I blog. Follow the Money

Continuing my slow read and (very biased) commentary on the NCAA Report on SU athletics...

P.10 “AT THE SAME TIME THE REPRESENTATIVE LAUNCHED THE "BACK ON TRACK" PROGRAM, HE ALSO OPENED AND OPERATED A CHECKING ACCOUNT THAT HE USED TO PAY STUDENT-ATHLETES AND ATHLETICS STAFF. THE REPRESENTATIVE NAMED THE ACCOUNT "AAU-DCCT" AND USED THE TRI-VALLEY YMCA'S TAX IDENTIFICATION NUMBER….FROM MAY 2004 TO JULY 2005…THE REPRESENTATIVE DEPOSITED MORE THAN $300,000 INTO THAT ACCOUNT. AT TIMES, THE ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT WAS INEXPLICABLE AND UNPREDICTABLE. FOR EXAMPLE, ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT INCLUDED SAME DAY DEPOSITS AND WITHDRAWALS FOR THE SAME AMOUNT. OTHER TRANSACTIONS DID NOT RELATE TO ANY PARTICULAR AAU, YMCA OR OTHER SPORTING EVENT.”

Yikes! $300 grand in Jeff Cornish’s mysterious bank account! That could have gone anywhere. Luckily, the NCAA’s crack investigative team took their time with this case and tracked down every penny…oh wait.

P.10 “…THE REPRESENTATIVE IDENTIFIED A VARIETY OF SOURCES FOR THE $300,000, INCLUDING LOANS FROM HIS MOTHER, HIS LONG-TIME FRIEND AND THE FORMER ASSISTANT ATHLETIC TRAINER AND THE BANK. HE ALSO STATED THAT HE COLLECTED CAMP REGISTRATION FEES FROM AREA CAMPERS AND DEPOSITED THAT MONEY INTO THE ACCOUNT. HE CLAIMED HE LATER USED THOSE FEES TO REGISTER CAMPERS FOR THE HEAD BASKETBALL COACH'S BIG ORANGE CAMP AND THE ASSISTANT MEN'S BASKETBALL COACH'S BASKETBALL ELITE CAMP.”

Ah, the old loan from the mother! Dorothy "Mantooth" Cornish is a saint! We used to call that an “angel investor” back in my days as a small business owner. I owned and operated a fleet of mobile shark tanks-for-hire. Our main clientele were fairs, rodeos, and birthday parties. Business was growing great until an ill-fated appearance on, ironically, TV’s Shark Tank. (I made all that up, but I did co-found an Internet webcasting business.)

Anyway, it looks like Cornish is guilty of being a little loosey-goosey with his tax exempt bank account. Still, no signs that any of the basketball campers didn’t get their basketball camp.

P.10 “THE ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT ALSO DREW THE ATTENTION OF THE NEW YORK STATE OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL (OSIG). DURING THE OSIG'S INVESTIGATION, THE REPRESENTATIVE ADMITTED THAT HE WAS INVOLVED IN GAMBLING ACTIVITIES AND AT ONE TIME HAD INCURRED $50,000 IN DEBT.”

Uh oh. When SU started investigating this, Cornish denied gambling had anything to do with this account. (Remember: so much of this information was gathered by SU, not the NCAA.)

P.11 “HOWEVER, REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE OF THE FUNDS, NO ONE DISPUTES IT WAS USED TO MAKE PAYMENTS TO STUDENT-ATHLETES.”

A footnote I just made up says, "Listen, we’re not here to figure out how some guy who we think is shady and had a shady bank account and shady connections to a high profile college basketball team and shady gambling connections and a shady history of gambling debts got his shady $300,000! Sure, there might be some illegal betting on college basketball going on here, but we’re the NCAA! We don’t want to stand in the way of America's good time! You can make money off of our sports. We can make money off of our sports. We just want to make sure college athletes can’t make any money off of their sports.”

My “Is Kaleb Joseph involved in a point shaving scandal?” jokes from earlier this year are a lot less funny all of a sudden.

But seriously, there is probably no bigger deal here with this bank account than what the NCAA unearthed. I just think it’s funny, as always, what the NCAA chooses to focus on.

