The Mayo Circus is underway in LA

[Russ Smith]

OJ officially arrived at USC this week to enroll for summerschool. He's officially living in his dorm and has already played in pickup games both at USC and in the mens gym at UCLA(famous games draw tons of NBA guys that's where all the bigtime games in LA are this time of year).

Mayo was supposed to be on the Sport Zone show on ABC in LA after the NBA finals last night but the host announced he'd cancelled. They said that because he's not officially enrolled at SC yet he's not allowed to appear as a Trojan athlete, they tried to contact him to see if he would come on as just a normal guy, but he didn't return their call and they were advised that USC has advised him NOT to go on the show.

 

[abomb]

 

[Russ Smith]

I wasn't going to post it but it's all over the scout websites today so what the hell.

The guy who hosts the show reportedly said Mayo was advised not to attend because there were problems with his enrollment at USC. He was reportedly on campus 6-13 and spent much of the day filling out paperwork for USC, so it was believed he was already enrolled. Classes started mid May but obviously they knew he'd be late for that since he was still in HS. So the delay is NOT because he missed a month of classes for summer session, they knew that ages ago.

So the rumor swirling on the net is that Mayo's amateur status issues are already rearing their ugly head and that's why his enrollment is being held up and why USC is advising him not to make any public appearances until he is officially enrolled.

Since the official amateur status checks this year happen in August I personally doubt that's why but it is kind of weird. I'd be much more inclined to suspect there are problems with his transcripts, than amateur status right now. They made such big hoopla about his arrival this week and how he's in a dorm room and will start classes right away to get a head start. They were apparently hyping his appearance on the show all during the NBA game last night so it's quite intriguing that it never actually happened.

 

[Russ Smith]

FYI Matthew Kredell of the Daily News says that ABC just messed up, Mayo can't start classes until 6-27, 2nd half of Summer session. That means ABC can't go through USC they have to make arrangements with mayo directly and they found out too late and couldn't get ahold of him to confirm. he says ABC even emailed him asking for help in locating Mayo. He didn't say anything about USC advising Mayo not to appear but that makes sense if he's not enrolled you'd want to avoid anything that might appear like a rule violation.

So from what he says it sounds like the net rumors are wrong.

For now of course, I still would love to be a fly on the wall during his amateur status hearing that's going to be really interesting.

 

[Gaddabout]

What is in question about his amateur status?

 

[abomb]

Keep it comin' Russ. It's always a good read.

 

[Russ Smith]

What is in question about his amateur status?

That he has any?



Long story short he lived alone for 2 years while attending North College Hill in Cincinnati, soph and junior years of HS. All sorts of rumors about who paid the rent and who they have ties to but the end result is people think he's not really an amateur anymore.

 

[Russ Smith]

Looks like the ABC station is not agreeing with Kredell. They admit they did contact him asking for help in contacting Mayo, but they insist they DID in fact get ahold of Mayo and he agreed to do the show. But at the last minute he was told by USC he should not do it because of enrollment issues.

I never did hear any more about rumors from months back that Mayo and a few others like Beasley were going to have their ACT scores all revoked so I'm now curious if that has anything to do with this?

 

[1usctrojan]

I wasn't going to post it but it's all over the scout websites today so what the hell.

The guy who hosts the show reportedly said Mayo was advised not to attend because there were problems with his enrollment at USC. He was reportedly on campus 6-13 and spent much of the day filling out paperwork for USC, so it was believed he was already enrolled. Classes started mid May but obviously they knew he'd be late for that since he was still in HS. So the delay is NOT because he missed a month of classes for summer session, they knew that ages ago.

So the rumor swirling on the net is that Mayo's amateur status issues are already rearing their ugly head and that's why his enrollment is being held up and why USC is advising him not to make any public appearances until he is officially enrolled.

Since the official amateur status checks this year happen in August I personally doubt that's why but it is kind of weird. I'd be much more inclined to suspect there are problems with his transcripts, than amateur status right now. They made such big hoopla about his arrival this week and how he's in a dorm room and will start classes right away to get a head start. They were apparently hyping his appearance on the show all during the NBA game last night so it's quite intriguing that it never actually happened.

I was at a special Trojan Club meeting last night in Torrance where Pete Carroll and Tim Floyd were the guest speakers.....I wish that I would have paid better attention to Floyd (I'm not a big BB fan) because he was certainly talking up one of the BB players (#1 recruit in country?) and what a great kid he was, how smart he was, that he was a "yes sir, no sir" kind of kid, yada, yada, yada.....I do believe it was Mayo. What I'm reading here (this MB) about this kid and Floyd is not very flattering. I'm going to start paying attention.

