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OT: Jim Boeheim, and has your view of a "sports scandal" change after Defamegate?

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Ice_Ice_Brady

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If anyone is not aware of what happened/is happening at Syracuse, here is a good breakdown. In short, Boeheim was stripped of over 100 wins, had his reputation tarnished, and the school lost three scholarships a year for the next four years, all because of his failure to be generally aware of improprieties within the basketball program. Their reasoning was that even though Boeheim might not have known there was wrongdoing, he should have known. Like with Brady, the actual investigation involved moving the goalposts on what they were actually investigating, took a huge amount of time and money (8 years!), and more than likely revealed incidents that are incredibly minor compared to what you'd find with other programs if you microscoped their actions over an eight year period. Yet, in the end, the investigators and the NCAA would not walk away without their pound of flesh, blowing up these minor infractions to show they are tough against violators.

Everything you need to know about Syracuse's NCAA scandal

I really wish for all these investigations, there would be a second level where another team would look at the actual investigators and league to make sure they themselves are fair and consistent, much like Judge Berman was forced to do, although his hands were tied in many ways. I imagine there is an incredible amount of hypocrisy and professional ambition involved here, as with most of these "scandals." For example, I'm guessing that other programs were not given same level of audit and criticism for their self-imposed drug policies or academic policies. I would not be surprised if Syracuse and Boeheim were more above board than others, based on the little wrongdoings here.

Fair to day, Defamegate has changed my views forever, and I am very skeptical whenever one person or one program is "taken down" and dragged through the mud for something that isn't an obvious and glaring sin. The investigators are rarely called in to be fair; they are called in under the guise of fairness, but their real goal is to find wrongdoing. Why else would it take EIGHT years to complete this investigation?
 
You shouldn't be able to punish someone for maybe being aware of something somebody else might have done, it's ludicrous. Bring proof of guilt or leave it alone.

Edit to say I don't follow basketball so I'm utterly ignorant of the story, that's just my view on deflategate
 
Syracuse alum?

Zero dogs in this fight. I hardly even watch college sports and got my degree mainly online. I've just become more sensitive to headlines and after Defamegate and decided to actually read the fine print.
 
It's ridiculous, and it's what happens when you allow centralized power, then let it go unchecked.
Or get caught up in social media and the vocal minority. I.e. Play to the headlines rather than accepted principles of right and wrong.
 
SU also had a child sexual abuse scandal that was dropped. The term "ball boys" took on a new meaning for a while there.
 
They all pale in comparison to the St. Louis Cardinals hacking into Houston's computer system, with one exception, SUCK FOR LUCK, in which a franchise actually threw an entire season, ironically no one had any interest in either scandal.
 
The NCAA makes Roger Goodell look like Abraham Lincoln.
 
Syracuse alum?

I'm a 'Cuse alum and I have three thoughts.

1. SU definitely did some very wrong things and deserved a punishment. Even a stiff one. I'm fine with that in principle.

2. The punishment was too hard. I am ok with losing scholarships, etc., but taking away victories is just plain stupid. It's like certain games didn't really happen, when, of course, they did.

3. The NCAA is a thoroughly corrupt organization and not enough bad things can happen to it, in my opinion. And I thought this completely independently of the Syracuse situation.
 
I'm no Syracuse fan, and I loathed Boeheim and the Orangemen for a long time as a BC fan. That said, I felt terrible for him (yet another high profile coach, ala Callipari) going through the ringer when there were so many other coaches you knew were doing worse.

That said, the idea of "being generally aware" is an interesting parsing of words, and can mean different things in different situations. We have the two examples above, which have no legal ramifications according to law, and then you have examples of "being generally aware" in terms of legality, such as Joe Paterno being informed by his Undergrad assistant that one of his coaches was a kiddie diddler. Paterno should have been thrown in jail for failure to notify the authorities once he understood that the people he reported to would fail to follow through.

The problem with Brady's version of "being generally aware", is that somewhere between the "Jets 16psi home game" and the "Colts team managers are allowed to test the balls as they come off the field-gate game," Brady was expected to be generally aware of "Everything that went on with his team from the ceiling to the floor, and everything in between."

All because of one ****ing text that had the word "Deflator" in it.
 
They all pale in comparison to the St. Louis Cardinals hacking into Houston's computer system, with one exception, SUCK FOR LUCK, in which a franchise actually threw an entire season, ironically no one had any interest in either scandal.

It's amazing how that Cardinals hacking story has been completely buried. I had to look it up, but it broke 6 months ago and there's been very few developments or even discussion about it since then. I think there are 2 reasons for this:

1 - MLB acted like grown ups in this situation, didn't rush to any conclusions and are letting (or did let) the investigators do their job.

2 - There are a lot of baseball fans in the media who don't want to believe the worst about such a storied franchise like the Cardinals, so they either downplayed the report, were skeptical of it, or are waiting to hear what the FBI has to say. As an example, Chris Russo, who believed the Patriots were 100% guilty from Kravitz's first tweet, but refuses to read any of the reports or testimony, urged everyone not to make any snap judgements about the Cardinals.
 
