UConn's friend, Mark Emmert

[DarthGrumpy]

This story was posted on ESPN today. I have may found someone(thing) I am even more upset about than how UConn has been treated throughout conference realignment - Mark Emmert.
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9500489/a-year-removed-penn-state-decision-ncaa-president-mark-emmert-finds-amid-another-defining-moment
“Targeting specific head coaches and programs presumed as being "dirty," particularly within a separate in-house group investigating basketball.”
"The prevailing attitude was 'Whether it helps the school or hurts the school, our job is to gather information.' Lately, it has been, 'Our job is to take these schools down,'
This was the same guy who botched UConn 2000 resulting in $100 million in cost overruns and left in 1999 before any fault be tied to him, he bails for LSU. Several jobs (and scandals) later, he lands in Indianapolis as the head of the NCAA in 2010 just in time to oversee the NCAA laying down the hammer on UConn basketball for academic issues.
Yes, UConn had serious academic issues. But, the rule was applied retroactively. A year of so later, UNC gets caught for allowing athletes to take fake classes; but, since the students passed said fake classes, no fine, no foul.
I maybe reading between the lines here; but, this looks more like a witch hunt to me than it did in 2011. Was Emmert’s pride bruised because Connecticut’s political leaders lambasted for screwing-up UConn 2000 so badly? Did Emmert target UConn because Coach Calhoun had the audacity to win a NCAA basketball championship while under probation due to the Nate Miles recruitment?
It just smells.

 

[freescooter]

Why on god's green earth do you think Emmert gives a flying frick what some politicians in Connecticut said about him 5 or more years after he had left town for a much more prestigious and significantly better paying gig? That is just silly. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets upset about what state legislators say. They are the clown princes of politics. And your comment makes little or know sense anyway...did he target UConn because some State Rep from the Naugatuck Valley questioned his competence or because UConn was successful despite the Miles penalties? But at the end of the day, you know what? If UConn had kept its eye on the ball with respect to APR, and with respect to Miles recruitment, dropped him when it was clear that he was more trouble than he was worth, there would have been nothing for the NCAA to find. Kind of like when I got a speeding ticket as a kid. i told my dad that the cop was hiding in the bushes and I couldn't see him. he asked if I was speeding. I said well, yeah, and he said well if you weren't speeding it wouldn't matter whether he was there or not. By the way, it was the presidents, not Emmert who approved the APR and the process to apply it retroactively.

 

[CL82]

I'm not so sure UConn had serious academic issues. Making fake classes for athletes? That's serious academic issues. Having some clustered transfers and kids who left to pursue NBA dreams without finishing their spring classwork, not so much.

 

[champs99and04]

I am generally not a conspiracy theorist but Emmert certainly appears to have a vendetta against either Calhoun or UConn. There is really no other way to explain the completely illogical method of using outdated scores to punish current players and refusing to allow UConn an opportunity to comply the NCAA used to "try to emphasize academics". Emmett's later quote, which I'm paraphrasing about "being champions on the court doesn't matter if you can't get it done in the classroom" coupled with his leniacy with other schools who have requested a waiver causes me to believe this was a well-orchestrated plan to simultaneously punish UConn and garner some positive PR.

 

[champs99and04]

Why on god's green earth do you think Emmert gives a flying frick what some politicians in Connecticut said about him 5 or more years after he had left town for a much more prestigious and significantly better paying gig? That is just silly. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets upset about what state legislators say. They are the clown princes of politics. And your comment makes little or know sense anyway...did he target UConn because some State Rep from the Naugatuck Valley questioned his competence or because UConn was successful despite the Miles penalties? But at the end of the day, you know what? If UConn had kept its eye on the ball with respect to APR, and with respect to Miles recruitment, dropped him when it was clear that he was more trouble than he was worth, there would have been nothing for the NCAA to find. Kind of like when I got a speeding ticket as a kid. i told my dad that the cop was hiding in the bushes and I couldn't see him. he asked if I was speeding. I said well, yeah, and he said well if you weren't speeding it wouldn't matter whether he was there or not. By the way, it was the presidents, not Emmert who approved the APR and the process to apply it retroactively.

Now how would you feel if that same cop showed up at your door today and dragged you to his police car in handcuffs? And don't complain, because you wouldn't have had to worry about this if you had only obeyed the speed limit.

