What’s the best that we can say about NCAA President Mark Emmert in the wake of the news that his own investigators played fast and loose with the organization’s rules in order to verify rules violations by Miami?
Well, the NCAA boss conceivably could get high marks for reporting the problem himself rather than covering it up.
What’s the worst we could say about Emmert? Simple. That he should be fired, or, failing that, he should be suspended indefinitely and made to undergo a thorough examination of his oversight throughout this Miami mess, just as athletic directors and head coaches are held responsible when the NCAA comes calling.
Somewhere in between those two extremes – the honoring of a powerful institution’s authority to police itself and the dishonoring of an executive who runs a sloppy shop – an unhappy compromise will be found.
At this moment, however, all anyone at UM wants to know is how much of the Nevin Shapiro dirt will get blown out the window by this megastorm at NCAA headquarters?
It’s a legitimate question, and a legitimate source of optimism for a Hurricanes program that long has expected to be made an example for turning a blind eye to all kinds of bad behavior. To attach optimism to a story involving a convicted Ponzi schemer and cash payments for Miami players and a general run of strip-club skunkiness takes some doing, but the NCAA has magically made it possible.
If the Hurricanes can get off on a technicality on even one of the allegations, that will be a plus for a program that has been waiting nearly two years for the NCAA to lower the boom. Emmert went even further, however, with a Wednesday quote that suggests a larger bloom of testimony and records may yet come into question.
“We have to go through all of the evidence,” he said, “to determine what has and has not been appropriately collected and influenced by improper conduct.”
Now there’s a mushroom cloud over the entire investigation, and it’s enough to have some Miami supporters howling for a mistrial. No such term exists in the NCAA enforcement manual, of course, but there’s no provision, either, for investigators to hire Shapiro’s lawyer as a means of compelling people to answer questions about Miami misconduct. If the NCAA is going to improvise here, why not UM President Donna Shalala?
She should negotiate a favorable settlement in return for not suing the NCAA. Declare the case closed, giving the Hurricanes credit for time served in the form of two self-imposed bowl bans. Slap on a few scholarship reductions and let’s call it a day.
Such a resolution, naturally, would draw howls of protest from schools that have been hit harder for doing less.
Shapiro served up Miami’s head on a platter, after all. He operated at the heart of the Hurricanes program, giving money to the school as well as its players, and then, with vindictive flair, did everything within his power to promote heart failure. If the NCAA couldn’t find a clear path to major sanctions in all of this, it must have the Keystone Kops running its investigations.
More and more it’s beginning to look that way. The result is a recasting of the Hurricanes as victims, and the NCAA as vultures. While it may be impossible for Miami rivals to stomach the first part of that, there is growing commonality on the second.
David Ridpath, a former Marshall University compliance director, marvels at Emmert calling a news conference to admit that the NCAA has lost its way in the Miami case.
“Here you have an organization that very rarely will call itself out,” Ridpath said. “For years they have been saying their enforcement and infraction process has been fully vetted, almost like they’re perfect. That kind of leads me to think maybe this is a preemptive strike and there might be some embarrassing thing coming out about this.”
More embarrassing than the NCAA writing checks to a representative of the man who gave up the Hurricanes in the first place? Miami can only hope.
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