NCAA is the very definition of arrogance, power, greed, hypocrisy and corruption run amok.

One difference is that the NCAA would never drag one of their premier programs through the mud. In those situations, they try to find a loophole or drag their feet in the investigation to avoid punishing a "blue blood."

You can look at the handling of the Cam Newton controversy when Newton was the favorite for the Heisman and Auburn was heading for the national championship game. Or the academic scandal at UNC, where they initially tried to explain fake courses away by saying non-athletes could take them, too. That tactic didn't work, so they have moved on to saying the women's basketball team was the biggest culprit and the football and men's basketball teams really weren't involved. Even with Syracuse, they announced their postseason ban effective last season at a point where the team wasn't like to make the NCAA tournament. If they really wanted to screw them, they would have made the ban effective this season.

tl;dr - If you're Kentucky basketball or ND football, you won't get in any real trouble. If you're Coastal Carolina, you're getting hammered.
 
One of the guys I coach with works for the Cardinals as an IT guy. He made a Deflategate comment one day, I came back with "So Dave, did you hack into the Astros system? You have to know who did if it wasn't you." And that was the last time I heard about deflated footballs.
 
One difference is that the NCAA would never drag one of their premier programs through the mud. In those situations, they try to find a loophole or drag their feet in the investigation to avoid punishing a "blue blood."

You can look at the handling of the Cam Newton controversy when Newton was the favorite for the Heisman and Auburn was heading for the national championship game. Or the academic scandal at UNC, where they initially tried to explain fake courses away by saying non-athletes could take them, too. That tactic didn't work, so they have moved on to saying the women's basketball team was the biggest culprit and the football and men's basketball teams really weren't involved. Even with Syracuse, they announced their postseason ban effective last season at a point where the team wasn't like to make the NCAA tournament. If they really wanted to screw them, they would have made the ban effective this season.

tl;dr - If you're Kentucky basketball or ND football, you won't get in any real trouble. If you're Coastal Carolina, you're getting hammered.

Yes and no.

USC football, Kentucky hoops with Eddie Sutton and Oklahoma football were all crushed by the NCAA at one point or another.
 
It's amazing how that Cardinals hacking story has been completely buried. I had to look it up, but it broke 6 months ago and there's been very few developments or even discussion about it since then. I think there are 2 reasons for this:

1 - MLB acted like grown ups in this situation, didn't rush to any conclusions and are letting (or did let) the investigators do their job.

2 - There are a lot of baseball fans in the media who don't want to believe the worst about such a storied franchise like the Cardinals, so they either downplayed the report, were skeptical of it, or are waiting to hear what the FBI has to say. As an example, Chris Russo, who believed the Patriots were 100% guilty from Kravitz's first tweet, but refuses to read any of the reports or testimony, urged everyone not to make any snap judgements about the Cardinals.

Kwis Wusso is arguably the most annoying person who talks about sports for a living, right down to his Elmer Fudd speech impediment. He's a guy who talks for a living and yet cannot talk.
 
If anyone is not aware of what happened/is happening at Syracuse, here is a good breakdown. In short, Boeheim was stripped of over 100 wins, had his reputation tarnished, and the school lost three scholarships a year for the next four years, all because of his failure to be generally aware of improprieties within the basketball program. Their reasoning was that even though Boeheim might not have known there was wrongdoing, he should have known. Like with Brady, the actual investigation involved moving the goalposts on what they were actually investigating, took a huge amount of time and money (8 years!), and more than likely revealed incidents that are incredibly minor compared to what you'd find with other programs if you microscoped their actions over an eight year period. Yet, in the end, the investigators and the NCAA would not walk away without their pound of flesh, blowing up these minor infractions to show they are tough against violators.

Everything you need to know about Syracuse's NCAA scandal

I really wish for all these investigations, there would be a second level where another team would look at the actual investigators and league to make sure they themselves are fair and consistent, much like Judge Berman was forced to do, although his hands were tied in many ways. I imagine there is an incredible amount of hypocrisy and professional ambition involved here, as with most of these "scandals." For example, I'm guessing that other programs were not given same level of audit and criticism for their self-imposed drug policies or academic policies. I would not be surprised if Syracuse and Boeheim were more above board than others, based on the little wrongdoings here.

Fair to day, Defamegate has changed my views forever, and I am very skeptical whenever one person or one program is "taken down" and dragged through the mud for something that isn't an obvious and glaring sin. The investigators are rarely called in to be fair; they are called in under the guise of fairness, but their real goal is to find wrongdoing. Why else would it take EIGHT years to complete this investigation?

My views of any scandal have changed including political. Defamegate was a local scandal and relatively easy to follow compared to politics. IMO I was able to read just about every report, transcript and briefings and I see so many parallels between them both. Fraudulent PR releases? Check. Blind masses (fans) who quote the fraudulent PR releases as truths? Double Check. Half truths? Check. Controlling parties with ulterior agendas? Check

I am not a Hillary supporter but her "personal server" issue was very Defamegate like. IMO
 
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