dsboyce
- Golden, IL
It amazes me that there are Illini fans who actually want this to happen. I'll pass. I want to experience WINNING a championship. I don't want to have one unceremoniously handed to us 10 years after a loss.
North Carolina Academic Fraud Investigation
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It amazes me that there are Illini fans who actually want this to happen. I'll pass. I want to experience WINNING a championship. I don't want to have one unceremoniously handed to us 10 years after a loss.
Of all the farces upon which the NCAA is built, the concept of vacating wins is the farciest. At least they have a good reason for stealing money from the players.
Mike
C-U Townie
+1
I'm no lawyer (as some have nicely pointed out), but voluminous academic fraud costing us and others a lot of money smells like a potential lawsuits somehow. Don't pretend to know how this would work or if it is feasible at all.
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TeamworkOrange
- Chicago
I'm not a fan of pursuing litigation unless it's a last resort, but I think it's reached that point. The careers of other coaches and players are directly affected, not to mention the large amount of money involved that stays with the guilty parties even after they've been caught. The NCAA has failed to properly police the system for quite some time, and when they do get involved, they've shown bias towards certain schools and against others.
I think it's time to take it to the next level and get the court system involved. Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion, players receiving large dollar amounts of illegal benefits should be punished as well. There needs to be financial damages and/or jail time handed out to those whose major violations are affecting other programs. Not just the schools, but the players who are involved as well.
Taking away scholarships, post season play, and even taking down banners is no longer enough. The media hardly even acknowledges vacated wins and still shines a positive light on teams that were busted for cheating. The Fab 5 for example.
The fact that there is absolutely nothing illegal about paying someone to play basketball is a notable hurdle.
But actually, I would encourage some prosecutor to try this. Maybe that's what it would take do rouse the followers of the NCAA cult out of their stupor.
TeamworkOrange
- Chicago
It's illegal if they don't file tax returns on the money they receive, which they clearly don't. I'm sure they could find other charges to levy (conspiracy?). The problem is that the court of public opinion would go nuts claiming that authorities were singling out disadvantaged kids who really need the money. However those same people never say a thing when some of these disadvantaged kids have tattoos worth thousands of dollars, and or when they run up $100K bills at jewelry shops buying bling.
Cheating is still cheating, no matter what financial background a cheater comes from. If you can't play by the rules, then don't play at all.
Cheating is still cheating, no matter what financial background a cheater comes from. If you can't play by the rules, then don't play at all.
Conspiracy has to be conspiracy to commit a crime, which this is not.
There is a gift tax exception of $13K which would cover a lot of the picayune stuff (as well as the benefits that don't really translate as "income" per se, parties, girls, booze, drugs, jobs for relatives, access to cars, etc), but obviously not the Anthony Davis type situations.
You would imagine the money isn't being laundered very carefully, but still, those cases would cost more to investigate and prosecute than the total amounts involved, and WAY more than the lost tax revenue.
Criminal justice is a system of allocating limited resources. I think spending scarce public dollars on policing a dying, corrupt, inherently immoral fairytale system in which every party is guilty makes about as much sense as investigating whether pro wrestling is fixed.
I suggested this a couple years ago to significant mocking. I agree with you that this is the only way to fix the problem. Something needs to be taken away from the people that actually broke the rules, rather than the athletes that come after them.
But there is probably something in their letter of intent, right? Wouldn't that then be a reason they could go after money?
The NLI is pretty limited to being a contractual bridge to create order getting athletes from high school to college. It doesn't really contemplate what happens once a kid in enrolled and playing in college.
And in any event, a breach of contract claim would be a civil matter between the NCAA and the athlete, not a criminal charge.
And the only money the NCAA could go after would be the cost of attendance they were (hypothetically) defrauded into providing. Not the money that was paid to the athlete.
Oh, and by the way, why are we even having this conversation in this thread? The UNC case isn't about money, it's about the players being pressured into sham classes to ease the administrative burden on their coaches and academic staff. The UNC players are the victims in this case, if anyone has a cause of action, it's them.
Well, I think this thread has gone the way of general problems with the NCAA and how to fix the problem.
As for civil vs. criminal charges, who cares. Take the money from the kids that take money. And make the LOI more binding to your conduct. Put in statements about a fine for breaking NCAA rules.
Of course, as you point out, this UNC stuff is far different, and IMO more serious, than a kid taking some cash. In this case, the University should be on the other end of a lawsuit, not the kids.
And when they get a 2-year tournament ban, everyone will still say the same thing next time. What's old is new again...
