Athletes “renting” their universities

The accusation of athletes violating strict NCAA rules seems all too familiar these days, especially within the Pac-10 conference. Accusations of players accepting improper benefits from promoters or marketing agents are the most frequent to appear in headlines recently.

On May 11, an investigative report on ESPN’s Outside the Lines revealed information accusing former USC basketball star O.J. Mayo of accepting cash and gifts over the past four years from Rodney Guillory, a promoter in Los Angeles who worked for BDA Sports Management.

A former friend of Mayo’s, Louis Johnson, leaked the information to ESPN. According to Johnson, in return for the gifts, Mayo gave a verbal agreement to let BDA represent him when he turned pro. In April, Mayo announced in a press conference that he would leave USC after just one year and enter the 2008 NBA draft.

Mayo denied the allegation and said in a statement to ESPN, “I have been through investigations by the NCAA, the Pac-10 and USC before I attended school and during the time I have been here. … If these claims were true, I would suspect they would have been discovered by one of these organizations.”

Mayo has no problem with the NCAA and USC investigating this accusation. He has said he is innocent.

USC claims that it performed an extensive and thorough review of Mayo to make sure he was not involved in any violations. The prominent Los Angeles school said it did not identify any.

In an October 2006 CBS sports article, Gregg Doyel wrote that the Mayo-Guillory relationship that developed while Mayo was in high school should have been looked at more closely by USC. Was it not obvious after the NCAA suspended USC basketball player Jeff Trepagnier for multiple games because of illicit gifts from Guillory in 2000?

“Connect the dots,” Doyel said.

Many believe Mayo had red flags all over him since the beginning.

“I think that USC didn’t want to know,” said Jerry Brewer, a sports columnist for The Seattle Times. “So instead of investigating those red flags, they just ignored them, which to me makes them an accomplice in all this, and I think they should be punished.”

Mayo was not the only USC player who was involved in an investigation for violating NCAA rules. Two years ago, former star tailback Reggie Bush was involved in similar allegations, which stated that Bush and his family were given money by an agent. However, Bush and USC have not been punished, let alone charged on violations.

Nonetheless, here are two star players, playing in two highly-ranked sports, for a well-renowned school, being accused of violating the same rules. Kind of ironic, don’t you think? But who’s exactly to blame? One has to start questioning whether there is something wrong in USC’s athletic department.

Shouldn’t the school start to wonder why these young star athletes are driving around in brand new SUVs wearing diamond rings and earrings?

Sportswriter Michael Wilbon even said on Pardon the Interruption, “If the NCAA had any guts, they would go after USC.”

“It was clear that Guillory was funding Mayo behind the scenes, and everyone knew it,” said Jeff Aaron, a sports talk radio show host on KRKO 1380 AM. “USC just simply looked the other way. This is a big offense by USC, and I think their coach, Tim Floyd, is going to be the fall guy. I would not be surprised to see him fired and see USC forfeit the games Mayo played in.”

Schools with winning records are the ones responsible for bringing in the cash to the NCAA. So if the NCAA did penalize a money-making school, it would just be punishing itself.

Remember when thousands of dollars in cash fell out of a package headed to a Kentucky recruit? The NCAA claimed there was no proof the money was put there by anyone from Kentucky, so it wasn’t considered a violation. Although Kentucky got in a little bit of trouble, the school was let off the hook easy.

Remember when Ohio State basketball coach Jim O’Brien paid a recruit $6,000 and was fired even though the incident happened five years prior to his firing?

These incidents just go to show that the NCAA doesn’t seem consistent in its discipline from one university to another.

Perhaps the Mayo incident can bring up another area of concern: When should players be allowed to enter the NBA draft? There are many players across the country with enough talent to enter the draft right out of high school. However, since NBA commissioner David Stern implemented the rule that a player cannot be eligible until the age of 19, many basketball players are left playing for one year in college and entering the draft at the end of the season.

Instead of playing basketball for money for a year, they are forced to play in college under strict NCAA rules. So perhaps that is why many players take money and benefits in other ways. Stern should either change the rule or get rid of it.

One modification to the rule could be that if a player in college gets charged with accepting illegal gifts or money, then he will have to wait a certain number of years before he can become eligible to enter the NBA.

Another solution could be that athletes have to play a minimum number of years in college.

In his most recent CBS sports column, Doyel wrote, “If players like O.J. Mayo had to stay in school for four years, they wouldn’t own just the finest plasma television in town. They’d own Circuit City.”

Quite comedic, but true in a way. However, if an investigation is pursued and the NCAA finds Mayo guilty, it’s not going to matter. He will already be drafted and playing in the NBA by then.

“Mayo doesn’t really give a damn about this or USC,” Brewer said. “He was just trying to go someplace to play and get some attention and move on to the NBA. He basically rented the university. When you are allowed to lease a university, you don’t care if you wreck the place, because you are moving on to something better anyway. It’s not going to affect his draft or his money. It’s not going to do anything, maybe just tarnish his name a little."