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Amidst all the Final Four hype surrounding this 2009 UConn men's basketball squad, there's still a dark cloud hovering over it. As excited as coach Jim Calhoun was after the 84-76 victory over Missouri - and trust me, he couldn't wipe that smile off his face no matter what - there's still a dark cloud surrounding his legacy at UConn as well.
No one at UConn wants to talk about it, but the reality of the situation is that after Yahoo Sports leaked an extensive report detailing possible NCAA violations in the recruitment of Nate Miles, Jim Calhoun was booed. That's right, the man with the second-most wins among active coaches, the man who built UConn basketball from practically scratch, was booed.
On Wednesday, just after the news hit, Calhoun was noticeably rattled. On Friday, he admitted he "could have made a mistake," citing the 508-page manual that details what is and is not legal in the field of recruiting.
Yahoo's accusations, which totaled a whopping 3,343 words, can be summed up in a few sentences: Miles was provided with lodging, transportation, food and representation by Josh Nochimson - a professional sports agent and former UConn student manager (an NCAA violation). At least one coach - former UConn assistant and current Quinnipiac head coach Tom Moore - admitted to knowing about the relationship (another violation). Five different UConn coaches traded 1,565 phone and text messages with Nochimson, including 16 from coach Jim Calhoun.
First things first, I am in no position to say what exactly happened. I have no idea if these allegations are true. I have no idea what Calhoun's 16 text messages to Nochimson said, or if he was trying to "recruit" Nochimson to recruit Miles.
I am in position, however, to comment on a few things: 1. The way Yahoo went about handling this and 2: The legitimacy of the rules that were violated.
Dan Wetzel and Adrien Wojnarowski, the two Yahoo reporters who broke the story, have had successful careers in sports journalism. I'm a college kid, so take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt. I have nothing wrong with the fact that Wetzel and Wojnarowski spent six months tracking down the free hamburgers that Miles ate, but the timing of the story was a bit fishy.
If Wetzel and Wojnarowski waited until say, I don't know, mid-April, would all the facts still have been there? Phone records don't magically disappear. Neither do Calhoun's text records. Merriam Webster won't re-vamp the definition of the word "booster" in that time either. All the evidence would have been exactly the same.
But one day before UConn's biggest game of the year? Sounds like either Digger Phelps was paying them off or Yahoo's prized duo had some serious money riding on Memphis to make the Final Four.
The timing of this story indicates that this could have been a direct shot at Calhoun and the UConn basketball program. This whole thing seems to be about more than just "reporting the news." Wetzel and Wojnarowski may have had another agenda, whether it was to tear down a basketball program at a crucial time or generate some additional buzz to their discovery, or both.
The whole story raises a much bigger question, however: Is this going on at other schools as well? The answer is an unequivocal yes. In being around some athletes as a Daily Campus reporter and just hearing things as a regular student, I would guess that Miles isn't the only one getting some freebies.
Even in talking to some friends from home who play Division I college sports, it's evident that these kinds of "violations" aren't just happening at UConn, or just with basketball. I've personally decided to not follow up on any of these "leads" because, guess what, I don't care.
The fact that the NCAA can punish a school for giving a potential recruit free meals or lodging is ridiculous.
"Well, thanks for coming up to visit the campus, Nate. Sorry we can't let you stay anywhere, but hey, the Nathan Hale Inn is really nice."
"Oh what's that? You can't pay for it because your family isn't that well-off and basketball takes up too much time for you to get a job? Too bad we can't let you sleep on the couch in Nochimson's townhouse. That would be convenient.
"What did you say? You're hungry? Sorry, can't help you there, either. Maybe if you beg outside the Student Union someone will give you a half a bagel or something. Well, I hope you liked it here at UConn."
Give me a break. Yahoo tracked down the owner of a restaurant in Deerfield, Ill., and discovered that Nochimson regularly paid the bill for Miles and other players. What is he supposed to do? Nochimson has a full-time job and Miles is a high-school kid who plays basketball for free and comes from a less-than-wealthy family.
"You think you can pick up the check on this one, Nate?" What Nochimson did is called courtesy, not an NCAA violation.
A few years ago, I worked out at a gym in my hometown over the summer and one of the kids who lifted there was being lightly recruited by UConn for football. I told him how much I liked it in Storrs, and once, I bought him a Vitamin Water.
Come lock me up.
It's one thing to buy a player a Hummer, but to feed him and give him a place to stay - especially in the case of some of these young men, whose families struggle to afford such trips and such on their own - well, that's a whole different story. These are basic human needs and the fact that an athlete can be denied these needs and a program can be punished for providing them is the worst rule in sports, hands down.
I love college basketball to death, and I consider it to be the best sport on the planet. But, as we've learned this week, it has its flaws - these rules being the biggest.
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