Wolfie reports:

Hail To The Chief! By Scott Wolf on June 5, 2009 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | ShareThis

We hear USC president Steve Sample is not hiding his displeasure around campus over the fact the basketball program finds itself under NCAA investigation.

Sample is displeased about the basketball team?

Does that mean he is totally cool with the football team which is also under investigation by the NCAA?

He is not happy with the allegations that OJ might have gotten $30,000 in improper benefits but he is cool with the allegation that Reggie Bush and his peeps might have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper benefits?

Two revealing details

This from the Daily News:

"There was an ongoing relationship between Rodney Guillory and Tim Floyd," said Johnson's attorney, Anthony Salerno. "He was going to steer Mayo where to go. Floyd knew he had to kowtow to Guillory to get (Mayo) to USC. Floyd knew he had to butter up Guillory."

David Murphy, another attorney for Johnson, said the NCAA became aware of the Floyd allegation last week and contacted Johnson on Friday.

"They knew about it before we told him," Murphy said.

Murphy added Johnson originally told federal investigators about the incident last May but did not tell the NCAA during a meeting last June.

And this from yahoo sports about the list of 17 people who have talked to the NCAA:

These individuals are believed to represent only a small fraction of the interviews that have taken place during the course of the probe.

Tip of the iceberg?

Miller says on his ESPN's Pac-10 blog (I am bolding the fun parts):

If you're a bigger fan of USC football than basketball, it should feel worrisome.

The individuals who allegedly gave Bush cash and gifts and a rent-free home for his parents were anonymous outsiders, two men trying to become sports agents. Unless the NCAA is going to pull a rabbit out of its investigative hat, all reported connections or interactions with these men and the Trojans football program were scant and tenuous.

In other words, it didn't completely strain credulity that the coaching staff claimed ignorance.

The Mayo case had a different feel. Basketball coach Tim Floyd and his staff knew Rodney Guillory, a Los Angeles events promoter who allegedly was receiving monthly payments from the Northern California sports agency Bill Duffy Associates. They knew of the close relationship between Guillory and Mayo. They knew Mayo was a risky player to bring into the program.

By connecting the two cases, the NCAA appears to be now reviewing these investigations as systemic problems within USC's athletic department.

Yes, we're talking about the dreaded "lack of institutional control."

Or as ESPN's Pat Forde wrote in May when "Outside the Lines" broke the Mayo story: "So you take the Bush allegations, add a side of Mayo and ask the question: Has there ever been a more textbook definition of 'lack of institutional control'?'"

Which means potential penalties could include scholarship cuts, post-season bans, victories erased from the record book, etc., -- all the big ones.

As good as it feels to read all this I don't think NCAA (or the PAC) will have the gonads to do the right thing. They are going to find a way to sweep all of this stuff under the rug so that they can keep feeding the cashcow and ESPN's Mushberger and Herbstreet can keep blowing Pom Pom on national TV.

Although I have to wonder why exactly was Timmeh so anxious to get out of SuC? I don't believe it was Timmeh who turned down Arizona. I really think it was the other way around (just a hunch). I think Timmeh's desperation showed when his agent was also sniffing around the Memphis gig.

Now it looks like his players (who don't seem to be buying into his schtick) are ready to jump ship. May be something is going on?

I guess I will see it when I believe it.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

Petey is about to lose Nick Holt, his DC to Steve Sarkasian:

Goodbye Nick Holt By Scott Wolf on January 5, 2009 9:32 AM 

Washington announced a press conference for 3 p.m. to announce its new defensive coordinator.

Sark and Nick have been talking.

Now Petey along with Nehueisel will be on the market for a new DC.

The easy question then is if Kenny is so good will Petey promote his poodle to become his next DC?

Will Petey reward Kenny for his poodle like loyalty or expose him for what he is: a fingertaper who is not ready to be a DC?

Did any of you watch the post game interview on ABC? John Saunders asked Petey if USC had a chance to face either Oklahoma or Florida who would win?

Petey said

Well, in all due respect, those are two great programs, I don't think anyone can beat the Trojans this year.

This guy is already forgetting this?

via cache.daylife.com

He cannot be this dumb. Can he?

Too bad Mushbrain, Herbstreit, and the whole ABC crew spent the entire game on their kneedpads.

No one called out the douchebag for being such a a pompous, conceited, arrogant, asshole.

