The University of Toledo scandal continues to give a black eye to college sports. Quinton Broussard became the fourth former Rocket to plead guilty in the point-shaving probe, which included football and basketball roughly from 2004 through 2006. Broussard admitted that he accepted more than $2,000 from Ghazi “Gary” Manni, a Detroit-area gambler, including $500 to fumble the ball in a 2005 bowl game. He said he told Manni about team injuries and other confidential information in exchange for “small amounts of money,” but he also admitted that he intentionally fumbled against Texas-El Paso in the 2005 GMAC Bowl. The fumble had little impact on the game’s outcome; Toledo easily won the game, 45-13.
At the present time, charges are pending against three former Toledo basketball players as well as Manni and another Detroit-area businessman, Mitchell “Ed” Karam. Manni and Karam are accused of betting $407,000 on Toledo basketball games in 2005 and 2006 and paying players to shave points or control the final score. All of the players and the two gamblers have pled not guilty.
Meanwhile, local police obtained arrest warrants today for LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson and teammate, linebacker Joshua Johns, on charges of second-degree battery for a bar fight that injured four people last week. The players have been suspended indefinitely by the school. Baton Rouge police investigators have contacted the players’ attorney and LSU coach Les Miles, and asked for the players to turn themselves in.
It seems like no week can go by without an NCAA scandal involving money or criminal behavior. All I know is – I wouldn’t want Dr. Mark Emmert’s job as President of the NCAA right now. The NCAA has to change now or die. Or worse, have Congress intervene.

As you can tell, I haven’t been around to comment on lots of stuff, so here are a few brief thoughts:
• The Cubs fired Jim Hendry – no surprise there, as his talent evaluation of players like Fukadome, Milton Bradley, and Carlos Zambrano have been WAY off the mark. Also, he spent the house money like it was the house money, so he had to go. According to the local writers, the ax didn’t go far enough – President Crane Kenney is portrayed as the biggest front office stooge since the Hawks retired “Bullet” Bob Pulford.
• Meanwhile, the White Sox continue to stagger along – win a few games to get to .500. then lose 4-5 games, then struggle to get back to .500 again. Fortunately, the Detroit Tigers are playing just well enough to stay about 5 games in front of the Sox and 3½ games in front of Cleveland. Adam “Stick a Fork in Me, I’m” Dunn and Alex Rios can no longer hit. It’s depressing.
• I have to put in one political comment – the Newsweek cover of GOP Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann shows one thing – she is bat shit crazy. Her eyes look like that picture of Charles Manson from 1970.
• Speaking of the GOP candidates, most of them do not believe in evolution. Obviously, they don’t believe because their ancestors just crawled from the primordial ooze.
• I do wish the best for Tennessee Lady Vols Women’s Head Basketball coach Pat Summit, who is suffering from the onset of dementia. Often, I think that she is as touch as Lombardi was, but she wins basketball games and national championships. Get Well Coach.
• We hope for the people caught in the East Coast Earthquake yesterday, and also for those currently traveling inland to get away from Hurricane Irene. The worst thing about these two disasters (other than the damage, injuries and loss of life of course) is that this will be marked as another “sign” to those looking for the Biblical apocalypse. They’ll be more sure of themselves than ever (Pat Robertson will probably call the two catastrophes the Wrath of God for gay marriage or some other nonsense). Personally, I can’t wait until 2013 so that all of these “seers” who think the world will end in 2012 will shut the f#%$ up.
• I do sincerely hope that the Libyan rebels do overthrow Moammar Gadhafi this week. His reign of terror has gone on long enough.

Someone decided that there needed to be a trophy to the annual winner of the Iowa/Iowa State football game. Usually, the winner is the University of Iowa of course, but the schools, with money and input from the Iowa Corn Growers Association, came up with a trophy that people don’t seem to like.
The trophy, called (not inventively) The Cy-Hawk Trophy (Iowa State Cyclones – Iowa Hawkeyes, get it?) originally featured a farm family huddled around a bushel of corn.
Critics, including former Iowa coach Hayden Fry (isn’t he dead yet? I love that he gets to watch Northwestern stomp Iowa over the past few years) and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, had questioned why a football trophy would have nothing to do with football?
Craig Floss, the CEO of the corn growers group, said “the overwhelming feedback has been negative, so the group has scrapped the original trophy design. A temporary trophy will be designed for this year’s game on Sept. 10. Fans will be able to suggest a design for the more permanent replacement.
I’ve been to Iowa – I think the corn motif fits. I don’t see what the problem is.