We’ve finally reached the specifics of the payments Cornish made to SU athletes (pages 11-13). I’ll summarize these:

-Three football and two men’s basketball players were paid for mentoring or working at clinics, camps, tournaments, or YMCA projects.

-One of the basketball players was Billy Edelin.

-Boeheim and (I think “former assistant basketball coach” is referring to) Bernie Fine knew that they were getting paid.

-Fine(?) said Cornish would call him to say he had a check for a student athlete

-Boeheim assumed, but didn’t check, that everything was compliant

-Cornish claims the athletes earned the money and received a reasonable rate of pay. There is no evidence to support this.

-Cornish admitted that he knew the YMCA didn’t have the money to pay the athletes, but he felt they should have been paid for their activities, even though most of the programs they were involved in were volunteer.

-In a two day period, Cornish wrote Edelin a $3,100 check (the highest check Cornish wrote to any athlete) and then a $360 check the next day.

-Cornish wrote a total of 21 checks totaling $8,335 to SU athletes.

-Cornish also compensated SU staff for appearances or assistance at the YMCA.

-Cornish gave Mike Hopkins (I believe that is “an assistant men’s basketball coach”) a complementary family membership to the Syracuse YMCA which he held for a year and a half.

-Cornish also paid rent for an administrative assistant in the men’s basketball program in 2005.

-SU self-reported all of this in 2010, following its own investigation that began in 2007.

So that’s the money. My main thought (and relief) is that it really wasn’t an elaborate system for paying players. It was not even really systematic. Nor was it lucrative. It was not good and it was definitely illegal. It’s embarrassing, but it’s nothing that makes me forever ashamed of the University. Oh wait…there is more!

-From 2002 to 2007, Cornish PROVIDED LOCAL GROUND TRANSPORTATION TO THREE ATHLETES!

-In the same period, Cornish PROVIDED OR ARRANGED TRANSPORTATION OVER 750 MILES (ie not “local”) FOR FOUR ATHLETES!

-At least five times, SU staff PROVIDED TWO ATHLETES WITH AUTOMOBILE TRANSPORTATION THAT DID NOT FIT THE DEFINITION OF “LOCAL”

-Once, Hopkins(?) drove Edelin 45 MILES!

-Four times in spring 2005 someone from SU PROVIDED A FOOTBALL PLAYER WITH A ROUND-TRIP OF 128 MILES!

Road trip! Don’t forget the Pringles! Wait, it gets worse…

-Cornish also PROVIDED MEALS TO ONE OF THOSE ATHLETES!

-The meals WERE NOT AT CORNISH’S HOME!

From page 31 of the report: “NCAA Bylaw 16 permits student-athletes to receive occasional meals from representatives of the institution's athletics interest provided the meal occurs at the representative of the institution's athletics interests' home.”

Ugh.

 

The Ed O'Bannon Case

Sunday, I was engaged with a few other SU basketball fans in yet another session of collective and vigorous head-scratching over the NCAA's harsh ruling. Our discussion came around to the Ed O'Bannon ruling, which my friends weren't immediately familiar with.

Here is a nice, short column from Grantland's Charles P. Pierce in the middle of the trial.

And here is ESPN's wrap-up following the ruling against the NCAA, which includes a helpful explanation of exactly what the ruling means. (I have yet to see a similarly clear explanation of exactly what the NCAA's ruling against SU says, hence my continuing slog through the report to figure it out myself. Most reporting still seems to focus on how bad the report is for SU and Boeheim.)

Finally, here is the most significant direct fallout from the case - the NCAA's decision to stop licensing its players to videogame makers. No more NCAA Football games from EA Sports.

Most interesting to me is this part of the ruling: The NCAA can cap payments to football and men's basketball players for using their names and likenesses as long as that cap isn't less than $5,000 a year for every year they compete.

This ruling is NOT about paying players to play. That is separate case working its way through the courts, apparently. So I know I'm mis-applying the ruling here, but... SU is being penalized for a little more than $8,000 of cash reaching the hands of five football and men's basketball players. That's much less than the $5,000 per player per year of play minimum going forward the NCAA would have to pay for using their likeness. Which it won't do, because it decided to stop licensing the games. Because NCAA sports are all about amateurism!

Reading the NCAA Report: Billy Edelin

Continuing my slow read and (very biased) commentary on the NCAA Report on SU athletics...

