IndyStar.com Columnists Bob Kravitz
October 15, 2007
Kravitz: IU must clean house
At this point, Indiana University doesn't just have the right to fire coach Kelvin Sampson for just cause. It has a moral imperative to close the book on his short and sordid stewardship of the school's once-storied basketball program.
Happier times: Indiana University athletic director Rick Greenspan (left, seated) and basketball coach Kelvin Sampson share a laugh in March 2006, when Sampson was introduced as the Hoosiers' coach. Trouble following recruiting rules has followed the coach from Oklahoma. - Sam Riche / The Star
And once Sampson is gone, send athletic director Rick Greenspan on his way, as well. Maybe they can carpool.
Sampson was Greenspan's signature hire after Mike Davis was sent packing, a signature hire who came here with an NCAA storm cloud hanging over his head and a dubious history with graduation rates. Now, IU and a local law firm have uncovered additional phone-related improprieties, some more major than others. And while the school's grandstanding decision to self-report might assuage its institutional guilt, it will not alter the emerging view of IU as a sleazy operator.
You hire a guy with issues, you get a guy with issues. For whatever reason -- maybe hubris? -- Sampson doesn't seem to possess an accurate moral compass. It would be one thing if he was nailed for jaywalking. That, you can almost overlook, or at least forgive, the way you forgave Bob Knight all those hundreds of times.
But another phone violation? What part of the NCAA-imposed sanctions were so difficult to understand?
You can tell yourself these were minor violations, no big deal, a few calls among many thousands. But when you're talking about Sampson, and talking about a university that hired him and contractually stipulated it could fire him at the first hint of indiscretion, it's a big deal. A very big deal.
A lot of the talk Sunday centered around the approximately 10 conference calls, some initiated by the recruit, some initiated by an assistant coach, all eventually involving Sampson.
The real story, though, the one that was casually dismissed as an afterthought, was that IU assistant coaches made about 35 phone calls to recruits that were in violation of the NCAA limit to individual recruits.
In other words, all the same nonsense that got Sampson into trouble in the first place.
From the beginning of Sampson's house arrest, it has been fair to wonder how seriously the program was taking the penalty.
The letter of the NCAA law stipulated for one year, he could not call recruits, coaches or parents. That's when Sampson discovered what all of America's teenagers know: Text messaging is the way to communicate these days. By rule, texting was not a violation. It was just a giant loophole. By texting instead of calling, Sampson was following the letter of the law while flouting the spirit of the law.
At least until Aug. 1, when the NCAA, reacting to life in the 21st century, banned coaches from texting their recruits.
On Sunday, I heard a lot of the same terms I heard the day Sampson was introduced to the media and asked to explain his problems at Oklahoma.
Sloppiness. Clerical errors. Mistakes. No intent to break the rules.
Why, though, does this keep happening on Sampson's watch?
I was told that Sampson's home doesn't get good cellular service -- doesn't it figure? -- and so, a lot of times, a recruit would call him and get voice mail. Then the recruit would call an assistant coach, who would patch the recruit through to Sampson on a three-way call. OK, no big deal, right?
Here's where I hold Sampson accountable, even if a member of the Ice Miller law firm investigating this matter determined the head coach was not trying to circumvent the rule in any manner. On a few occasions, the assistant coach would call the recruit/coach/parent, and then patch Sampson through so he could be part of the conversation. Maybe I'm a cynic, but on the surface, that looks like someone who is trying to sidestep the rules. He can't call the kid directly, so have an assistant call and make it a conference call.
It's also interesting that Ice Miller's report noted that 10 to 12 of the calls in question were outgoing, while just six were incoming, and there's no confirmation those six incoming calls were from recruits. This stands in stark and troubling contradiction to Sampson's assertion that all of the calls were made by recruits.
All throughout the Sunday conference call, I kept hearing this was a minor violation, an innocent mistake. So why is IU rescinding a $500,000 pay raise for Sampson and sending assistant coach Rob Senderoff to his room without dinner? These are pretty harsh penalties for a minor slip-up. History tells us the NCAA generally goes easier on schools who report their violations as opposed to those who get caught. In this case, though, IU should expect the worst. This is happening in the NCAA's back yard. It wasn't so long ago that an NCAA member issued an angry, scathing report on Sampson's Oklahoma troubles, accusing him of being a willful cheater.
As for the local reaction, I fully expect the Hoosiers hardcore fans will go into justification mode. Sampson has not only established himself as a winner, but he brought home the biggest recruiting prize of the year, Eric Gordon. The Hoosiers could win the Big Ten this year. The coach is golden. If memory serves, most folks had no problem with Knight's behavioral excesses, at least until he started losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament every year. Winning is the ultimate deodorant. No matter how badly this stinks.
