fate as the SMU football team, or UMass men's basketball is yet to be seen. But for the students, fans, and players at Memphis, it is truly a shame that the irresponsible actions of some can lead to the downfall of a basketball powerhouse.
"The seriousness, form, and number of violations influence the extent of the impact on an organization" (Kihl and Richardson, 280). To me, this whole thing with Derek Rose seems very serious. As a former high school student who had to take the SAT's, and also as a high school athlete being recruited to play a division I sport. What makes me mad about this situation is where do these players get the idea that they do not have to do what every other high school student in the country has to do in order to get into college? I understand that at big schools, such as Memphis, basketball plays a huge role in the financial aspect, and it is more like a business more than anything, but come one. I do not think these big time players think through these situations. Most likely it was someone else who came up with the idea for someone else to take the test for Rose (hopefully, at least)and it probably seemed like the best idea in the world to him. The NBA Draft after his freshman year was probably in sight and his whole life would just be dandy. But what if before his freshman year, he brakes his ankle in practice, and is forced to red-shirt and miss his whole freshman year? Then this whole sitation comes about, he gets kicked out of school, and now the NBA draft is out of the question because he has been out of commission for a year.
ReplyDeleteThese types of situations unfortunately do happen all around the country, and mostly probably becuase schools think they will never get caught,and most probably do. But to me, the fact that there is still a chance of getting caught is motivation enough to say no to anything illegal.
With Rose to this day denying it, and him gone to the NBA and Coach Calipari gone as well, I think it is Rose obligation to admit his wrongdoings. He has to think of the University of Memphis, and all of its fan's and supporters/ doners, and owe them the respect of telling the truth. He is gone to the NBA and no harm would be done to him, so the least he can do is apologize. Otherwise, I agree with the statement that he is looking like a coward.
Posted on behalf of Mike Mancuso:
ReplyDelete“Corruption impacts an organization in a variety of ways including via sanctions, a negative reputation, loss of public confidence, and assorted financial losses" (Kihl). In the Kihl and Richardson article, “Fixing the Mess” they talk about how athletic programs fall victims to fraud. How it damages the institution by taking back money, recruits, win & championships, or even dare we say trust. But unfortunately today these schools so big into their D1 athletics are ran like a professional team and are used to make money just like everything else is in this world. In the past 3-5 years we have seen major athletic schools including USC, Indiana, and now Memphis take a hit for some sort of fraud and NCAA violation, whether it be in the football or basketball department. They may take back the wins or achievements but there not losing much money and certainly no recruits. There's a reason why everyone wants to play for these schools because of the tradition and opportunity that's not going away. Just because they took away Memphis' Final Four doesn't mean it didn't happen. Derrick Rose played one season of college ball we will always remember what happened and how it helped him to be the number 1 overall pick. Do we honestly care if he took the SAT or not? He wasn't at school for academics anyway (because of a stupid rule the NBA and NCAA have come up with, but that's a topic for another day)so I don't see the big deal.
We are stupid and nieve if we believe this doesn't happen at all the big schools across the country. It doesn't matter the sport, its just a matter of which schools get caught for what or in USC's case how many times (basketball & football). But how does this all effect donations and how the fans feel about all this? It must not, according to the Stinson & Howard article, “private support at Division 1-A Institutions now provides 18% of athletic department budgets, up from 15% in 1995”. So since the media has gotten involved and points out all the bad things and violations these schools are accused of, the donations have increased? It shows that all media is good media or simply that college sports are a business now and we just want to be entertained. We don't care about whose cheating (as long as there not using steroids); the NCAA has a ton of rules it's a 100% certain fact that here at Quinnipiac we brake them too. And back to Memphis real quick, even in retrospect do you really buy that the Tigers would have rather gone by the rules and played their "almost perfect" season without there superstar Derrick Rose? Not a shot, those kids had the time of their lives whether Rose was legit or not.