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 →

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 →

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 →

Welcome back to Failure to Monitor, a series about the NCAA, and how its sordid past shaped what it is today. Before we can talk about its past, we obviously have to talk about what the organization is, and how it started. Because with the NCAA, the scandals go back to day one. So join me, as I give you a brief overview of how the NCAA works, and how it started on its path towards domination. Continue reading →

So, one of my assignments for my audio production class is to create a podcast series, with an emphasis on the production and mixing involved. I of course chose to talk about college sports and the NCAA, so I’ve gone all-in on it. But it’s an intro class, meaning the mixing is definitely not professional quality. So, in the interest of protecting your ears, I decided to adapt it into a blog series as well. For the next 10 weeks, I’ll be posting my new series: Failure to Monitor. Continue reading →