I’m sorry, but despite allegations of wrongdoing at Ohio State, violations at the Big Ten schools look like spitting on the sidewalk compared with the SEC or the University of Miami. Howard Schnellenberber, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, the list of fast coaches barely running an outlaw program – the reputation never changed, but other than occasional players getting caught, there was nothing proven. Until now, perhaps?
Yahoo! Sports (which is making quite a name for itself as a sports news gathering service, openly competing with the mainstream media and other websites for scoops, printed an article earlier thai week that claims former booster Nevin Shapiro, who is now serving 20 years in federal prison for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, said he provided some 72 Miami players including current NFL players like Vince Wilfolk and the Bears’ Devin Hester with cash, prostitutes, cars and other gifts over the past decade.Yahoo Sports reported spent 100 hours interviewing Shapiro over the span of 11 months and audited thousands of pages of financial and business records to examine his claims, some involving events nearly a decade ago, but there is no statue of limitations on violations that are considered “willful.”
Current university president (and former Clinton cabinet member) Donna Shalala was “shocked” by the allegations, even though some allegations involve players on her current team, and thereby, under her watch. Current Head Coach Al Golden says that there will be “a new day” at Miami. There is backlash too. Some don’t think we should believe Shapiro (even though there is little reason for him to lie since he is already in prison.) The players are either saying “no comment,” or are questioning Shapiro’s motives. Others, like my old friend Rick Telander at the Chicago Sun-Times, are calling for a return on the “death penalty,” which cancels a school team for at least one year, most famously, SMU in the 1980s.
Long time readers know that I have generally come down on the NCAA hypocrisy in the Cam Newton, Terrell Pryor scandals. The NCAA makes billions of dollars off its athletes, but the kids can’t hold jobs, can’t make money, and god-forbid, can’t share in the revenues being pulled down by the colleges and universities. As I’ve said many times, these kids aren’t that dumb – they see the revenues coming in from ticket sales, and television networks, and they see their names and numbers on jerseys from which they get NO money. Plus, the athletes have to sign away their images in their school gear in perpetuity, which former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon is now using the NCAA over.
So, I have no sympathy for the monolithic NCAA. However, I think I have to stop at hookers. Even if I weren’t the father of two girls, I would draw the line at having a booster setting up players with prostitutes. I’m not really condoning cars, and vacations, and other perks that Shapiro has admitted to providing Miami athletes, but getting these young men laid, is beyond the realm.
On top of that, Shapiro says that he put out “bounties” on players on other teams; in other words, offering cash awards for hurting players from other schools. This is bush league stuff, what sports is supposed to keep kids from doing – playing for sportsmanship.
When former Northwestern Head Football Coach Gary Barnett got into trouble at Colorado for having recruits being escorted to strip joints, he said something on the order of if we don’t do it, we can’t compete with Nebraska. (Which makes us all feel so much better, doesn’t it fans of the other Big Ten Schools?) But this slime soaked piece of human excrement was a major booster – applauded by the school, accepted at events and even given preferred treatment at school events.
Even more pundits are crying that there need to be new rules for college athletics; that the NCAA is a antiquated organization that should be either overhauled, or eliminated. A few are calling for Congressional intervention (although the way Congress is gridlocked, that wouldn’t amount to anything).
But change is in the air. Even the heads of the NCAA know that the status quo is not sustainable, and that if college athletics wants to keep the million dollar contracts, some of that money is going to have to go to the athletes, which is as it should be.
Miami has always been an outlaw program, but on top of the Ohio State scandal and so many others, the camel’s back is broken. About damn time.

The NFL Supplemental Draft was originally scheduled for yesterday, but Commissioner Roger “See, I Got A Deal Done” Goodell had not made a ruling on the status of former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who left school as a result of the violations uncovered when Pryor and four other players were found to have traded tattoos and other items of value for autographed merchandise, jerseys, and other memorabilia.
(An item I didn’t have the opportunity to comment on before – Ohio State basically told Pryor to never come back, by issuing a ruling that he could not have any contact with the OSU football program for five years. Like the Maurice Clarett incident, OSU stands behind their athletes (especially the African-American ones) then once they’re caught doing something, Columbus cuts ties faster than the guys on the Ginsu knife commercials at 2:00 AM.)
Goodell said that he needed more information (foot-dragging), but Pryor’s agent, the high powered Drew Rosenhaus and Pryor’s attorneys got it for him. First, Goodell moved back the draft to next Monday, then declared Pryor eligible for the supplemental draft. What is interesting is that this may be the first time that the NFL is carrying out an NCAA penalty.
Pryor had been initially penalized the first five games of the Ohio State season this year, but when the allegations went wild, including causing the “retirement” of OSU Head Coach Jim Tressel, Pryor faced bigger sanctions, but instead left school. Now, the NFL announced that he will still sit out the five games after he signs a NFL contract. This penalty makes for a very interesting situation. Do you take Pryor, who everyone agrees is a very raw prospect and will take at least a year to get to be even a marginal NFL QB now that his development will be even slower since he cannot practice with a team until after the suspension?
Or, is this a way to make a bet on a young, admittedly talented young man, who would have been a multi-million prospect, but now, you can get him cheaper, and keep him under the radar? If you win, you win big; if you lose, not so much.
The thing to watch is which team makes that investment? Surely, there will be one team that takes a chance (although it probably won’t be teams with conservative ownerships, like the Bears, or Steelers or teams that have had problems with player attitude problems like Cincinnati).
Will this young man be a big time player, or an afterthought? Only time will tell.

