Picture the headquarters of a massive company. A business so large that it has been described as “part of the fabric of America”. Just down the street, there is a small town where all the employees of that business live. It has everything a normal town does: housing, dining, shopping, a chapel, a school, and even some recreational facilities. All these employees don’t receive a regular salary. Instead, they’re paid in monopoly money that they can only spend in the town. They’re free to come and go as they please, but they don’t have any real money they can spend in another town, and leaving would mean finding a new job in an entirely new industry. For all intents and purposes, their entire lives are tied to living in that town and following the boss man’s rules. What do you think I’m describing? A company town built by one of the robber barons of old, like Carnegie or Vanderbilt? Well yes, but I’m also describing the other Vanderbilt. Continue reading
Tag: Failure to Monitor
Failure to Monitor: The Beginning of the End
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
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
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
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
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
Failure to Monitor: The Founding
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
Introducing a New Series: Failure to Monitor
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
Teague Thoughts 