I know, I know. This site is
dense. A long read. How can I expect to persuade people in the age of
140 characters or less? A time when we type "txt me" because "text me"
simply takes too much time. tl;dr.
Believe
me: I knew before I wrote word one that I would never be able to reach
many of the people who found my site. Such was the message I had to
tell. It didn't fit neatly into a page or two. I thought long and hard
about the dilemma.
In doing
so, I felt what it must have been like to be the SC attorneys
responsible for drafting the university's 169-page written response to
the NCAA's Notice of Allegations. Or Scott Tompsett, the attorney who
represented Todd McNair at the Committee on Infractions ("COI") hearing.
They had a strong case to make, but the message was not short and
sweet.
And their audience wasn't ideal.
On Monday, the NCAA released its report on an internal investigation
into wrongdoing committed by members of its enforcement staff in the
University of Miami (Nevin Shapiro) investigation. The "missteps," as
the NCAA calls it, centers around NCAA enforcement staff members paying
Nevin Shapiro's attorney, Maria Perez, $19,000 in "expenses" in exchange
for her using her power to subpoena witnesses in Shapiro's bankruptcy
proceeding and ask them questions, a power the NCAA notoriously lacks.
The enforcement staff members sought legal advice from NCAA lawyers on their plan to hire Perez for this purpose, and were advised not
to do it. This was wise advice as a subpoena is drawing upon the power
of a court to compel a person to do something they ordinarily would not
be required to do, and using that power for some ulterior motive
unrelated to court business is highly improper (the NCAA claims no laws
were broken, but that is a statement of no significance because such
conduct is governed more by court rules and attorney ethical rules, not
statutes.)
Alas, the enforcement staff wasn't satisfied with
that advice because it didn't get them what they wanted, so they simply
called the payments "expenses" instead of "fees" and did it anyway.
So
who were these renegade enforcement staffers? Well, what a surprise to
find that the same investigators played a central role in the USC investigation.
For informational purposes, below is a listing of the violations found and penalties assessed by the NCAA in the USC infractions report. No commentary.
The "Reggie Bush case" dates back to early 2006, so you no doubt have
heard something about it before. (And if you haven't, I'd be fascinated
if you could email me and let me know how you stumbled upon this site.)
Nevertheless, the length of time this saga has dragged out makes it
easy to lose track of exactly what happened. For purposes of
understanding the content on this site, here is a brief (by my
long-winded standards), bare bones recap: