Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. Last time, we talked about when the NCAA handed down the death penalty to SMU football in a desperate attempt to regain control over the member schools. It worked for the most part, with teams falling in line out of fear that they would be next. For a while, all the league had to deal with was the occasional run-of-the-mill recruiting scandal. One such incident happened at the University of North Carolina, where multiple players, including Marvin Austin, Greg Little, Robert Quinn, and Michael McAdoo were all permanently banned from the NCAA for taking money from an agent. But these payments weren’t the only thing the league uncovered. Little did they know, this seemingly simple investigation would dig up something much deeper. Something that would end up striking at the very heart of the NCAA. Continue reading
Category: Blogs
The Cost of Relegation is Too Much for the MLS to Bear
I want to say right off the bat that I’m a fan of the promotion and relegation system in international soccer. It does an incredible job of preventing tanking, promoting meritocracy, and keeping some games from becoming meaningless at the end of the year. However, introducing this system into Major League Soccer like many have tried to do in the past would destroy the league, and set American soccer as a whole back decades. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Death of Dallas
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. The series about the NCAA, and how they’ve been shaped by scandal. Last time, we talked about the case of Board of Regents v. NCAA, where the Supreme Court ruled that the organization had breached the Sherman Antitrust Act, opening the floodgates for money to pour into individual schools. Once that line was crossed, the member schools didn’t look back. Big time programs started flaunting their wealth in the face of the NCAA by brazenly paying players and recruits outrageous amounts of money. Nowhere was this more prevalent than in the old Southwest Conference. One school decided to go even further than the rest, and the NCAA saw an opportunity to take the power back. Continue reading
The Corporate, Hairless Future of College Sports
In case you somehow missed it, this morning my alma mater South Carolina announced a new partnership with Manscaped, a company that sells men’s razors and trimmers specifically designed to shave their nether regions. They’re known for having unsettlingly aggressive marketing, and today’s press release did not disappoint. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Turning Point
Welcome back to failure to monitor. Last time, we recounted the saga of Jerry Tarkanian, and how the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA had total control over governing and discipline their member schools. However, in 1984, everything changed. Continue reading
Football Is For the Fans. For Now…
On Sunday night, twelve of the biggest teams in European soccer announced that they would be breaking away from the current Champions League and forming their own Super League. The new venture would operate exactly the same as the current setup but with one key difference: the founding members would automatically qualify every year. Instead of having to earn a spot through success in their domestic leagues, the biggest brands in soccer would now be guaranteed a seat at the $6 billion table. Two days later, it looks like the league is already dead. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: Tark the Shark
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. When we left off last time, the NCAA national office had established absolute control over the member schools. They gained the power to shut down entire programs if they saw fit. For the next few decades, they retained this power unchallenged. They punished schools for cheating, and the schools accepted it blindly. The 1970s, however, were a different story. Continue reading
Sigma Oasis Is Modern Phish at Its Finest
A little over a year ago, Phish released their fifteenth studio album Sigma Oasis through a YouTube live stream. At the time, everyone assumed it was going to be an April fool’s joke, but it ended up being a much-needed gift at the beginning of the pandemic. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: Bluegrass Bluff
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor, the series about the NCAA and how they’ve been shaped by scandal. Last week, we took a look at the origins of the NCAA, and how the modern organization functions. We saw that it was born out of necessity and that their authority comes from the precedents they set. Today, I’m going to tell you about the first chance they got to set a major precedent. While the first few years of the NCAA’s existence were relatively quiet, the scandals came in fast and hard in the 1950s. And although they doled out punishments to multiple schools, one in particular set the tone for the future: the University of Kentucky. Continue reading
2021 NFL Mock Draft
I know I’ve said before that I’m not a big NFL fan, but I absolutely love the draft. Continue reading