Anyway, Pete is great....what a charmer, he was very upbeat about the upcoming season, only committed to saying we have a "championship calibur" team this season and our #1 goal is to be PAC-10 champions and get to the Rose Bowl. The guy is amazing, he remembered my name and he stopped by on his way out the door to say he was expecting to see my friend and I at football practice on 8/6....he also autographed a book on USC football that I mysteriously happened to have in my purse, and posed for a picture with me that I now have sitting on my desk at work.

 

[Russ Smith]

I was at a special Trojan Club meeting last night in Torrance where Pete Carroll and Tim Floyd were the guest speakers.....I wish that I would have paid better attention to Floyd (I'm not a big BB fan) because he was certainly talking up one of the BB players (#1 recruit in country?) and what a great kid he was, how smart he was, that he was a "yes sir, no sir" kind of kid, yada, yada, yada.....I do believe it was Mayo. What I'm reading here (this MB) about this kid and Floyd is not very flattering. I'm going to start paying attention.

Anyway, Pete is great....what a charmer, he was very upbeat about the upcoming season, only committed to saying we have a "championship calibur" team this season and our #1 goal is to be PAC-10 champions and get to the Rose Bowl. The guy is amazing, he remembered my name and he stopped by on his way out the door to say he was expecting to see my friend and I at football practice on 8/6....he also autographed a book on USC football that I mysteriously happened to have in my purse, and posed for a picture with me that I now have sitting on my desk at work.

That's Mayo and yes he is a yes sir no sir guy when he wants to be.

I've said it all along, Mayo is NOT a bad kid, he's just had a lot of shady characters mooching off him for a long time and it's led to a situation where
he's fed off the system and it's probably going to cost him a season at USC.

 

[Russ Smith]

FYI there's an article in the OC Register today that briefly touched on something I mentioned several months back about rumors regarding the ACT test score Mayo got(he claims a 29). The author says that the NCAA asked for a handwriting sample from Mayo to confirm that he took his own test, when they got it they were satisfied and apologized to Mayo for asking.

As I said at the time apparently several high profile athletes(including Beasley) all took the test the same day at the same location, not their local testing place, so that immediately raised eyebrows and almost guaranteed the tests would be challenged. Mayo has been cleared according to this article and I've read elsewhere that Beasley's score has been approved by the test house too.

Mayo is now officially enrolled in Summer school taking freshman Geography and "Race, Class and Gender in American Film." He still has to clear the amateur status checks which according to the NCAA site are supposed to be completed by the end of August.

 

[abomb]

FYI there's an article in the OC Register today that briefly touched on something I mentioned several months back about rumors regarding the ACT test score Mayo got(he claims a 29). The author says that the NCAA asked for a handwriting sample from Mayo to confirm that he took his own test, when they got it they were satisfied and apologized to Mayo for asking.

As I said at the time apparently several high profile athletes(including Beasley) all took the test the same day at the same location, not their local testing place, so that immediately raised eyebrows and almost guaranteed the tests would be challenged. Mayo has been cleared according to this article and I've read elsewhere that Beasley's score has been approved by the test house too.

Mayo is now officially enrolled in Summer school taking freshman Geography and "Race, Class and Gender in American Film." He still has to clear the amateur status checks which according to the NCAA site are supposed to be completed by the end of August.

Isnt 29 a very, very good score? I think I recall a kid in HS getting a 31 and getting a full ride to UA.

 

[Russ Smith]

Isnt 29 a very, very good score? I think I recall a kid in HS getting a 31 and getting a full ride to UA.

29 is 95th percentile per the article in the OC Register.

Who knows, reality is test scores are completely confidential, all a school or the NCAA can do is confirm a player received a qualifying score. So it's fairly common for kids to exaggerate their SAT or ACT scores because they know that technically nobody can really refute it.

Ages ago someone was making fun of the Fab 5 at Michigan and saying how fitting it was they lost to Duke who had real student athletes. Somehow or another some Detroit writer got ahold of the SAT scores for the Duke team and proved that the average SAT score of the Fab 5 was really no different than the average score for the Duke starters, and that the player with the highest SAT score on either team, was Chris Webber (forget exactly but it was close to 1300 IIRC). Coach K was livid about the reporter getting access to and leaking the test scores.

But I guess the important thing is the article confirms what I was told that the tests were being looked at, and it clears Mayo of any funny business on the test. I had assumed he'd been cleared because he was enrolling in summer school.