Brian Dohn just posted profit numbers for UCLA football and basketball:

Equity in Athletics reports were released, and UCLA's athletic department proved to be self-sustaining with revenues and expenses equaling $66,088,264 for the 2007-08 athletic calendar.
UCLA fields 20 sports, including nine men's programs. The school reported 390 female athletes, compared to 379 men.
Football and men's basketball were the only sports to produce a profit. The football team had revenues of more than $28 million, and netted $11,370,856. The men's basketball team had revenues of nearly $11 million, and posted a profit of $4,257,853.

UCLA football netted a profit of more than $11 million. As for SUC here is Scott Wolf:

USC football made nearly $8 million last year, with revenue of $28,595,881 and expenses of $20,963,700. This is why football carries the load with athletics.
Here's an interesting nugget: Football's recruiting expenses were $8,712,687.

UCLA football is making more money than SuC football. With all the on field success those "student athletes" have had at South Central, that kind of sounds weird. Doesn't it?

The recruiting expense ($23,780 per day) for SuC is mind boggling. Keep in mind these are numbers that show up on record. With unresolved allegations involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra benefits involving Bush and OJ2 (for hoops) lurking in the background, a good reporter would look into whether there are any other off balance sheet "transactions" that are not accounted in these numbers.

What are they spending all that money for? Charter jets? Does anyone have links to numbers for recruiting expenses at schools like Texas, Oklahoma and Florida.

Discuss!

“Several Pac-10 schools” filed a complaint against Peetie this week for this:

It appears USC coach Pete Carroll committed an NCAA violation when he attended Loyola's games against Mira Costa of Manhattan Beach and Concord De La Salle on separate days last month.

Mike Matthews, the Pac-10's associate commissioner of compliance, said NCAA rules stipulate a coach can only evaluate a player once during the fall period, regardless of where the game is being played.

"When a football coach evaluates at a game, he uses an evaluation for every prospect on both teams that are playing the game," Matthews said. "The (NCAA) rule says, `Not more than one evaluation may be used during the fall evaluation period, and not more than two evaluations may be used during the spring evaluation period.'

"If a football coach watches a football game, they've evaluated everybody on both teams in the game."

Matthews added it did not matter where the games were played.

He would not comment on whether the Pac-10 is reviewing the incident, but said such instances are usually a secondary violation.

Carroll told the Daily News earlier in the week it was his understanding the rules allow for coaches to attend multiple games of the same team if they went to watch another team's prospects.

This is not the first time Peetie has gotten himself involved in a recruiting scandal. I will just refer to Menelaus’s legendary list for all the sordid details on Peetie’s past scandals.

Imagine the outcry in LA and national MSM if Rick Neuheisel was involved in something like that after all that baggage from last few years involving Bush, McKnight  - on and on and on?

Hello everyone!!!!!

Some goodies to rock your Friday!!

via assets.espn.go.com

The greatest college football team in the history of man kind goes down in flames and the pundits from MSM are pouring it on from all over. Here are some treats for everyone on Bruin Nation!

ESPN's Schlabach says Trojies should drop out of top 10:

Still, many college football pundits were quick to anoint USC as the team to beat in 2008. The Trojans beat up Virginia, which was blasted by Connecticut 45-10 in its third game. Then the Trojans dominated the Buckeyes, who narrowly beat Ohio and Troy, and didn't have tailback Chris "Beanie" Wells when they played USC in the Coliseum.

We were all blinded by USC's stable of pretty tailbacks and prettier Song Girls. We forgot this was the same school that lost to Stanford and UCLA and Oregon State during the previous three seasons.

The Trojans should suffer the same fate Ohio State did two weeks ago. The Buckeyes fell eight spots to No. 13 in the Associated Press poll after losing badly at USC. That same plunge is exactly what the Trojans deserve.

USC isn't the No. 1 team in the country. It didn't even look like a top-10 team against Oregon State.

Ted Miller reports how Petey's arrogant thugs never learned their lesson:

Last year, USC went down as a 41-point favorite at home to Stanford.

On Thursday, USC went down as a 25-point favorite at Oregon State.

What does it mean?

It means lessons from 2007 about no gimmes in college football weren't learned.

It means a team needs to exhibit more than talent alone if it wants to compete for a national championship.

Dodd on CBS is brutal:

Conference games are tougher.

Orange hurts their eyes.

No one said anything about tackling a munchkin.

The dog ate their homework.

Excuses, excuses.

The heartening thing is in USC's world, this was no monster upset. Oregon State was only a 25-point underdog Thursday night to the Trojans. Stanford, now that was an upset. And part of a disturbing trend. The No. 1 Trojans just ruined their national championship chase with another inexplicable gag job against an inferior opponent.