 

[8893]

Why on god's green earth do you think Emmert gives a flying frick what some politicians in Connecticut said about him 5 or more years after he had left town for a much more prestigious and significantly better paying gig? That is just silly. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets upset about what state legislators say. They are the clown princes of politics. And your comment makes little or know sense anyway...did he target UConn because some State Rep from the Naugatuck Valley questioned his competence or because UConn was successful despite the Miles penalties? But at the end of the day, you know what? If UConn had kept its eye on the ball with respect to APR, and with respect to Miles recruitment, dropped him when it was clear that he was more trouble than he was worth, there would have been nothing for the NCAA to find. Kind of like when I got a speeding ticket as a kid. i told my dad that the cop was hiding in the bushes and I couldn't see him. he asked if I was speeding. I said well, yeah, and he said well if you weren't speeding it wouldn't matter whether he was there or not. By the way, it was the presidents, not Emmert who approved the APR and the process to apply it retroactively.

Another douchetastic response brought to you by scooter!

Has it ever been ruled out that this guy is actually Ken Krayeske?

 

[freescooter]

CL82,
Are you telling me that other big time programs don't have kids transfer and leave to pursue NBA deams? I'm not saying that we had serious academic issues. We had APR issues. We simply did not pay attention to that issue mainly because Calhoun didn't care and Hathaway didn't want to spend the money to follow up. But in college sports APR is like the NFL spending cap. teams have guys who spend their whole time figuring out how to meet the cap. If they screw it up, they may be in trouble when they try to sign some prize free agent. But the spending cap has zero to do with the game of football. It doesn't catch one pass, make a single tackle, make the game safer or more entertaining. But getting it right is crucial to building a successful franchise. Same with the APR. Doesn't make a single basket, doesn't even measure true academic performance. But its a rule, and if you don't pay attention to it, keep your players on some kind of track, you'll get bitten. For what its worth, though we also had some academic issues. Ours were different from Carolina's. We brought in a bunch of guys to play basketball who didn't measure up academically. I forget the exact numbers but something like average 875 SAT combined scores compared to a student body that was 1100 and trending north. Interesting to note that we no longer bring in a bunch of guys with questionable academic backgrounds. The average SAT score for the basketball team is much higher than it was during those years. And we had an embarrassingly bad graduation rate which couldn't be explained only by guys leaving to go pro. North Carolina had a different set of problems. They gave out bogus grades for non-existent courses. So their APR and Grad rates are impossible to measure. But the bottom line is that UConn simply didn't pay attention to APR when it was obvious that it was going to be a problem. Instead of addressing it they let it fester and let the NCAA have a target. Let's face it,if the APR crackdown had only hit Toledo and Northern South Dakota, nobody would have paid attention. UConn's ineptitude on this front was a serious error on its part.

 

[ctchamps]

It just smells.

JC rubbed people the wrong way. We all know that.

IMO two people who he rubbed badly were Emmert and Hathaway. If Emmert has the conceit he demonstrated by ignoring protocol at the bb tournament event, he holds the mo for someone who is more interested in fiefdom vendettas as opposed to justice. JH was similar with people although he didn't relish the limelight like Emmert.

JC ran into the perfect storm with these two guys as his enemies.

First Nate Miles. That was a Hathaway contrivance. From the get go the coaches wanted help from the legal team in the AD's office. Hathaway cunningly rebuffed them and the bb coaches didn't think of documenting the problems that were in play in the AD's office (lack of legal staff, lack of communication, lack of accessibility). And given the publics perception of the two leading figures, JC's irascibility vs. the mild mannered JH, the public was going to believe that JC constantly bullied himself into the AD's office as opposed to the office being closed to JC.

Emmert wanted to bring JC down from the get go. The texting was an excuse for the Nate Miles punishments. It was contrived, the same way regarding the treatment of RB and the apr. They all have mild plausibility but the real issue was personal between Emmert along with some of NCAA people such as UHarts prez. and JC.

And the local press wanted their pound of flesh as well so JC didn't stand a chance. I hate injustice so I'm not making excuses for these circumstances, but public figures need to mollify certain groups. JC understood this behavior to be phony so he went after these people when he saw fit. It tuns out to have been a bad choice. It cost him.

 

[ctchamps]

Three people he rubbed the wrong way, Emmert, Hathaway and freescooter. Well maybe only two. I'm wondering if freescooter and Hathaway are one and the same individual.

 

[ctchamps]

Ah, I found Emmert

LOL. I'm arguing Hathaway.