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
This goes beyond sanctions for the BBall or FB programs, however. This is an academic issue and could have real ramifications regarding accreditation. The university gave out phony degrees to athletes and non-athletes.
And I realize that it was specific classes that were phony, but those classes resulted in credits toward degree, which makes the degree illegitimately obtained.
TeamworkOrange
- Chicago
Aren't they conspiring to commit fraud? Although it would delve into legal areas that probably aren't well defined, I'm sure someone could find something illegal with their arrangement considering their actions impact other legal contracts (i.e. Television).
I'm sure there are a great many players receiving money above the gift threshold, and although not cost effective to pursue every case, going after a few a year could limit the practice.
Not much different than players or refs fixing games IMO. Those involved are just fixing games by stacking the deck against other teams
I think you may be mixing a lot of concepts together here.
Who is your fraud victim here?
Are we talking civil or criminal fraud?
What possible method of fining and collecting fines from former college players is there? You are way out on a limb with this one.
The fact that a person's conduct in some way affects what happens to some other person in some other place does not mean that actor is responsible for anything and everything that happened to that other person.
Put two other ways:
1. Not every wrong has a remedy.
2. Google The Butterfly Effect. Ultimately, everything affects everything. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means we should all sue ourselves!
Who is your fraud victim here?
Are we talking civil or criminal fraud?
What possible method of fining and collecting fines from former college players is there? You are way out on a limb with this one.
The fact that a person's conduct in some way affects what happens to some other person in some other place does not mean that actor is responsible for anything and everything that happened to that other person.
Put two other ways:
1. Not every wrong has a remedy.
2. Google The Butterfly Effect. Ultimately, everything affects everything. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means we should all sue ourselves!
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
I, Illwinsagain, hereby sue Illwinsagain, for lost commissions not earned due to reading this and all related websites for the past 12 years. The amount of the suit is $1,000,000,000.
I bet we will settle out of court.
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First of all, you would have to make the case that the NCAA eligibility of the players involved in a marketed sporting event is material to the inducement of the associated contracts. I don't think that passes the straight face test to anyone with a working knowledge of the history of college sports.
And second, you have a parties problem there. As we know, the players don't make a dime off of the financial arrangements surrounding the sports they play. They can't defraud CBS and ESPN, they aren't in a financial relationship with them.
That was kind of the theory behind the War on Drugs, as well as NCAA enforcement cases now. Start locking some people up and the rest will fall in line. That's not really how human nature works.
And also, I bet you there are an extremely small number of players exceeding the gift threshold. People see a player driving around in a Lamborghini or whatever and think that boosters are just handing out $200,000 cars. Car dealers don't like college basketball THAT much. They'll just let a player take the car out for night, that sort of thing.
Think about the Ohio State tattoo case. For one, tattooing is a service with a massive markup, the tattoo parlor isn't out anywhere near the quoted values of that ink, for two, having tOSU football players wearing your art and hanging around your shop is the best kind of viral marketing, it's the kind of thing celebrities of all stripes are given for free or even paid to use, and for three, despite both of those things, the shop got a ton of valuable merchandise in return.
Now, there are boosters who go around giving out cash to recruits, players and their families (I can't recommend this article highly enough if you're interested in how this works), but we're talking about smaller amounts of money, all in cash, and rarely all at once. Good luck prosecuting that after the fact, even with the resources and subpoena power of government. Under-the-table informal cash arrangements that are unrelated to criminal activity have enjoyed a de facto exemption from the taxman as long as there has been a taxman.
As I said previously, criminal justice is a system of allocation of limited resources. NCAA enforcement is the same thing. If we want revenue generating major college sports to be played "by the rules", ultimately the only choice is to change what "the rules" are.
On this subject, that picture of Cliff Alexander with a Lambo was just that, a picture. He did not own the car, he did not drive the car, as near as anyone can tell, he never even touched the car. He saw the car on the street, and took a selfie. That is not a chargeable offense. Now if you want to charge for the hat trick....
Someone told me that UNC is only getting 1 year of probation for this whole thing. Is that accurate or even old news that I didnt hear about?
One person's opinion if I had to guess. Much like many here thinking the will get nothing.
Their accreditation agency gave the University one year of probation, which is the first time I've heard of the academic folks even making a peep about an athletics thing. That's separate from the NCAA investigation.
The trouble with the accrediting bodies as a policeman in these situations (despite theoretically making much more sense than the NCAA in that role) is that they basically are forced into a death-penalty-or-nothing punishment structure. The only force they carry is the ability to yank federal student loan eligibility for a period of time, which would essentially shut down the entire University. That would never be appropriate for something like this, yet that's the only stick they really carry.
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