What, USC had to play the rest of its schedule after the Ohio State game? Apparently. The reminder came when Oregon State's 5-foot-7 Jacquizz Rodgers started running through arm tackles. That is, when Trojans defenders got arms on him at all.

Damn! That will leave a mark!!!

You think those aholes are missing Norm Chow? SuC has been nothing but an over-rated joke since Peetie ran Norm out of South Central.

TrOJans suck. They always sucked and now they will keep on sucking.

Enjoy!

Looks like SuC is trying to weasel out of the Mayogate by pointing the fingers at the NCAA:

When allegations surfaced this year that USC basketball star O.J. Mayo had received improper benefits from a sports agency funneled through close advisors, the university pointed to its own scrutiny of Mayo and said an NCAA "investigation" had deemed him eligible.

Now, with two sources confirming that an NCAA representative met with Mayo and advisor Rodney Guillory for several hours before certifying the player's eligibility for the 2007-08 school year, there is national focus on how that NCAA pre-screening process could affect USC's possible culpability in the Mayo scandal.

USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett and men's basketball Coach Tim Floyd declined to comment, but university officials have privately expressed frustrations about the severity of any looming discipline the NCAA or Pacific 10 Conference may deliver the Trojans in light of the NCAA screening of Mayo.

Get it? SuC officials had no responsibility in signing a tainted athlete, who everyone knew had some baggage before magically showing up at South Central. According to SuC officials they couldn’t have foreseen this scandal even after having pre-existing relationship with shady Guillory.

An area of concern might be Guillory's prior connections to former USC player Jeff Trepagnier and ex-Fresno State star Tito Maddox, who were disciplined for accepting benefits from aspiring Las Vegas agents. It is not known if the NCAA asked Guillory about those ties.

The NCAA could penalize USC for a lack of institutional control in the Mayo case.

What SuC is trying to is to get away with minimum damage out of a scandal that would have brought other programs down. They are pointing their fingers at the NCAA, hoping to get away with minor slap in the wrist

Richard A. Johanningmeier, NCAA associate director of enforcement, participated in the pre-enrollment screening of Mayo and current investigation, said a USC source who was forbidden from speaking on the record about the Mayo case.

"We handle it on a case-by-case basis," Osburn said. "So, our threshold for institutions is: Did they know or should they have known? Do they have the processes in place to catch violations?"

Michael Glazier, a former member of the NCAA enforcement staff who heads a Kansas law firm's collegiate sports practice group, said the NCAA review of an athlete "doesn't alleviate an institution's responsibility to analyze the background of the recruit . . . and to examine any warning signs that may emerge in a diligent, comprehensive manner."

He said that if USC met that responsibility, he thought the NCAA would not impose severe penalties, such as a postseason tournament ban or scholarship limitations. But Glazier added that he thought lesser penalties such as stripping USC of victories and forcing it to return money from the NCAA tournament were "close to automatic."

Getting paid $30,000 to play at SuC and all they are hoping to get away with is just returning money from their “one and done” and forfeit victories from a mediocre 20 win season.

Shameless cheaters.

What a freaking joke:

The NCAA put New Mexico's football program on three years of probation Wednesday and cut five scholarships as punishment for academic violations involving two former assistant coaches.

The sanctions imposed by the NCAA's infractions committee went beyond the university's self-imposed penalties, which included two years of probation and fewer scholarship reductions.

New Mexico's head coach Rocky Long was not accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

The NCAA concluded that the former Lobos assistants in 2004 improperly helped three recruits to obtain fraudulent academic credits through correspondence courses they never completed at Fresno Pacific University, a fully accredited, four-year college in California that also offers online degrees.

In its report, the infractions committee said course registration materials at Fresno Pacific showed the home addresses for the three UNM recruits as the home address in California of a brother of one former assistant. Coaches' office or cell phone numbers were listed as the recruits' phone numbers. The recruits admitted to NCAA investigators that they "received no course materials and did no work" but received course credit.

The recruits took courses from a Fresno Pacific instructor who was an acquaintance of one of the former UNM assistants.

New Mexico should have hired their own Senora Rosa and they would have been just fine.

In news that will surprise no one, another Trojan is going to jail:

A Compton jury on Wednesday found USC linebacker recruit Maurice Simmons guilty of two felonies and a misdemeanor in connection with a street robbery in March.

Simmons' codefendant, Lamont Lee Hall, was also found guilty. 

Simmons, a Compton Dominguez High graduate, had been charged with felony robbery, assault with a firearm and a misdemeanor charge of allowing someone to bring a gun into his car. He will be sentenced Aug. 28.

