Those of us who watch sports questioned Indiana University’s decision to hire basketball coach Kelvin Sampson in 2006 because he was under NCAA recruiting restrictions from his tenure at Oklahoma. As it turns out, the university’s president agrees. Michael McRobbie on June 14th told the NCAA infractions committee that the hiring of Sampson was “a risk that should not have been taken.”
McRobbie, who became president after Sampson’s hiring told the committee during a private session on June 14 that Sampson had betrayed the school’s trust in violating NCAA regulations on telephone calls to recruits as reported by the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times.
This guy and his staff just can’t stay off cell phones. One of Sampson’s Indiana assistant coaches is accused of making recruiting calls in his presence and handing the phone to recruits and recruits’ parents and coaches on recruiting trips, so they could speak to Sampson, which was banned by the NCAA in its punishment against Sampson at Oklahoma in May 2006. On top of this, the NCAA accused Sampson of providing false and misleading information to investigators about the phone calls, which reportedly number more than 100 calls to recruits.
Last week, Indiana announced that the university was under investigation of failing to adequately monitoring the basketball program. That same day, last Thursday, athletic director Rick Greenspan announced his resignation at the end of 2008.
Greenspan is being held accountable for the improprieties. Sampson, however, was able to leave the university with a $750,000 buyout, and is an assistant coach with the NBA Milwaukee Bucks. However, according to McRobbie, Sampson’s actions left the basketball program “in tatters” and that new coach Tom Crean faced rebuilding the team, a difficult prospect considering most of the players have transferred or gone to the NBA at least due to loyalty to Sampson.
It just goes to show you that there is a tradeoff to a “win at all costs” mentality, at least in college sports. To become a top program quickly, you have to cut corners, and consort with people who don’t care about breaking the law. Kelvin Sampson may be a terrific basketball coach, but it is obvious that he considers himself above the NCAA’s recruiting rules. His best (and should be last) place should be in the NBA, where such antics are unnecessary.
In pleading for leniency, McRobbie stated that the university had no sanctions for over 50 years, which includes, of course, the Bob Knight years. It just goes to show: Knight was and is a first class s.o.b., but he didn’t cheat.

To paraphrase the weepy movie Love Story: I know that writing a blog means never having to say you’re sorry, or even wrong, but I have to at least update a blast I made at WXRT and the City of Chicago.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the lack of “star power” in the booking of rock groups Gomez and Old 97s as headliners in this Friday’s free Fourth of July concert at Taste of Chicago, saying that these weren’t big enough acts to make me want to leave my house to go and sit in Grant Part with 600,000 of my closest friends.
An article in today’s Chicago Tribune detailed how acts were booked for the festival and how difficult it was to book the acts. The article stated that the search begins each year in the fall, and centers on acts that will be on the road the next summer. However, the current fad, the festival circuit, requires acts to not play in the same location as the festival within a certain period of time, and with Lollapalooza playing in Chicago each summer, the best acts are booked there, which precludes them from playing in Chicago for 90 days before or after the festival.
The article stated that the radio station wanted to book Smashing Pumpkins, whose reunion has still not played in Chicago, but they turned the gig down. Lucinda Williams (another lackluster act in my opinion) was next on the list, but she was announced as opening act for John Mellencamp. So, they were stuck with Gomez and Old 97s. So, I have to give them credit for trying, although I’m sure they could have aimed a little higher (and there’s still no excuse for last year’s headliner, Big Head Todd and the Monsters.)

David Stern apparently has taken his head out of the sand with the allegations of gambling as a result of referee Tim Donaghy’s guilty plea to felony charges of taking cash payoffs from gamblers in the 2006-07 season and his assertions that NBA referees have close relationships with coaches and players and made questionable calls in the 2003 and 2005 playoffs to extend series.
New blood was definitely needed, and so the league has hired Ronald L. Johnson, a two-star general who recently retired from active duty as deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He will be responsible for all aspects of the NBA’s officiating program, including recruiting, training and development, scheduling, data management and analysis, and work rules enforcement.
Independence is a good first step, and maybe this hiring will work, but considering the “stories” that current and retired generals have fed Congress and the news media in “selling” the Iraq War, we observers cannot just assume that Gen. Johnson will clean up a potentially very dirty mess.