It's easy to forget, but Billy Edelin was a really good basketball player. He was the only true PG on the championship roster; you have to wonder how much more effective Gerry McNamara might have been had he been able to play his seemingly more natural position of SG if Edelin had been able to keep his life together.

The clip I link to above is, as I recall, pretty indicative of his style: more measured smoothness and thoughtful control than quick slashing. For the championship run, he was a rock for a roster with waves of talent. He was something of a leader on the floor. It's a shame he lacked control in his personal life.

Before he played a game of basketball for SU, Edelin was suspended from the university for alleged sexual misconduct with a female student. A year later he was reinstated when the charges were dropped. The NCAA suspended him at the beginning of the 2002-03 season for playing in a church basketball league while he was suspended from SU, because, you know, NCAA. He returned, averaging 9.0 ppg, 2.5 apg, and 1.0 spg as the first guard off the bench. He outscored our beloved Josh Pace, 208-138 points, in nine fewer games. The following year he got off to a good start before undisclosed personal issues led to him yo-yo'ing off and on the active roster for most of the season. The following year Syracuse declared him ineligible for failing to meet "progress-toward-degree requirements." He never played another game of college basketball.

SU did not cheat to keep Edelin eligible. None of the violations the NCAA found have anything to do with Edelin. Nonetheless, Edelin pops up in the report. Pages 8 and 9 of the NCAA report discuss how Jeff Cornish, "the representative," tried to reach out to help Edelin, "student-athlete 1," get his life on a better track. Both in the context of the report and in the manner it was written, the pages read like something unsavory is happening. Apparently, the point of the story is to show how Cornish ingratiated himself with the program. It feels like the NCAA is tsk-tsk'ing not only SU's reliance on a guy working at a community-oriented non-for-profit to connect with one of their players, but also the presence of such a player in its program to begin with. Ideal world, don't we want SU to give a chance to guys like Edelin? And don't we want YMCA's and/or their employees to reach out to at-risk youth?

Here is a condensed (by me) excerpt of those pages:

The Representative and Student-Athlete 1

Supervising student-athlete 1's community service hours served as a catalyst for developing a relationship between the representative and student-athlete 1. …The former director of compliance, the head basketball coach and a former assistant men's basketball coach knew that student-athlete 1 experienced serious personal challenges. They knew that he lacked support from his parents. They also knew that the men's basketball student-athlete often turned to the representative and confided in him to receive the support he needed. In fact, the institution knew and even encouraged these relationships. In his interview, the former director of compliance indicated it was "not uncommon for a student-athlete that doesn't have a parent or legal guardian in the picture to have someone [else] involved."

The head basketball coach also encouraged student-athlete 1's relationship with the representative. During the 2003-04 academic year, student-athlete 1 began experiencing serious personal challenges for the second time in two years on campus. The head basketball coach entrusted the representative to continue mentoring student-athlete 1 with little inquiry because the head basketball coach believed the representative was someone who could play an important and supportive role in student-athlete 1's life. The head basketball coach encouraged it stating in his interview, "I just trusted him. I thought he was a good guy for [student-athlete 1] to be around."

Student-athlete 1, however, continued to struggle and took a medical leave of absence during the spring 2004 semester. He returned one month later. … The former director of compliance even went so far as to have student-athlete 1 execute a release authorizing the representative, in addition to the former director of compliance, to have access to student-athlete 1's medical and academic records.

[…]

The Representative, the Part-Time Tutor and the "Back on Track" Program

Prior to student-athlete 1's final academic year, the representative and the part-time tutor [Hank Leo] used their experiences working with at-risk youth, in particular at-risk student-athletes, to formalize the representative's mentorship with student-athlete 1. The representative and the part-time tutor developed "Back on Track," a formal mentoring program for student-athletes. The program was a four-step program for student-athletes who were in serious need of help. The program's purpose was to (1) provide a place for student-athletes "to work out their issues when there is difficulty either at home at school or athletically" and (2) provide a place for student-athletes to perform "meaningful service to kids and families."

[…]

After several email exchanges with the part-time tutor and the representative, the former director of compliance sought and received assurances from the part-time tutor and the representative that NCAA legislation would be followed under the program. Mainly, the former director of compliance wanted to confirm that the part-time tutor and the representative had not taken into account student-athlete 1's athletics ability for involvement with the program and that student-athlete 1 would not be provided preferential treatment or additional benefits.

