Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Charles Barkley obviously thinks he hasn't been in the news enough lately. How do we know? Because he once again found a way to say something that was bound to make waves even though the timing and purpose of the remarks is somewhat bizarre.
Somewhat bizarre because Barkley's remarks to Dan Patrick -- in which the Hall of Famer admitted to taking money from an agent while at Auburn -- were tangentially related to the Reggie Bush story. But when you've kept up the facade for almost three decades, why suddenly be honest now?
I got money from agents when I was in college. Most of the players I know borrow money from agents. ... Let me tell you something, these agents are well known, and they've been giving kids money for 30 years, and I have no problem with it. Borrowing money from an agent ain't the same as a college paying you.
Barkley also helpfully pointed out that he repaid the agents once he got to the NBA, which was considerate of someone who made millions of dollars.
You'll find few stronger advocates of keeping the NCAA's rules on amateurism -- save an exception for a modest, college-provided stipend -- than your humble correspondent. But do we really care whether Barkley got some money from an agent back in the 1980s? Anyone out there think that the NCAA should spend its enforcement time looking into whether Auburn's 1984 NCAA tournament appearance should be vacated?
Then again, what separates it from the 2004 and 2005 games being vacated by USC? At what point has "enough" time passed so that the NCAA won't review whether it needs to rewrite history?
Which is, of course, the problem with revising history to begin with. If the past has never really passed, when is history ever settled?
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