The U(nconscionable)

Wonder how many Miami fans out there watched the 30 for 30 documentary on "The U" and thought:

"Man, how in the world did we get away with all that stuff? No way all that could happen today."

Well along comes a jilted dirtbag who wants to squeal and, thanks in large part to some staggeringly stellar reporting by Charles Robinson of Yahoo, everything comes full circle.

(By the way ... in light of all the breathless expansion/realignment reports over the last week, isn't it sorta refreshing to react to a bombshell that's actually, you know, true? After spending days watching reporters look like idiots left and right by thinking out loud on Twitter, along comes a reporter who spent 11 months getting his facts straight.)

Don't you wonder what's going through the mind of Luther Campbell, the founding father of complete disregard for the rules against lavishing college athletes with money, booze and women?

The breathtaking misdeeds at Miami, and the naivete that abetted them, provide a pretty good microcosm of the state of big-time college athletics today.

It sounds harsh, because this surely appears to be an extreme case. Most schools actually do things the right way (I think ... I hope). And despite our predictable itch to label this the "worst scandal ever," this is just one guy and not a coordinated and systematic effort of an entire program.

But I've said this before: We've told ourselves for years that NCAA reform cleaned up the renegade culture that permeated the 1970s and 80s, but it's becoming more and more apparent that things haven't improved nearly as much as we thought.

There's just too much money at stake for us to continue to pretend that these are "student-athletes" participating in an amateur endeavor. Steve Spurrier's idea for coaches to pay players out of their own pockets was a bit zany, but he correctly identified a fundamental problem: Conferences, schools and coaches are making exponentially more than they ever have, while the people playing the games are making the same as they always have (scholarships).

Unless, of course, you're at THE Ohio State and have access to cars and tattoos and stuff. Or at Chapel Hill, where a runner for an agent doesn't lurk in the shadows but resides right there in the football office.

Or you could be the perfect weapon at quarterback and have your father shopping your services to the highest bidder.

And on that note, might want to brace yourselves for another bombshell: Danny Sheridan is supposed to out the alleged Cam Newton bag man today on Paul Finebaum's radio show.

So grab the popcorn ... and get rid of this quaint notion that the renegade days are a vestige of a distant era.

These programs and the people who populate them are still as bad as they wanna be.



LW