Reading the NCAA Report: Part III excerpt

More (very biased) comments on the NCAA Report on SU athletics. This excerpt is from a subsection called, "The Part-Time Tutor and a Representative of the Institution’s Athletic Interests"

P5. “BOTH THE INSTITUTION AND THE HEAD BASKETBALL COACH DESCRIBED IN GREAT DETAIL THAT THE REPRESENTATIVE DID NOT BEAR MANY OF THE TYPICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE INSTITUTION'S ATHLETICS INTEREST. THE INSTITUTION, HOWEVER, ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE REPRESENTATIVE MET THE DEFINITION OF A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE INSTITUTION'S ATHLETICS INTEREST AND UNDER THE FACTS OF THIS CASE, THE REPRESENTATIVE WAS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE INSTITUTION'S ATHLETICS INTERESTS.”

For some reason, possibly legal, the report doesn’t list anyone by name. Boeheim is “The Head Basketball Coach.” Jeff Cornish, the guy at the Oneida YMCA who allegedly gave out 21 checks to Syracuse athletes, is “A Representative of the Institution’s Athletic Interests.” Hank Leo, the guy who hired him at the Y and who originally introduced him to Boeheim, is “The Part-Time Tutor.” Even Syracuse University is “The Institution.” You can see from this excerpt the hilarious effect this has on the prose of the report. It’s also wild that some random dude at the Oneida Y would be a representative of SU’s athletic interests, but apparently, even though Boeheim and SU said he isn’t a typical representative of an institution’s athletic interests, he meets the NCAA’s definition. Please don’t ask me to go find that definition on the NCAA’s website. I’d love to read some reporting that explains it, such as in the NY Times’s mildly decent reporting on Cornish and Leo, but I have  yet to come across anything that even attempts to explain the NCAA rules. The NY Times was too busy describing a YMCA as a "haven" for SU athletes that “served as an arm of Syracuse’s elaborate system of violating the rules governing college sports.” Really? For once, the comment section on this article actually made me feel better; a few of them seized on the absurdity in all of this. Yes, the (later revoked) credits athletes received for a nonexistent YMCA internship is not good, though the report acknowledges that many athletes did actually do legitimate community service through the Y. But does God forbid kids from getting money for working Y events, being treated to fast food meals, and accepting car rides? Because the NCAA sure does.

 

Have perspective

From up here, things don't look so bad...

Reading the NCAA Report: Part I- Introduction

Lots of reporting on the NCAA report...lots of people digging through the dirt. I've decided to break up my efforts in reading the report into smaller chunks. Here are my (very biased) comments on some of the lines from the NCAA's 2-page introduction.

P1 “THE PANEL CONCLUDED VIOLATIONS OF NCAA LEGISLATION OCCURRED AND PRESCRIBED APPROPRIATE PENALTIES IN THIS CASE UNDER FORMER NCAA BYLAW 19.5.2, THE MORE LENIENT PENALTY STRUCTURE.”

It took me 8 years to track down NCAA Bylaw 19.5.2. That’s longer than the Watergate Hearings, which is a pertinent comparison! Ha, just kidding. But it was surprisingly difficult to figure out what this meant. You’re not going to believe this, but the NCAA’s website is a real mess – difficult to search and navigate. The top Google search result for “NCAA Bylaw 19.5.2” is a division II rule on infraction punishments. Also, there are a bunch of universities that pop up when you punch in that search, including Baylor, St. Francis, and Wichita St. So don’t be fooled by the language of the report in thinking that Syracuse got some sort of special treatment; the penalties were lenient just because the penalties straddled the period when the old rules were in effect (according to page 2).

Anyway, I actually gave up on looking for the exact wording of former Bylaw 19.5.2. As I understand it, the bylaw provides a list of ranges of potential penalties the committee could have assessed. The newer penalties list is harsher than the old list. So, for example, the range extends to a greater number of scholarships that could be taken away for the same level of violation. It’s not a crazily substantial difference, but the punishments could have been marginally worse. The bylaws also give the committee a lot of leeway in using their own judgment to assess these penalties, which makes sense given the variety of ways a college could violate rules.