Instead of feeling sorry for the victim of the crime who was robbed and assaulted with a gun, Peetie is feeling sorry for his recruit:

USC Coach Pete Carroll called it "the most unfortunate news we could get for Maurice and for his family. We feel sorry for everything they have to go through."

In Peetie and SuC’s world the victims of TrOJan’s perpetrated crimes don’t matter. It is all about showing concern about the tragedy of not having an athlete available for the next game.

No one should celebrate a kid going to jail. It is sad for everyone involved. Still the way these jerks across town continue to show a total lack of perspective is disturbing but not shocking.

This will not probably surprise a lot of people considering who is coaching the Memphis Tigers.

Huge article out on FoxSports.com on Memphis Tigers. NCAA is investigating Calipari's program because of a phone call a Memphis booster (Fed Ex Ceo) made to Oseye, Gaddy a mother of a high profile recruit (who happened to be an employee of Fed Ex):

The call from Bronczek came earlier this month and lasted approximately 10 minutes. Oseye Gaddy also told FOXSports.com that she received the call just a few days after the family was contacted by Tigers coach John Calipari, who is actively recruiting Abdul Gaddy. Calipari was at a basketball camp Thursday and repeated attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.

Bronczek belongs to the exclusive 32-member Ambassador's Athletic Foundation, in which each member has donated at least $500,000 to the Memphis program and many have given in excess of $1 million.

He is a "representative of an institution's athletic interests" or a "booster" due to his involvement as a member of the Ambassador's Athletic Foundation — an agency that promotes an athletic program. Bronczek is also on the Tiger Athletic Advisory Board of Directors, which assists the athletic department in all aspects of fund raising.

"He's absolutely a booster, there's no question about it," Johnson said of Bronczek.

NCAA rules state that "a representative of athletic interests" is someone who has participated in or is a member of an agency or organization promoting the institution's athletics program or who has made financial contributions to the athletics department or to an athletics booster organization of that institution.

Rule 13.1.3.5.1 in the NCAA Division I Manual also states that "Representatives of an institution's athletics interests are prohibited from making telephonic communications with a prospective student-athlete or the prospective student-athlete's relatives or legal guardians."

"I wasn't aware of it and of course I'm concerned," Johnson said. "We try very hard because our basketball program is so high profile. The higher you go, the less wiggle room you have."

"Certainly I don't condone it," Johnson added. "But Dave's one of the real good ones. Oh yes, we'll absolutely look into it."

FedEx director of communications Maury Lane said of Bronczek: "Certainly he regrets the fact he put himself, the company and the university in a bad light. But he had the right intentions. His conversation was congratulatory."

Lane said that Bronczek was unaware of the rules, adding that Bronczek also indicated that Calipari had not urged him to make the call.

Sure Calipari had no idea.

Just like he had no idea when his star player - Marcus Camby  - was getting set up with hookers at UMass.

The Trojan Times published an article today with pictures of Reggie and OJ2, the two faces of Fig Tech. The Times reporter interviewed David Price, who is the NCAA "head of enforcement."

There were three parts of the article that I found telling.

The part about Brian Watkins (Lloyd Lake’s lawyer) saying NCAA is sitting on more information than him:

"The wealth of information they had, prior to even meeting with us, kind of shocked me," attorney Brian Watkins said. "They knew stuff we didn't even know."

So the NCAA has been sitting on more information than Bush’s adversary but it hasn’t done anything? Why?

The part about David Price talking about "institutional control" gives us a little peak into the mental make up of the NCAA bureaucrat:

Even if no one at USC provided extra benefits, the school could face penalties if investigators find a "lack of institutional control." The definition of institutional control is not as cut-and-dried as it is with other violations. Price talks about needing to "weigh the circumstances."

"The schools have to pay attention," he said. "They know what their kids are driving. They know where their kids are living."

But he cites a 1995-96 case in which former USC tailback Shawn Walters served a 12-game suspension for receiving extra benefits from a roommate who acted as a runner. The program was not punished.

"How in the world was the coach supposed to know that?" Price said. "You don't expect a coach to know everything a kid's doing 24 hours a day."

Can you feel David’s agony for Peetie?

Poor Peetie. All he wants to do is follow the rules. How in the world a coach like Peetie is supposed to know about this tawdry list when our Humanitarian is out curing AIDS and fighting hunger in Africa and fighting for human rights in Tibet?

David ends with this note of worry:

As the months stretch on, he says, "You shouldn't have the impression that the enforcement staff is impotent."

 I will leave all the long time BNers to come up with the punch line to respond to that.