 

[Pmurph678]

Why on god's green earth do you think Emmert gives a flying frick what some politicians in Connecticut said about him 5 or more years after he had left town for a much more prestigious and significantly better paying gig? That is just silly. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets upset about what state legislators say. They are the clown princes of politics. And your comment makes little or know sense anyway...did he target UConn because some State Rep from the Naugatuck Valley questioned his competence or because UConn was successful despite the Miles penalties? But at the end of the day, you know what? If UConn had kept its eye on the ball with respect to APR, and with respect to Miles recruitment, dropped him when it was clear that he was more trouble than he was worth, there would have been nothing for the NCAA to find. Kind of like when I got a speeding ticket as a kid. i told my dad that the cop was hiding in the bushes and I couldn't see him. he asked if I was speeding. I said well, yeah, and he said well if you weren't speeding it wouldn't matter whether he was there or not. By the way, it was the presidents, not Emmert who approved the APR and the process to apply it retroactively.

Ah, I found Emmert

 

[DarthGrumpy]

@ Freescooter
Read the ESPN and several other articles about Emmert. Based on the collection of stories, it appears that the only person he cares about is himself and his image in front of the microphone. A person like that does care about what others say about him in the media and often carries grudges. He also gutted the NCAA enforcement division right off the bat in 2010 and put his own yes men (and women) in. I doubt what was said about in the CT press about his handling of UConn 2000 was the driving factor; but, I am sure it did not help UConn and likely drew his attention to Storrs. It also did not help that we had a ‘gruff’ head basketball coach who basically gave the bird to the NCAA after the Miles recruitment mess by winning the national title in 2011.
As for Miles, the violations there were for recruitment issues, not criminal issues. Many college programs give kids with a shady past a second chance. Once it was clear that Miles was a danger to the community, he was gone before he ever plated a game. Florida should have followed UConn’s example with a certain all-conference tight end.
As for the APR issue, using your own speeding ticket analogy, it would be like the same cop who saw you speeding as a 16 year old pulling you over when you were 30 driving a minivan loaded with kids going 10 miles under the speed limit because he was too busy eating a donut to pull you over 14 year ago.
Plus, the only thing that can explain UConn getting hammered for kids failing classes, which happens all of the time, versus no penalty for UNC for offering fake classes, which I border-line criminal, is that the NCAA under Emmert picking which schools that they wanted to target.

 

[freescooter]

Another douchetastic response brought to you by scooter!

Has it ever been ruled out that this guy is actually Ken Krayeske?

Provide one bit of evidence that Emmert gave a crap that some state representative from Naugatuck said bad things about him 5 years after he had left for greener pastures. that is what you're arguing. It is an absurd argument for which there is not an ounce of evidence. And if UConn had taken some action when we had 2 bad APR years in succession, implemented required summer classes, and all the stuff they now have, they might have turned the thing around, or turned it around enough to build sympathy. They didn't. they allowed the problem to fester and when it continued to get worse, they still did nothing. Look, I believe UConn was targeted, but not because of anything related to Emmert. We were targeted because the NCAA needed a name and UConn, buy its failure to pay attention to this important matter (upstater I don't mean it is important academically, bu tit was important for "compliance" reasons) so they gave the NCAA the perfect opportunity to make an example of someone. As i said before, if the only schools to get hit where schools nobody ever heard of, it wouldn't have had any impact. Simple as that. We were not only speeding, we were honking the horn and hanging out the window yelling obscenities at the cop.

 

[Pmurph678]

LOL. I'm arguing Hathaway.

I feel like Hathaway's post would be shorter and with less substance.

Scooter's posts have a lot of passion behind them, just in all the wrong directions

 

[ctchamps]

I feel like Hathaway's post would be shorter and with less substance.

Scooter's posts have a lot of passion behind them, just in all the wrong directions

He isn't as bombastic as Emmert nor as brief as Hathaway so he is number 3.

 

[8893]

He isn't as bombastic as Emmert nor as brief as Hathaway so he is number 3.

More like number 2 imo.

 

[intlzncster]

I'm sure I'm biased, but Mark Emmert looks like such a . I mean, he really looks like the kind of arse sniffing wanker who ratted out the rest of us prols in elementary school.

 

[ctchamps]

I'm sure I'm biased, but Mark Emmert looks like such a . I mean, he really looks like the kind of arse sniffing wanker who ratted out the rest of us prols in elementary school.

