There’s a pretty big difference here though, in how he cheated vs the NIL money issue. His staff took advantage of athletes by accepting bribes for steering athletes to certain financial advisers. Those advisers most likely were looking out for their own interests like putting the kids in criminally high fee funds and those that paid them huge commissions. For perspective, it was worth $91.5k in bribes from those advisers to his one assistant - they wouldn’t pay that unless it was worth it to them. NIL money goes to the athletes. These money issues are totally different and shouldn’t be painted with the same brush. It’s absolutely contemptible that a staff would do that to athletes. In my opinion, and I know this is strong, but coaches that cheat athletes out of money (directly or indirectly) should be barred from coaching by the NCAA.
Edit: to explain where I am coming from, I work in the banking industry. If you commit a crime of dishonesty and are found guilty, you will never work for a bank again. This kind of penalty exists in the real world.
Insightful perspective.
Still, we know that administrators will go along with boosters, who often justify a win-at-all-costs model. With Pearl, you know what you're getting --a guy who doesn't care how he wins, only that he does. He will break the rules, do whatever it takes to bring in guys, and he can coach. You watch his teams, and while he can't perform miracles, if he gets the talent he wants, he does pretty well with it. If he didn't come with so much baggage, teams would be drooling over his resume.
He's cheated at every stop, and when you pull back and look at his career, for the most part, he's gotten away with it. He's a snake that will eventually bite whoever hires him, but will almost certainly make a run or two while he's there. I can see why programs talk themselves into hiring him, but they'd be smart to put in some strong clauses for cause to get him out of there once he implodes. You know he's going to make a mess of things, and when he does, they should have an out.
I'd love to know what the powers that be, in the conference, think of Maryland hiring him. I expect it's a matter for Maryland to decide, but if the conference has to deal with him, there might be some opinions floating around that have a small bit of influence.
College basketball (NCAA) doesn't have red lines anymore, as we can see from the lack of meaningful fallout from the FBI prosecutions. They waited for the whole thing to blow over, and it worked. There were minor consequences, but not much in the scheme of things. It's really up to the conferences to police themselves, and they don't want to do it anymore than the NCAA. Until they lose fans, the NCAA can keep hitting icebergs and the band plays on.
Personally, I'd rather they not hire him, which probably means they will.
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