NOT Until.....

[atl-cock]

Agree. There is an article (don't know if espn or SI or what) titled Meet The Bagman that describes what you are saying. The coaches and AD are willfully unaware of the activities, and the bagmen are smart enough to keep everthing untraceable. If a kid ends up with a car, and if the NCAA looks, there will be a bill of sale to the kid's uncle, dad, whoever.

The article descibes a network of small money guys. The million dollar givers buy weight rooms. The guys with 10,000 to spend do bag work. They are careful about money not changing hands, about meetings not taking place directly, etc. The photos one sometimes sees of bling and cash are not from the bagmen; they know better. Those photos are just kids being kids. The bagmen are pretty skittish of people who want to get in to meet athletes, feel important, etc. They are committed to 'helping' (if one can call it that) a program while remaining anonymous to nearly everyone. They never meet a coach, rarely meet a player. There has to be a moat between what they do and anything related to the program, cutouts between cutouts. Most coaches might even be surprised at the level of this activity.

A coach cannot oversee what millions of fans do. All he can do is preach ethics and then instll those ethics within what he can influence, which does include the boosters and booster clubs. But if some no-name in Hartsville makes sure a kid's uncle has enough money to buy a car, no coach wants to even know about that, because once he knows he has to do something, and he can't do everything or control everybody. And to be honest about it, as much as I hate to say it, that is probably outside the NCAA's legitimate jurisdiction, and should be. When basic morality fails, you can't control everybody.

I am totally with you in your feelings that this ruins the sport. As important as the sport is, its just football, and when it becomes an enterprize with no boundaries its just not fun anymore. The only way to keep the fun is to assume one's school isn't doing it because the coach maintains a clean program. Intellectually we know its more complex than that, but allow ourselves a fantasy of cleanliness.

Enjoyed the read. I would guess that NCAA Division III and the NAIA don't have bagmen (bagpeople?) lurking beyond the shadows. Or am I being naive?

 

[Cumberlandsc]

Enjoyed the read. I would guess that NCAA Division III and the NAIA don't have bagmen (bagpeople?) lurking beyond the shadows. Or am I being naive?

I wouldn't bet against it. But there is not as much on the line, for sure. Hard to be, say, a Furman fan and be willing to give $10,000 to get another 5' 10" qb or shooting guard. Too few of them care that much. The days of Clyde Mays at a Furman seem to be over.

 

[atl-cock]

I wouldn't bet against it. But there is not as much on the line, for sure. Hard to be, say, a Furman fan and be willing to give $10,000 to get another 5' 10" qb or shooting guard. Too few of them care that much. The days of Clyde Mays at a Furman seem to be over.

Furman is NCAA DI. I'm thinking more like DIII schools such as Sewanee (charter SEC member), Emory, Washington & Lee, etc., and NAIA schools such as USC-Beaufort (had to get in that plug), Savannah College of Art and Design, Morris College, Allen University, and Columbia College.

In NCAA D3, schools are prohibited from offering athletic scholarships.

 

[Cumberlandsc]

Furman is NCAA DI. I'm thinking more like DIII schools such as Sewanee (charter SEC member), Emory, Washington & Lee, etc., and NAIA schools such as USC-Beaufort (had to get in that plug), Savannah College of Art and Design, Morris College, Allen University, and Columbia College.

In NCAA D3, schools are prohibited from offering athletic scholarships.

I didn't mean that I wouldn't bet against you being naive. Wouldn't bet against it going on at small schools. But they don't have the same incentive across the board. A few do.

 

[Art__Vandelay]

In regards to small schools cheating- I have a friend that played a sport at a USC satellite campus. He said there were several times when he was at a game for a different sport and someone in the crowd would come over and just push an envelope into his hand. Said it was around $500 or so. Never knew the person or saw them around or anything.

 

[MANAFOLD]

we start waving cars and trucks and money, we shall ALWAYS BE stuck in the middle.
PERIOD! Ray does not seem to get that. We do not have the "tools" like Bama and Tatertown
to do this. What I mean by this is the persons that got the X-factors dad out of prison and moved
up here to Greenville - I think his name is Turniseed straight from Bama - we are stuck.

You are saying we have to cheat like Clemson to be like Clemson? No, we do not. Clemson for all their cheating and there is plenty over the years have to in order to be competitive. We don't. Clemson had the good fortune to be able to buy some of it's greatest players in last year's bunch. Now that they are gone, Dabo will start having those ACC,SEC losses. I look for us to field as good or better team than Clemson this year.

 

[t-zonie]

You are saying we have to cheat like Clemson to be like Clemson? No, we do not. Clemson for all their cheating and there is plenty over the years have to in order to be competitive. We don't. Clemson had the good fortune to be able to buy some of it's greatest players in last year's bunch. Now that they are gone, Dabo will start having those ACC,SEC losses. I look for us to field as good or better team than Clemson this year.

Really Manafold! The NCAA does not think that the taters and holes and tiders and staters are cheating, right! So why do you think that handing out dollars and trucks and cars and such is cheating! Go look up that Turnipseed guy on the tater site! We simply don't have non cheaters like that that can curve, and glide around and fly under the radar like they do which is perfectly legal! PERIOD!

 

[cockofthegoat]

We had some good 11 wins seasons and I don't believe we paid one player.

Didn't we go on probation during those 11 win seasons? Why didn't er do more. The NCAA is a joke and will not do anything major if your caught. Bring back the bagman.

 

[cockofthegoat]

You are saying we have to cheat like Clemson to be like Clemson? No, we do not. Clemson for all their cheating and there is plenty over the years have to in order to be competitive. We don't. Clemson had the good fortune to be able to buy some of it's greatest players in last year's bunch. Now that they are gone, Dabo will start having those ACC,SEC losses. I look for us to field as good or better team than Clemson this year.

You are right on about the better team. Mark it down we will win by 28 this year.