That's Hathaway.
Emmert was the legacy kid whose dad threatened to stop giving his monies to the school if the school took disciplinary action against him. Knowing that this kid creates situations where the pions in his school he dislikes take the fall for his actions.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

@ Freeescooter
No argument that Calhoun was an ornery son of a gun who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in CT and the NCAA. I also agree that Hathaway’s complete disinterest in the Compliance department screwed everyone. That said, what was hard to account for is that looking at the APR score for several years from multiple colleges, it ‘appears’ that the NCAA specifically targeted the handful of years that would hurt UConn the most. No other major program has been hit before of after. Toledo and the others were just collateral damage.
UNC getting away scot free only adds salt to the issue.
Of course, anyone can write a book about the NCAA and its enforcement of ‘rules.’ My favorite one lately was the U Portland women’s golfer who had to payback the university $20 for washing her car using a university owned spigot.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9325352/ncaa-penalizes-golfer-washing-car
Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of dollars pass between agents, boosters, and universities at Miami and Auburn; but not penalty is levied due to technical issues (Miami) or because the player ‘did not know’ he was being auctioned to the highest bidder by his old man for 50 to 100 large.

 

[SoCalCanine]

Why on god's green earth do you think Emmert gives a flying frick what some politicians in Connecticut said about him 5 or more years after he had left town for a much more prestigious and significantly better paying gig? That is just silly. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets upset about what state legislators say. They are the clown princes of politics. And your comment makes little or know sense anyway...did he target UConn because some State Rep from the Naugatuck Valley questioned his competence or because UConn was successful despite the Miles penalties? But at the end of the day, you know what? If UConn had kept its eye on the ball with respect to APR, and with respect to Miles recruitment, dropped him when it was clear that he was more trouble than he was worth, there would have been nothing for the NCAA to find. Kind of like when I got a speeding ticket as a kid. i told my dad that the cop was hiding in the bushes and I couldn't see him. he asked if I was speeding. I said well, yeah, and he said well if you weren't speeding it wouldn't matter whether he was there or not. By the way, it was the presidents, not Emmert who approved the APR and the process to apply it retroactively.

This
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...gnored-division-iii-case-concordia-year-prior

 

[caw]

CL82,
Are you telling me that other big time programs don't have kids transfer and leave to pursue NBA deams? I'm not saying that we had serious academic issues. We had APR issues. We simply did not pay attention to that issue mainly because Calhoun didn't care and Hathaway didn't want to spend the money to follow up. But in college sports APR is like the NFL spending cap. teams have guys who spend their whole time figuring out how to meet the cap. If they screw it up, they may be in trouble when they try to sign some prize free agent. But the spending cap has zero to do with the game of football. It doesn't catch one pass, make a single tackle, make the game safer or more entertaining. But getting it right is crucial to building a successful franchise. Same with the APR. Doesn't make a single basket, doesn't even measure true academic performance. But its a rule, and if you don't pay attention to it, keep your players on some kind of track, you'll get bitten. For what its worth, though we also had some academic issues. Ours were different from Carolina's. We brought in a bunch of guys to play basketball who didn't measure up academically. I forget the exact numbers but something like average 875 SAT combined scores compared to a student body that was 1100 and trending north. Interesting to note that we no longer bring in a bunch of guys with questionable academic backgrounds. The average SAT score for the basketball team is much higher than it was during those years. And we had an embarrassingly bad graduation rate which couldn't be explained only by guys leaving to go pro. North Carolina had a different set of problems. They gave out bogus grades for non-existent courses. So their APR and Grad rates are impossible to measure. But the bottom line is that UConn simply didn't pay attention to APR when it was obvious that it was going to be a problem. Instead of addressing it they let it fester and let the NCAA have a target. Let's face it,if the APR crackdown had only hit Toledo and Northern South Dakota, nobody would have paid attention. UConn's ineptitude on this front was a serious error on its part.

I agree with a lot of this as things stand now.

When UConn was producing bad APR scores nobody cared about it that much. UConn probably less than most, which was a problem.

The reason no one cared was because the penalties were really quite lax. UConn thought they would have to deal with the first an maybe even the second years penalties which would have meant scholarship reductions and maybe a few other minor penalties. Being banned from the NCAAT wasn't part of the consideration set. Yes UConn should have been penalized for not meeting the goals, even though bogus, the punishment shouldn't have been anything close to what happened. I have no clue on if Emmerett was involved

As to your analogy, did you know what the penalty was for speeding? Did it change from a fine to the cop bending you over and giving you an anal probe? If it did, that's what happened to UCONN.

 

[CAHUSKY]

Another douchetastic response brought to you by scooter!

