"Cross examination elicits the truth in innumerable ways--by forcing the witness to abandon his prepared positions and improvise under circumstances of stress, by inducing the witness to elaborate his inventions, by striking down the inventions and leaving the witness exposed, so that the truth is his only available alternative. . . . Cross-examination is the only scalpel that can enter the hidden recesses of a man's mind and root out a fraudulent resolve."
Nizer, Louis, My Life in Court.
Much of the NCAA's case relied on the testimony of attempted sports marketer Lloyd Lake. Given this, central to USC's (and McNair's) defense should have been a thorough cross-examination of Lake.
As discussed, one key
problem with the NCAA's case was that it did not permit USC to attend
and question many of the key witnesses, including accuser Lloyd Lake.
It is appropriate, then, that sitting on the Committee on Infractions
("COI") for the USC case was constitutional law professor and Nebraska
Faculty Athletics Representative Josephine (Jo) Potuto.
You
see, at around the time the NCAA claims Reggie Bush and Lake were about
to enter into their marketing agreement, Potuto was appearing before a
congressional committee to discuss whether the NCAA provides fair, due
process to its members and student-athletes in enforcement cases.
Perhaps the most interesting NCAA Committee on Infractions ("COI") member
that sat in judgment of USC was Paul Dee, the COI's chairman. Dee was the former athletic director at the University of Miami
and at the time of the hearing was a professor at Miami. While many recent media members have noted the fact that Dee
presided over Miami athletics during the time that booster Nevin
Shapiro claims to have given out large sums of money and extra benefits
to Canes players, Dee's presence on the COI was suspect even at the time of the USC hearing.
Another curious Committee on Infractions ("COI") member who sat in
judgment of USC was Notre Dame Senior Deputy Director of Athletics Missy
Conboy. Conboy played basketball at Notre Dame (serving
as team captain her senior year) and has spent over 25 years in Notre
Dame's athletics administration. She served as interim athletic
director from June to July 2008. "No one laughs when Missy Conboy says
she might like to be the athletic director at Notre Dame someday," said the Chicago Tribune in 1988.
For
the uninitiated: USC and Notre Dame play every year in what is billed
as the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football. But things
had not gone well for ND in the series in the 2000's. When Conboy sat
for the USC hearing, SC had beaten ND eight straight years, the longest
streak of futility against SC in the history of the rivalry.
NCAA rule 32.1.3 seems tailor-made for such a situation.