Last week, it was Shawn Chacon attacking the general manager of his team. Never to be outdone when it comes to bad behavior, this week Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez had to join in on the “fun.”
Ramirez, one of the best hitters in the game and world class head case, reportedly pushed the team’s traveling secretary to the ground in the visitors’ clubhouse during a confrontation Saturday in Houston, according to The Providence Journal. Apparently, Ramirez requested 16 tickets from traveling secretary Jack McCormick for Saturday’s game against the Astros, the report said. After McCormick said that might not be possible, Ramirez replied by yelling, “Just do your job,” according to Monday’s report, and pushed him to the ground.
Ramirez reportedly apologized in the private meeting, and both the traveling secretary and Red Sox manager Terry Francona said that the incident was over. Francona was quoted saying that the team had resolved the matter and was “satisfied with how we handled this.” McCormick said “It was an unfortunate misunderstanding and it’s over with as far as I’m concerned.”
It wasn’t the first time this season Ramirez was in trouble with the team. Ramirez had to be separated from first baseman Kevin Youkilis earlier this month after apparently taking a swing at him during a dugout argument.
But it is another example of the double standard in sports. Shawn Chacon, who was having problems, gets into an altercation with his General Manager, who may have provoked the fight, but he is at home, concerned that he may be informally blacklisted from baseball. Meanwhile, Ramirez, who is constantly asking for and then rescinding, requests to be traded; gets into fights with teammates and front office staff alike gets a pat on the wrist and “everything’s rosy.”
Or, since both incidents happened in Houston, maybe it’s something in the water in Texas?

A few years ago, I took The Indignant Wife to Paris on vacation. I promised because, at that time, she had never before been to Europe. While we were there, France won the European soccer championships and it was eerie during the games: the streets were empty; everyone was glued to television sets in homes, pubs and restaurants watching the games. And when France won, you would have thought that a cure for cancer had been discovered.
As this year’s European championship final approached, I told The Indignant Wife that, even though I have no great love for soccer, I would love to be in the country that won, especially if Spain won, since they hadn’t won any major title since 1964. Well, the Spaniards won, a 1-0 victory over Germany, and as expected, the country partied hard, including 52 arrests at the Colon Square public viewing area alone.
As always, there was someone who may have partied too hard. A 40-year-old fan wearing a red Spain soccer jersey was found dead in Madrid. The man’s body was found in the center of the Spanish capital with head injuries apparently sustained from a fall. There has been no word as to the man’s blood alcohol content. Usually in Spain, sports deaths come from running with the bulls in Pamplona, but as someone who knows what its like to wait an inordinate amount of time for sports success (Northwestern in the Rose Bowl; White Sox championship), I understand the unparalleled joy that comes with it.
Party On!

Chicago White Sox fans can go to work today. After last weekend’s disastrous sweep at the hands of the dreaded, hated Chicago Cubs, many of us found it difficult to perform normal activities. We were surrounded by brooms and catcalls from Cub Nation.
Well, we can go back outside, wearing our Sox paraphernalia again with pride as the South Siders beat the Cubs three games this past weekend. While the fans take a breath, the team isn’t as lucky, facing division rival Indians and then western contender Oakland. we have a long way to go, but at least we can deal with the Cub fans now.

Just when we thought there was, if not a lasting peace between sports teams’ management and the players, we get another battle in the war. Shawn Chacon is a pitcher who had moved from the moribund Pittsburgh Pirates to the perennial also-ran Houston Astros. Chacon has posted a 2-3 record with a 5.04 ERA in 15 starts for Houston this year, and he has set a major league record with nine straight no-decisions to start the season.
He was upset after getting demoted to the bullpen over last weekend and reportedly had made a request to Houston General Manager Ed Wade to be traded. Wade saw Chacon in the dining room before the Astros game against Texas earlier this week. Wade asked Chacon to meet him in manager Cecil Fielder’s office.
Chacon takes it from there: “I sat down to eat and Ed Wade came to me and very sternly said, ‘You need to come with me to the office,'” Chacon said. “I said, ‘For what?’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go to the office with you and Cooper.’ And I said, ‘You can tell me whatever you got to tell me right here.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, you want me to tell you right here?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ I’m not yelling. I’m calm.”
“He started yelling and cussing,” Chacon said of Wade, according to a story on the Houston Chronicle’s Web site. “I’m sitting there and I said to him very calmly, ‘Ed, you need to stop yelling at me.’ Then I stood up and said, ‘You better stop yelling at me.’ I stood up. He continued and was basically yelling.” Chacon said that when Wade told him he needed to “look in the (blanking) mirror,” it got worse.
“So at that point I lost my cool and I grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground. I jumped on top of him,” he said. “Words were exchanged.” Chacon said players quickly came and separated the two. He recalled outfielder Reggie Abercrombie pulling him away from Wade. The team at first suspended Chacon indefinitely, but later placed him on waivers.
Now, there is no excuse for Chacon to grab the GM by the throat and throw him to the ground. At the same time, Wade didn’t need to curse at Chacon in front of his teammates. Chacon is worried about his career; whether he is finished in baseball. I don’t think he is, or should be. Unlike the famous Latrell Sprewell incident when he strangled coach P.J. Carlisimo, this was a “heat of battle” argument where both sides were at fault. There are times in which man like Wade (umpires, referees, people in authority) have to take some responsibility for what happens to them. It’s like when I was an usher, some guys deserved an ass-whipping; took it; and went on with their lives.