Has it ever been ruled out that this guy is actually Ken Krayeske?

No. Often suspected though.

 

[CL82]

CL82,
Are you telling me that other big time programs don't have kids transfer and leave to pursue NBA deams? Um since I didn't write that you can feel confident that I'm not telling you that. They have and have been sanctioned for it, including Syracuse and Louisville. I'm not saying that we had serious academic issues. We had APR issues. Agreed. We simply did not pay attention to that issue mainly because Calhoun didn't care and Hathaway didn't want to spend the money to follow up. Disagree. There was a penalty in place and Calhoun decided that taking a chance on some kids was worth the risk of reduced scholarships. I guess he was correct since we incurred that penalty in the storied 2011 national championship run. But in college sports APR is like the NFL spending cap. teams have guys who spend their whole time figuring out how to meet the cap. Disagree with the premise that that is what happened at Connecticut so I'm going ignore it and skip down a bit. If they screw it up, they may be in trouble when they try to sign some prize free agent. But the spending cap has zero to do with the game of football. It doesn't catch one pass, make a single tackle, make the game safer or more entertaining. But getting it right is crucial to building a successful franchise. Same with the APR. Doesn't make a single basket, doesn't even measure true academic performance. But its a rule, and if you don't pay attention to it, keep your players on some kind of track, you'll get bitten. For what its worth, though we also had some academic issues. Ours were different from Carolina's. We brought in a bunch of guys to play basketball who didn't measure up academically. I forget the exact numbers but something like average 875 SAT combined scores compared to a student body that was 1100 and trending north. Interesting to note that we no longer bring in a bunch of guys with questionable academic backgrounds. The average SAT score for the basketball team is much higher than it was during those years. And we had an embarrassingly bad graduation rate which couldn't be explained only by guys leaving to go pro. North Carolina had a different set of problems. They gave out bogus grades for non-existent courses. So their APR and Grad rates are impossible to measure. So are you suggesting that somehow outright fraud is the high road compared to what happened here? I'm inclined to disagree with that as well. But the bottom line is that UConn simply didn't pay attention to APR when it was obvious that it was going to be a problem.Disagree. Instead of addressing it they let it fester and let the NCAA have a target. Disagree, no way predict a radical retroactive rule change. Let's face it,if the APR crackdown had only hit Toledo and Northern South Dakota, nobody would have paid attention. Agree. UConn's ineptitude on this front was a serious error on its part. Disagree. There was a risk and UConn accepted that. If there was a consequence to that so be it that's on the staff (and particularly the AD who cut back the compliance group.) But what happened was the NCAA sanctioned UConn and Jim Calhoun accepted the sanctions and went on to win a national championship (in memorable fashion) with two less scholarship athletes. Now if we had run out of gas winning five straight games in the Big East and then six straight in the NCAA tourney, well again that would be fair to criticize the athletic department, Calhoun included. But what happened is that NCAA changed the rules and applied those changes retroactively, effectively sanctioning Connecticut twice for the same students. It is hard to fault Calhoun for that. For those who do not believe that that action was aimed at us, keep in mind that originally the sanction was to be put in place immediately. When it became apparent that that would effect a number teams (including Syracuse) they backed off and delayed it one year. That's arbitrary act is hardly an indictment of Jim Calhoun. It is an indictment of Emmert and Harrison, however.

 

[traitor71]

@ Freeescooter
No argument that Calhoun was an ornery son of a gun who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in CT and the NCAA. I also agree that Hathaway’s complete disinterest in the Compliance department screwed everyone. That said, what was hard to account for is that looking at the APR score for several years from multiple colleges, it ‘appears’ that the NCAA specifically targeted the handful of years that would hurt UConn the most. No other major program has been hit before of after. Toledo and the others were just collateral damage.
UNC getting away scot free only adds salt to the issue.
Of course, anyone can write a book about the NCAA and its enforcement of ‘rules.’ My favorite one lately was the U Portland women’s golfer who had to payback the university $20 for washing her car using a university owned spigot.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9325352/ncaa-penalizes-golfer-washing-car
Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of dollars pass between agents, boosters, and universities at Miami and Auburn; but not penalty is levied due to technical issues (Miami) or because the player ‘did not know’ he was being auctioned to the highest bidder by his old man for 50 to 100 large.

Manufacturing evidence isn't technical, it's just another example of how crooked Emmert and his investigation department really are. One can only hope that as more comes out about the way he and the NCAA does business, he will be forced to step down.

 

[babysheep]