COMEDY:

USC is planning on telling the NCAA it did not know of any improper activity between O.J. Mayo and an event promoter alleged to have given the basketball player $30,000 in cash and gifts, according to a Los Angeles Daily News report.

School officials said the NCAA might speak with the school this week, according to the report, and USC is preparing its initial defense, including telling the NCAA that it previously had banned the promoter, Rodney Guillory, from receiving tickets to Trojans games.

"Right now, we're just trying to weather the storm," a USC official said in the Daily News report.

***

The Daily News also reported that USC will emphasize to the NCAA that it had banned Guillory from receiving tickets to USC games in order to avoid any accusations of impropriety involving Mayo.

From the same ESPN article:

According to the Daily News, however, Guillory was seen often at the USC basketball offices, around the locker room, and at pickup games at the Galen Center, where Mayo played last summer.

The most amazing aspect of SuC dealing with its scandals is to see its officials spout this kind of cocomeme excuses probably knowing full well that everyone else can see that they are spouting asinine and stupendous excuses. Yet the local media will lap all of this up and report it without any kind of scrutiny.

This is so insulting to the intelligence of any self respecting fans of college sports that it will further lower the diminished credibility of anyone who has been stupid enough to buy their excuses up to this point.

Hello BN.

I decided to pick up on bluestreet's idea of emailing Adam Rose - the TrOJan alum - who is running The Times' "What's Bruin" blog. Here is the email that I just sent to him which you can freely copy and paste and send it to him (at adam@laist.com) as well:

Dear Adam,

In the following link please find some detailed information re. the cross-town rival of "UCLA Bruins" that Bruins would find very useful and would be appropriate for a blog entitled "What's Bruin""

http://www.bruinsnation.com/2008/5/15/508939/pete-carroll-tim-floyd-usc#comments

Please let me know if you will be able to post the information. And if you cannot post the information please let me know why you cannot share information concerning UCLA's cross-town rival on "What's Bruin."

Truly yours,

UniversityofSecondChoice

I am waiting for his response.

As soon as I get I will post it here.

I think it would be cool if we all email him and demand that he links that list int he LAT's "What's Bruin" blog.

You can post his responses in this thread.

This is a win-win.

We either expose him again as Trojie lapdog or he post's Menelaus's list in the LA Times.

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Updated with Adam Rose's response

Adam Rose responded back to my email. I will break it down for you all.

Adam said:

I read Bruins Nation regularly and it's an excellent blog. This particular post appears to be a comprehensive compilation of allegations against USC over the past few years. I cannot simply repost things due to copyright laws, though I frequently link to BN and may do so with this post. I tend to run a feature called "hot links" on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and this may be appropriate as something that would be amusing to Bruins.

I asked Adam if that means he will post a link to the list today. Haven’t gotten a response.

Then Adam claimed that he has been fair in covering the TrOJan mess:

It looks like I've mentioned all but one of the incidents that have happened since I started writing All Things Trojan on that particular blog. In fact, the BN post actually links to All Things Trojan as a reference. The one I haven't mentioned is Radovich not getting drafted because of alleged behavioral problems. As a point of fact, I am unaware of any behavioral problems. Nobody at the LA Times seems to know about it, and the Daily News beat writer outright refuted it. I would speculate that as a low draft pick, somebody made a mistake in his NFL draft evals. I didn't feel it was right to bring it up and cause any more unfounded embarrassment.

What he didn’t say that he mentioned those stories but he always wrote them from the prism of a TrOJie shill. Exhibit A: check out this comedic post on Mayo being an angel .

Adam ended with this:

When we proposed merging USC and UCLA coverage, the reaction was universally negative. Bruin fans made it clear they don't want to hear about Trojans. When I mentioned Mayo's scandal on What's Bruin, I again got feedback that Bruins didn't want to hear about it. As we add more writers to the blog, perhaps we will add a regular feature called SChadenfruede -- but for now I'll keep that to the hot links. The priorities for my own posts on What's Bruin are things like UCLA basketball/football and interviews with water polo coach Adam Krikorian and women's hoops coach Nikki Caldwell. 

That’s a lot of BS. What Adam is failing to mention that his readers didn’t want to hear about him making excuses for not writing on “What’s Bruin” because he was too busy spinning for SuC on “All Things TrOJan". I am sure his readers (the few that he has left) will appreciate a link to Menelaus’s list without any kind of gratuitous dig towards BN.

Keep an eye on his blog - "What's Bruin " - today to see if he posts the link to the List in his Friday's "Hotlinks".

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Update II

Adam Rose posted the link on What's Bruin today.