Myles Brand, the NCAA president who made headlines in 2000 for firing Bobby Knight while president of Indiana University, succumbed to pancreatic cancer today. He was 67.
Brand shepherded into the common parlance of the NCAA a system of academic accountability for teams called the Academic Progress Rate. He backed his belief in sports as an agent of broader social change by advocating for an NCAA policy against Native American mascots.
Yet his pragmatic nature allowed for exceptions and compromise in both cases. As he often reminded people, the NCAA president has a bully pulpit, not the power of a czar.via.
So the real Myles Brand legacy will be that of a guy that fired Bobby Knight and killed Chief Illiniwek, since tracking academics in Division I sports is almost pointless. And that damn Y instead of an I in his first name. But yeah, sad.
I know what you’re thinking, “Great, more news from the Hoosier State.” But Indiana University was finally handed its punishment after this whole Kelvin Sampson debacle. Nine months after Sampson was forced to resign as men’s head basketball coach, Indiana accepted a punishment of three years’ probation from the NCAA, which acknowledged leniency based on the fact that their program is pretty much in shambles right now. From The Sporting News, via The Sporting Blog, via The Amazing Sport-nicolor Dreamcoat.
“It’s bittersweet,” said current Indiana coach Tom Crean, with the team in Hawaii. “We didn’t want to lose postseason, scholarships or television. Thank God we didn’t lose any of those so we can continue to move the program without the what-ifs.”
It’s the first time since 1960 that the school has been found guilty of a major infraction in any sport.
The probation comes in addition to sanctions IU already has imposed.
Only two players from last season’s team remain. The others were kicked off, transferred, graduated or left early for the NBA. The team has just nine scholarship players instead of the 13 allowed after giving up scholarships because of the NCAA investigation and poor academic scores.
Sampson himself will face NCAA recruiting restrictions through 2013, in the event he’s hired by another school. And if that school needs an amateur gynocologist to serve their female student body, they can call me anytime after 10 pm. I keep funny business hours, you see.
Don Chavez directed us to the story of Indiana basketball player Eli Holman, who last week had a conversation with head coach Tom Crean that started with Holman asking to be transferred and ended with the freshman tossing a potted plant in a fit of horticultural pique. Campus police were summoned and the student newspaper was on the scene with hard-hitting reportage.
Crean declined to elaborate on the specifics of the conversation.
Crean said there were three women in the basketball office when Holman got angry, which prompted someone to call the police.
“I don’t anticipate Eli being back at Indiana,” Crean said.
Besides neglecting to mention what type of plant it was (it's those seemingly small details that really imbue a piece, J-school kids!) the reporter really could have tried harder to press Crean on the nature of the conversation. My guess is Holman came in, said he was leaving Indiana and taking his favorite ficus plant with him. Crean then tried to take three women hostage to make him stay and Holman sacrificed the plant to save the women. Case closed. My work here is done.
Consequences suck. When you make a sex tape or take naked pictures of yourself, you have approximately 12-15 seconds to destroy the original digital copy before it makes it to the Internet and any job or extracurricular activity requiring you to have a wholesome image is shot to hell forever.
Such is the case for one Indiana Hoosier cheerleader who ended up on Don Chavez today (link has NSFW pics, but they're thumbnailed "below the fold"). Ol' Don isn't sure if the Hoosier in question is still on the squad, but this photo of the just-selected 2008 squad has someone in the front row, third from right, who looks, oh, pretty much exactly like our nude model, even though it's kind of hard to recognize her with all those clothes on.
Anyway, peruse at your own risk. She's certainly not shy, and I applaud her grooming. Oh, and to that last girl who got cut during tryouts: good news, there may be a spot opening up soon.
Embattled basketball coach Kelvin Sampson accepted a $750K buyout from Indiana University yesterday to step down for violating recruiting restrictions. Hoosier players had threatened to boycott if their beloved coach was ousted:
It appeared nearly half the team was prepared to sit out Saturday’s game in protest after White, guards Armon Bassett, Jordan Crawford and Jamarcus Ellis, and forwards DeAndre Thomas and Brandon McGee skipped [interim coach Dan] Dakich’s first practice Friday afternoon. But sports information director J.D. Campbell said all the players attended Friday night’s walkthrough, and Saturday morning they left together for Northwestern.
Too bad for Northwestern basketball fans who were looking for the Wildcats to get their first Big Ten win this year. I can hear you laughing - "Good one KD, like there are Northwestern hoops fans" - well, see the Chief's weekend predictions below. Anyway, some anonymous donor coughed up $550K of the cash, so IU could buyout Sampson. I wonder if any of KFC's regular patrons would offer me cash to leave if I revealed my frequent cross-contamination violations. -KD
I'm never going to even try to understand NCAA recruiting rules and violations, but apparently Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson — who has steered the Hoosiers to a 20-3 record and a #13 ranking in the AP poll — got hit with a laundry list of fuckups from NCAA investigators. You can read the whole story here, but as I understand it, here's what went down: Sampson, already sanctioned for violations while he was at Oklahoma, called kids he wasn't allowed to call. And some of his assistants made illegal calls. And he lied to investigators. And then some more stuff about illegal phone calls.
And now for a carefully worded statement from university officials that prefaces Sampson's demise:
"We are extremely disappointed in these new allegations regarding coach Sampson," [athletic director Rick] Greenspan said in a statement. "To say the least, we view these allegations with grave concern."
Golly, how do college basketball fans ever recover from the scandal of their coach making too many phone calls? There's no way the university can afford all those daytime minutes! I myself am shaken to the very core. Little known fact: my core is delicious nougat.