P1-2 “IN TOTAL, THE SELF-REPORTED AND AGREED-UPON VIOLATIONS MADE UP 10 OF THE 14 ALLEGATIONS IN THIS CASE. THE OTHER FOUR VIOLATIONS INCLUDED ACADEMIC EXTRA BENEFITS, THE INSTITUTION'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW ITS WRITTEN DRUG TESTING POLICY, THE HEAD BASKETBALL COACH'S FAILURE TO PROMOTE AN ATMOSPHERE OF COMPLIANCE AND MONITOR HIS STAFF AND AND THE INSTITUTION'S LACK OF CONTROL OVER ITS ATHLETICS PROGRAM.”

“and and”? Who’s your proofreader, NCAA? A former North Carolina basketball player? Ha! Ten of 14 is an interesting number, as well as the four specifics that SU contests. The “Academic Extra Benefits” have to do with the treatment three other players may have received, which was uncovered during the Fab Melo investigation. SU says no violation was found, citing a lack of evidence of wrongdoing. The NCAA says the inquiry was not impartial.

On the failure to follow its drug policy, SU admits it did not follow its own policy, but notes that the drug in question was always marijuana, in every case.

SU strongly rejects the accusation that Boeheim failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance. As we’ve learned, by NCAA rules, head coaches have a lot of restrictions on how they can be involved in a player’s academic pursuits. To put it simply, they can’t. If Boeheim was willfully promoting deception or non-compliance, then he should be tarred and feathered. I have yet to read evidence that he was. Nor was he willfully shirking the basic responsibilities he did have to maintain awareness on his staff of what it took to be compliant. His biggest mistake was being a part of some terrible hires, but I don’t fault him for not keeping a suspicious eye on the Director of Basketball Operations.

 SU also strongly disagrees with the lack of control charge. I also don’t see an institution run amok, either in the evidence I’ve read so far or in my own personal observations on campus. If you get into a car accident, it doesn’t make you a bad driver. If you get into regular car accidents, you probably are a bad driver. But SU’s institutional violations were varied and sporadic, not systemic. It wrote a terrible drug policy that it didn’t properly follow (for marijuana cases). And it had three academic advising employees participate in some disastrous academic fraud for one to four basketball players. And a bunch of smaller violations occurred that could have (and sure have) happened at any university operating under the NCAA’s crazy laws.

P2 “UNFORTUNATELY, THE LIFE OF THIS CASE HAS BEEN LENGTHY. THE INSTITUTION'S AND THE ENFORCEMENT STAFF'S INVESTIGATION SPANNED FOUR YEARS, AND THE NEED FOR THE INSTITUTION TO COMPLETE ACADEMIC PROCESSES ON CAMPUS, EXTENSIONS REQUESTS AND LEGISLATIVE INTERPRETATION PROCESSES FURTHER DELAYED FINAL RESOLUTION OF THE CASE. A KEY INDICATOR OF AN EFFECTIVE PROCESS IS TIMELY RESOLUTION, WHICH DID NOT OCCUR IN THIS CASE.”

The NCAA blames the long investigation on SU’s lack of an effective process for overseeing and dealing with noncompliance issues. I can’t even navigate the NCAA’s website in a timely fashion.

P3 “THE BEHAVIOR IN THIS CASE, WHICH PLACED THE DESIRE TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS ON THE BASKETBALL COURT OVER ACADEMIC INTEGRITY, DEMONSTRATED CLEARLY MISPLACED INSTITUTIONAL PRIORITIES. SIMILARLY, MANY OF THE VIOLATIONS OCCURRED AS A RESULT OF PERSONS OF LEADERSHIP ENGAGING IN OR CONDONING CONDUCT THAT WAS CONTRARY TO THE NCAA CONSTITUTION AND BYLAWS.”

This is just bad writing. Whose behavior placed the desire to achieve success on the court over academic integrity? Which persons of leadership engaged in or condoned conduct contrary to bylaws?

I’ve been frustrated with the reporting done on this story, which tends towards the same broad strokes. “Athletes were given cash…” “Athletes had papers written and turned in for them…” That’s how journalism works, boiling away the nuance and details. Unfortunately, the NCAA report lends itself to such broad strokes.