One Year Anniversary of FBI Findings Opening Up Shoe Scandal in Exposing Underground Economy As College Basketball Rocked Louisville To Its’ Core
Image courtesy of booksigningcentral.com
Tuesday, September 26, 2017 was a very dark day in the history of amateur sports in general and college basketball specifically.
While the major headlines showed ten gentlemen being arrested for participating in various sting operations, Louisville put their 18 year veteran head coach Rick Pitino on administrative leave (he would later be fired without cause on October 16) and a few days prior with Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich.
In late August 2018, the Basketball Hall of Fame coach told his story and he hopes many fans and media members finally understand his message.
The first half of the book talks about him learning about the sport while growing up in Long Island during the late 1960’s. Coach Pitino also traced the history of how Nike and later Adidas would get AAU programs the necessary clout to give universities which ended up amounting to multi-year, multimillion dollar deals to give shoes to players and eventually outfit teams from head to toe.
Page 154 shows off a simple pyramid diagram which clearly shows why Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour want a rosier balance sheet in the hopes that a) they sign up for the right school that will get them hopefully, b) the chance to play in the NBA.
It is common knowledge that a majority of the NCAA’s operating budget consisting of $10.8 billion and initially lasting 14 years signed in 2011 has CBS splitting coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship with three Turner cable outlets (TBS, TNT, and TruTV). The television and online streaming deal would later expanded up to the year 2032.
The Direct Opposite of Showtime’s Billions Series Comes Into Light
“it’s less a crime drama than an absurdist series about government investigators working with scam artists.”
2013 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Rick Pitino in his tell-all book Pitino: My Story with Seth Kaufman
Page 182 is where the meat of the story begins. This is one book I could not put down.
Enter a man named Louis Martin Blazer III, then an investment adviser who ran financial services at a firm called Blazer Capital Management. Several NFL players with direct ties to Pittsburgh managed to get clients to grant him access and at times take control of their money.
After a 2009 film which really stunk at the box office, Sibling starring Mischa Barton and the late Michael Clarke Duncan would be retitled as A Resurrection. A second movie, Mafia went straight to DVD.
Several charges were leveled against Blazer by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But after several months of soul searching, he decided to help the FBI in exposing why AAU schools have gotten away with so much money in luring high school kids as young as 14 years old.
Another key factor was having Kentucky Republican Governor Matt Bevin win the 2015 general election over Democrat Jack Conway. Within six months, Governor Bevin basically fired everyone connected with the University of Louisville (20 members) and put in people who had very little connection with the school. As explained on page 214, ten people were appointed by the governor, plus three other members for faculty, students, and school operations. Kentucky state law clearly stated at the time there was supposed to be 17 people seated.
Also, a governor could only remove any board member “for cause”, after each member had a fair hearing with an attorney before the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.
Perhaps, the strongest words Coach Pitino mentioned are on page 234.
He is trying his best to be as remorseful as possible, but fully realizing his fate has been sealed for good to return to the sidelines.
Please keep in mind, most of the key players connected with Louisville have not been indicted. Even going back to the 2015 Katina Powell book story on longtime assistant Andre McGee coordinating the “stripper parties” on campus, every player and security officer said they did not know anything that was going on.
Unless other news comes forth down the road, who knows what shoe will drop? Clearly most of that state wants the Wildcats to do well. If Louisville wins each December, it might be considered as a upset. If the Cards lose, they treat it mostly as just another game since UK is firmly entrenched in the SEC, while Louisville moved to the uber competitive ACC in 2014-2015.
The anguish over the money used to fund the Cardinals home court of the KFC Yum! Center has gotten ugly with each passing turn. And think also about the damage Louisville has suffered as a school reputation wise. This is worse than in 2001 where most of their problems were generally self-inflicted.
What was really smart of Coach Pitino to mention towards the end of the book (pages 247-250) are six steps on overcoming any type of adversity:
- Laugh yourself silly, whether it is watching your favorite TV show or reading some funny book or comic strips
- Stay away from social media. Be a leader if you must online, but don’t feel like you have to follow a certain crowd. You will feel better in the long run.
- Idleness is the devil’s workshop. Stay busy.
- Don’t let rejection get you down. Just like interviewing for jobs, someone will say “yes”.
- Take ownership for your dilemma.
- You must have faith.
For more information, please look at my blog from September 26, 2017.
Thank you all for reading, and most all, understanding.
All Things About Men's College Basketball 