2008 Woodie Awards
Inside the Lines: After a recruiting debacle, is a legendary Knight the answer once again for Indiana?
J. Andrew Horvath
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Sports
We are a world addicted to communication at the touch of a button. From email to AIM to text messaging, we as a people can't seem to get enough of each other. Sad to say it professors, but most of your students aren't taking notes with their laptops. Of all the devices to keep us gabbing constantly, the cellular telephone is the technological Holy Grail.
Although, as wonderful as technology is, it has opened the door to a host of new concerns over etiquette and legalities, which in the sports world specifically (this is a sports column, after all) has a long list of ramifications.
Kelvin Sampson, the now former head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, probably wishes he hadn't made so many phone calls the past eight years as a Division I basketball coach.
Sampson resigned Friday to the tune of a three quarter-million dollar buyout due to alleged violations of five major NCAA rules, most of which are exclusively recruiting and eligibility-related, specifically illegitimate phone calls.
"Can you hear me now?"
Sampson, who also had run-ins with the NCAA during his tenure as coach at Oklahoma, must have a great cell phone plan with all of the minutes he's been racking up. Since 2000, and over the course of two independent investigations, Sampson has been found to have allegedly made over 650 impermissible phone calls to recruits. Those are just the ones that got picked up, too.
So, the guy that once said "I'm coming to Indiana for one reason: I think you can win championships at Indiana" is now home doing nothing of the sort. Indiana, also, is still waiting on their first championship since 1987, under the now unemployed legend Bob Knight.
Scandals like this often remind us of the brave new world we're trudging into, where there are no secrets, and there are no back rooms. The money-stuffed envelopes in the university pamphlet have been replaced with the three-way call (with a coach, a player, and an agent no doubt), and the ways of tracing illegitimacy are becoming less and less concrete.
Although, as wonderful as technology is, it has opened the door to a host of new concerns over etiquette and legalities, which in the sports world specifically (this is a sports column, after all) has a long list of ramifications.
Kelvin Sampson, the now former head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, probably wishes he hadn't made so many phone calls the past eight years as a Division I basketball coach.
Sampson resigned Friday to the tune of a three quarter-million dollar buyout due to alleged violations of five major NCAA rules, most of which are exclusively recruiting and eligibility-related, specifically illegitimate phone calls.
"Can you hear me now?"
Sampson, who also had run-ins with the NCAA during his tenure as coach at Oklahoma, must have a great cell phone plan with all of the minutes he's been racking up. Since 2000, and over the course of two independent investigations, Sampson has been found to have allegedly made over 650 impermissible phone calls to recruits. Those are just the ones that got picked up, too.
So, the guy that once said "I'm coming to Indiana for one reason: I think you can win championships at Indiana" is now home doing nothing of the sort. Indiana, also, is still waiting on their first championship since 1987, under the now unemployed legend Bob Knight.
Scandals like this often remind us of the brave new world we're trudging into, where there are no secrets, and there are no back rooms. The money-stuffed envelopes in the university pamphlet have been replaced with the three-way call (with a coach, a player, and an agent no doubt), and the ways of tracing illegitimacy are becoming less and less concrete.
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