CBS SportsLine: how to cheat
Aug 6, 2006 7:14:00 GMT -5
Post by Bomber on Aug 6, 2006 7:14:00 GMT -5
Cheating -- and getting away with it -- as easy as 1-2-3
Aug. 4, 2006
By Gary Parrish
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson spent the July evaluation period banned from off-campus recruiting. With all the negative publicity that surrounded the situation, you'd think his colleagues would have taken note, and that they now try to avoid similar impermissible contact with prospects like it's the NIT.
He's not a crook ... but he did cheat. (Getty Images)
But that's not reality.
It still happens. In just about every conference. On just about every day.
Coaches from coast to coast continue to cut corners, only difference is they're smarter about it. Because just like with everything else in life, in college basketball there are rules and multiple ways around those same rules. So if there was a lesson to be learned from Sampson's NCAA violations, it was not that the making of illegal phone calls has to stop. Rather, it was that the leaving behind of evidence of illegal phone calls has to stop.
In other words, don't be stupid.
Most college coaches already know how to operate in this manner. Those who don't should get out of the business before they're forced out -- survival of the fittest and all that -- or memorize this list of three ways to avoid getting Kelvined while making impermissible contact with recruits.
It could save a job.
1. Get a private cell phone: High-level college coaches now have salaries that are either approaching or have long ago eclipsed $1 million per year. Money is not a problem. So they should trash their university supplied cell phones -- aren't courtesy cars enough already? -- pay about $200 a month and obtain private phones with private plans, featuring unlimited text-messaging, of course.
Understand, any reporter could file an open records request with any public university this afternoon and have most employees' university phone records faxed to them in five to seven business days. For coaches with a happy dialing finger, that's dangerous, and why a private cell phone is the way to go.
(Actually, I'd probably get my private cell phone in somebody else's name, just in case. You can never be too careful, especially if you're paranoid.)
2. Embrace payphones: While attending AAU tournaments or camps in the summer, you'll typically find yourself in the same hotel as multiple coaches. That little hall in the lobby with all the payphones is where they sometimes hang out.
"When is the last time you saw a person on a payphone?" one coach asked with a smile. "Those coaches are talking on payphones, and their cell phones are in their pockets."
Remember Colin Farrell in that film Phone Booth, where he was using a payphone to make calls to his girlfriend so as to leave no evidence for his wife? Same principle here. How could anybody ever prove any specific person made any specific call from a payphone in a hotel lobby in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.?
The answer is that they can't. That's why coaches should get a handful of change, and get busy.
3. Stalk, then play dumb: Once upon a time, the ex-boyfriend of a girl I was dating appeared in a parking garage roughly 37 seconds after we pulled in. He claimed it was a coincidence. It was not (he was just nutty). But how could I ever prove it?
The answer is that I couldn't, and I tell this story for a reason. Because the same approach can work for college coaches.
Let's say there's an AAU tournament going on in Las Vegas, and that two members of a college staff are watching a team play that features a prospect they are actively recruiting. Let's say the team wins, doesn't play again for another three hours and decides to grab a bite to eat between contests at Quizno's. All the coaches have to do is magically appear at Quizno's, grab a nice booth near the team, talk loud about how much they love the kid who can shoot and just like that they have successfully made some low-risk impermissible contact.
If the NCAA ever asks questions, the coaches can play dumb. All they have to do is explain how it was just a big coincidence, that they merely had a craving for oven-toasted buns. Seriously, who doesn't love oven-toasted buns? And though the NCAA has a lot of power, it cannot prohibit a coach from eating a black angus on rosemary parmesan bread just because an AAU team is sitting one table over.
Oven-toasted buns are excellent. Enjoying them is permissible conduct under any circumstances.
www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9585742
Aug. 4, 2006
By Gary Parrish
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson spent the July evaluation period banned from off-campus recruiting. With all the negative publicity that surrounded the situation, you'd think his colleagues would have taken note, and that they now try to avoid similar impermissible contact with prospects like it's the NIT.
He's not a crook ... but he did cheat. (Getty Images)
But that's not reality.
It still happens. In just about every conference. On just about every day.
Coaches from coast to coast continue to cut corners, only difference is they're smarter about it. Because just like with everything else in life, in college basketball there are rules and multiple ways around those same rules. So if there was a lesson to be learned from Sampson's NCAA violations, it was not that the making of illegal phone calls has to stop. Rather, it was that the leaving behind of evidence of illegal phone calls has to stop.
In other words, don't be stupid.
Most college coaches already know how to operate in this manner. Those who don't should get out of the business before they're forced out -- survival of the fittest and all that -- or memorize this list of three ways to avoid getting Kelvined while making impermissible contact with recruits.
It could save a job.
1. Get a private cell phone: High-level college coaches now have salaries that are either approaching or have long ago eclipsed $1 million per year. Money is not a problem. So they should trash their university supplied cell phones -- aren't courtesy cars enough already? -- pay about $200 a month and obtain private phones with private plans, featuring unlimited text-messaging, of course.
Understand, any reporter could file an open records request with any public university this afternoon and have most employees' university phone records faxed to them in five to seven business days. For coaches with a happy dialing finger, that's dangerous, and why a private cell phone is the way to go.
(Actually, I'd probably get my private cell phone in somebody else's name, just in case. You can never be too careful, especially if you're paranoid.)
2. Embrace payphones: While attending AAU tournaments or camps in the summer, you'll typically find yourself in the same hotel as multiple coaches. That little hall in the lobby with all the payphones is where they sometimes hang out.
"When is the last time you saw a person on a payphone?" one coach asked with a smile. "Those coaches are talking on payphones, and their cell phones are in their pockets."
Remember Colin Farrell in that film Phone Booth, where he was using a payphone to make calls to his girlfriend so as to leave no evidence for his wife? Same principle here. How could anybody ever prove any specific person made any specific call from a payphone in a hotel lobby in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.?
The answer is that they can't. That's why coaches should get a handful of change, and get busy.
3. Stalk, then play dumb: Once upon a time, the ex-boyfriend of a girl I was dating appeared in a parking garage roughly 37 seconds after we pulled in. He claimed it was a coincidence. It was not (he was just nutty). But how could I ever prove it?
The answer is that I couldn't, and I tell this story for a reason. Because the same approach can work for college coaches.
Let's say there's an AAU tournament going on in Las Vegas, and that two members of a college staff are watching a team play that features a prospect they are actively recruiting. Let's say the team wins, doesn't play again for another three hours and decides to grab a bite to eat between contests at Quizno's. All the coaches have to do is magically appear at Quizno's, grab a nice booth near the team, talk loud about how much they love the kid who can shoot and just like that they have successfully made some low-risk impermissible contact.
If the NCAA ever asks questions, the coaches can play dumb. All they have to do is explain how it was just a big coincidence, that they merely had a craving for oven-toasted buns. Seriously, who doesn't love oven-toasted buns? And though the NCAA has a lot of power, it cannot prohibit a coach from eating a black angus on rosemary parmesan bread just because an AAU team is sitting one table over.
Oven-toasted buns are excellent. Enjoying them is permissible conduct under any circumstances.
www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9585742
