Repeat Offender: Fisher May Be 4th Coach Vacating NCAA Play at Two Schools

"We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does." - Air Force honor code

In the aftermath of Louisville's Pitino Place/Animal House, North Carolina and Syracuse scholastic shenanigans plus SMU's short-cuts to success, let's hope college presidents finally start paying at least a modicum of lip service to proposals for upright athletic programs. But the well-worn cliche "cheaters never prosper" isn't quite valid for coaches who didn't exactly abide by the tenants of Air Force's honor code.

Prior to the Brown-out at SMU, another mid-major school aspiring to secure footing in the national Top 20 by bringing in a name coach was San Diego State. The Aztecs, who summoned Steve Fisher despite Michigan vacating three seasons of NCAA playoff participation during his tenure (1992-93-96), could be among the next schools facing sanctions.

Advocating banishment for Busted Brown, ESPN impresario Dick Vitale wrote he "has a big problem when a coach (former UCLA and Kansas mentor Larry Brown) puts three major schools on probation during his watch." But to what extent does Vitale and much of the see-no-evil/hear-no-evil/speak-no-evil press have any problem when a coach is in charge of two different universities in this unseemly category?

There's an old refrain: Fool me once, shame on thee; fool me twice, shame on me. Shouldn't the three coaches - John Calipari, Jerry Tarkanian and Jim Valvano - in charge of two different schools when they were forced to vacate NCAA Tournament records be viewed as damaged goods rather than canonization from Vitale and much of the mess media? Hiding behind the do-gooder approach of second and third chances, just let them off like Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

Amid Vitale conveniently overlooking Valvano's academic anemia at North Carolina State probably worse than what occurred at rival UNC, one man's trash is another man's treasure. It shouldn't be any surprise that Calipari and Valvano have a significant number of suspect characters among the list of "Bad Boys of College Basketball" assembled by CollegeHoopedia.com although their contributions to men behaving badly paled in comparison to the coddling of college cons by Tarkanian. Sounds as if troubled Lamar Oden would have been a model citizen if only he had more grooming from Father Flanagan rather than soiled by exposure to the Kardashians. You needed one of Tarkanian's fashion-show towels to munch on to avoid saying something you shouldn't when reading ESPN's "tell-the-entire-story" obituaries describing him as "complicated" and "misunderstood." It's easy to comprehend none of this is complex at all amid the dim-the-Strip-lights barrage of amusing anecdotes about Tark the Shark plus similar incessant fawning over Calipari and Valvano.

After starting his college coaching career as an assistant at Kansas under Ted Owens and Brown, six of Calipari's UMass players each reportedly received $12,000 to settle invasion-of-privacy complaints when their "alarming" grades were leaked to the media. After all, we can't have a serious discussion regarding scholastic standards; now can we? By the way, was that a high enough figure for welfare payments to DI players to satisfy courageous ambulance-chasing lawyer such as ESPN's Jay Bilas? If the NCAA is indeed serious about draining the swamp, the governing body should embrace academic standards forcing the NBA to establish a reform school division in its developmental league. Studies have shown a college education does not appear to diminish the probability of an eventual pro player getting in trouble with the law.

Rattling skeletons, following is the short but dubious list of repeat offenders Fisher (stand-in mentor for Michigan's 1989 NCAA titlist) could join among coaches who probably have support from shills thinking any transgression was worth it because they each won an NCAA championship during their careers: