Harrick, Georgia, SEC have checkered past
It is number-crunching time in college sports -- RPI, winning percentages, records vs. the Top 50. So you want a good stat? Try this one.
4.16.
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| Jim Harrick has a long-documented history of bringing off-the-court problems to schools he coaches.(AP) |
Since a brief in-house investigation has already come up with enough disturbing evidence that the school declared itself ineligible for both the Southeastern Conference and NCAA Tournaments, placed head coach Jim Harrick on paid suspension and declared two players ineligible, you can't like Georgia's chances. The school had already fired Harrick's son and assistant, Jim Jr., last week.
So this will likely be the sixth major violation -- major, not the small stuff, major -- in 25 years for Georgia. Six in 25. A 4.16 average. Talk about your assist to turnover ratio.
Disturbing? You bet. Ridiculous? No question. Almost comical? Sadly, yes.
Consider the motto of the athletic department's fund raising group, the Bulldog Club: "Investing in Champions."
You just can't make this stuff up.
There will be a lot of consternation over the fact that the few Georgia players who are clean are going to be unfairly punished for the sins of the adults. Their One Shining Moment went down in a heap of deceit and an ever-growing mountain of allegations and investigations.
The kids have the right to feel cheated. But that's what happens when you get in bed with cheaters.
What, this is a surprise? The marriage of Harrick and Georgia has turned ugly?
Harrick is merely a guy who currently has two schools investigating wrongdoings committed by his regime. He is a coach who was so untrustworthy that UCLA "officially" fired him for falsifying an expense report just one season after delivering an NCAA title to Westwood.
That was such a harsh punishment for such a minor crime that visions of a straw and a camel's back can't help but come to mind.
But it wasn't enough to stop Rhode Island from hiring him. Heck no, this guy wins. Or Georgia from hiring him again, even though he brought to Kingston that noted scholar Lamar Odom and left a sexual harassment suit from a secretary and the current inquiry into booster payments to players, falsified transcripts and grade changing.
Down in Athens this must have sounded perfect.
What do you expect from a place that has Vince Dooley as its athletic director? Dooley's bio proudly notes that when he was football coach, he led the Bulldogs to a national title in 1980. It doesn't mention his program was found guilty of major infractions in 1978, 1982 and 1985.
Three times a cheater. And this is the boss.
So of course school president Michael F. Adams hired Harrick five years ago.
The only unbelievable thing about Adams is he had the stones to join the supposedly high-minded, reform-driven Knight Commission, which two years ago pontificated on everything and everyone that is wrong in college athletics.
Imagine that, a Georgia guy lecturing everyone else on ethics.
Which is why this is more than just another dirty coach running a dirty program at a dirty SEC school. Usually, the rest of country hardly notices. You can't blame them, on average it happens every nine months or so.
League-wide, SEC athletic departments have been found guilty of major infractions 15 times since 1990, the year a revenue-hungry rogue named Roy Kramer became commissioner and the ATM machines and SAT scams started really flowing in Dixie.
During his reign, which ended last summer under significant protest and many tears from the NCAA fighting law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King, all 12 SEC schools got caught.
When Georgia eventually receives its official letter of inquiry, the Bulldogs will join Mississippi State, Auburn and Arkansas under current investigation. That's one-third of the league.
No one appreciates blanket statements and across the board accusations but what the heck is the rest of the country supposed to think but the SEC cheats? Not even the Big Ten (13 major violations and a Michigan en route) since 1990 can keep up with this bunch.
Which is why the NCAA must step up and reassert control. And when we say NCAA, we don't just mean the national office. College athletics desperately needs a leader who can rally all of the school's that want to play by the rules and reclaim the direction of the organization.
There are good people at good schools who have been bullied by these clowns for too long. The cheats have led college athletics down the wrong road at the wrong time, all the while blaming AAU coaches, agents and society when the villain has always been in the mirror.
Now is the time for significant changes in the way the NCAA is governed because sadly it is the SEC, not the Ivy League, that has three votes on the NCAA's influential management council and one on the all-powerful Board of Directors.
The SEC says it deserves such disproportionate representation because it is an "equity conference." It claims it "invests" a great deal into athletics. You can insert your own joke.
Georgia should not have any representation in the governing bodies that determine the NCAA's rules, direction, value system and means of revenue distribution.
It should be on its knees begging the other colleges to not ban it from playing sports altogether.
Ditto for the rest of the SEC, which until it can exhibit any kind of morality or any ability to obey the most basic and indisputable of NCAA values (such as academic honesty), should have no say in anything of substance.
Why are the honest schools forced to obey these guys? Why should they have to listen to Adams, the Knight Commission fraud? They cheat. They get caught. They cheat. They get caught. They ...
The only thing we can take from this latest debacle is a warning to prospective Georgia student-athletes out there. Georgia is a fine school, with terrific academics and a beautiful campus. But take a long look at the film of those teary-eyed Bulldogs whose season ended unexpectedly Monday.
If you sign with Georgia, you better hope it's not your team that's cheating and then pray your 4.0 years don't overlap with the 4.16. And whatever you do, don't redshirt. Go ahead and play in Athens, or anywhere in the SEC, but do so at your own risk.
When you hang out with cheaters there is a good chance you are going to get cheated.
