Jim Tressel is gone from the Ohio State University. Bruce Pearl is gone from the University of Tennessee. Butch Davis is leading a program where 8 players amassed 317 unpaid parking totaling over $13,000. Wide Receiver Greg Little alone had 93 tickets on multiple vehicles with nine different license plates. Among the cars the players were driving? Land Rovers, BMWs and Acuras, all cars scholarship players who can’t have jobs surely can afford. Then you have John Calipari.
Back in the 2007-2008 season, future NBA MVP Derrick Rose led the Memphis Tigers to the NCAA Title game under coach John Calipari. A few months later it was discovered that Rose’s SAT score had been thrown out because he may not have actually taken the test himself. This led to the season being vacated because Rose was ruled ineligible. The worst part is that if they had let that violation slide, he would have been ruled ineligible because his brother Reggie was allowed to travel with the team for free.
Coach Calipari has had a track record of violations. In his career he has had a season at UMass vacated as well shady dealings such as hiring prized recruit Tyreke Evans’ personal strength coach as an administrative assistant. So how is he punished? After the fall out at Memphis, he was actually rewarded by becoming head coach of perennial powerhouse Kentucky. A man who is a ticking time bomb of NCAA violations gets one of the most coveted jobs in college sports.
Today, Kentucky announced that they had extended Coach Calipari’s contract by 2 more seasons and an additional $5 million, bringing the total of his deal with incentives to $36.5 million.
A lot of people argue that paying student-athletes is one solution to the problems, but maybe we should stop paying these coaches who cheat, get caught and are rewarded with even more lucrative deals while the teams they leave are left to pick up the pieces.