There is a fine line between perfectionism and crazy and all too often, Carlos Zambrano crossed far over that line. He was in a fight with catcher Michael Barrett; threw his teammates under the bus for a home run HE gave up. Then, last week, he finally went off for the last time in a Cub uniform.
Last Friday night, Zambrano had one of the worst outings of his career, giving up five home runs against the Braves, then got ejected when he threw a baseball at the Braves’ Chipper Jones. On leaving, he cleaned out his locker, and left without notifying manager Mike Quade. He reportedly said that he was going to retire, but perhaps the $16 million owed on his contract for next year brought him back. He tried to return to the team, but Cub General Manager Jim Hendry placed the childish pitcher on the 30-day disqualified list.
But, Zambrano is appealing the decision, filing a grievance through the players union, which not has the unenviable task of defending a crazy person. Why do I say crazy? Because he said in an interview with Comcast SportsNet that he didn’t “understand” general manager Jim Hendry’s harsh disciplinary action.
Zambrano insisted he was not serious when he told clubhouse personnel and trainers that he would retire, and that he fully intended to return on Saturday, only to be informed by his agent not to show up. He also said he wasn’t trying to throw at the Braves’ Chipper Jones in the incident that led to his ejection, and that he was being “punished for something” he said in private.
This is yet another attempt to clean up an image that is forever tarnished in Chicago. There are plenty of other teams willing to take on Zambrano; thinking that they can “handle” the pitcher, that is, if the Cubs pay most of his salary for the rest of this year and next year.
But he’s finished here. Not even his good friend Ozzie Guillen would risk clubhouse chemistry on an insecure man-child who is likely to explode at any moment. Who would want a pitcher who blamed his teammates on poor pitches he made?
I’m not even sure the Yankees are that crazy.

Last Friday night, the Chicago Bears were supposed to practice at Soldier Field in the team’s “Family Night” promotion. The Bears get income; the fans get close to the players. Overall, not a bad thing, right?
Except that the team was forced to cancel the practice because the stadium turf was considered “unplayable.” Tim LeFevour, the Soldier Field general manager took “responsibility for the problem saying that the field had not gotten enough water. (Of course, he didn’t offer his resignation, which is what he should have done.)
Anyway, the field hadn’t gotten enough water? If you live here, and even if you don’t, you know that Chicago just had the wettest July in history – my grass, usually brown by this point in the summer because I don’t water it enough, looks like the jungle in “Avatar.” What did the Chicago Park District do to not allow the 11 or 12 inches of natural rainwater that fell this month to find its way to the field.
That is the problem – the Chicago Park District; long a place for the lazy and politically connected to do little work, pick up a pay check, and get people to the polls to vote at election time. When I worked at Soldier Field, the Park District guys were all Ralph Kramden looking types who rode around on golf carts, looking important, amounting to little. They were probably happiest when Soldier Field had Astroturf; there was even less to do. Apparently, the only thing that has changed is the amount of money involved. Since Soldier Field was refurbished, even more money flows into the coiffeurs of the Park District, but obviously they spent millions on the stadium, little of it on the field itself.
This isn’t the first time there have been issues with the turf – almost every season, the field has to be replaced because of a concert, or a high school game or weather. A couple of times, the league had to survey the field for playoff games to make sure that it was safe, and many of those times, it was a close call as to whether the field was playable. Many other stadiums have the same types of events, and their fields survive. Just the weekend before last, Paul McCartney played two concerns at Wrigley Field and the Cub ground crew reportedly did a marvelous job in keeping the field playable when the Cubs started their homestand right after the concerts were over.
The Park district also has no excuse in that the White Sox grounds keeper, Roger Bossard is one of the best field people I the business. He is consulted on by the other ballparks, including Wrigley. But the Park District guys are too busy falling asleep while counting money.
It appears that the Bears have had enough. Team CEO George McCaskey announced this morning that the team will be taking a more active role in the management of the playing field. It’s about time. The political hacks at the Park District are too busy to make sure that the turf is playable. Chicago has the oldest team in the NFL, playing in one of the newest stadiums – we should be a showcase for the whole league, not an exercise in political favoritism and laziness.