Shoe Wars: NCAA Coaches Should Worry More About Their Own Accountability
North Carolina, Villanova and Virginia didn't participate in annual tradition attending the White House after winning national championships from 2017 through 2019. While not as white-hot grotesque as know-it-all NBA grim-reaper coaches Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers and Stan Van Gundy, prominent NCAA bench bosses made incendiary comments about President Donald Trump; ostensibly to remain in good graces with their less-than-diverse player pipeline. The following NCAA mentors all had significant off-the-court issues they should have spent more time addressing in recent years, but they felt compelled to fall in line resembling public-shaming sheep in academia lambasting the Big Bad Orange Man (sans fictitious rebuttals until now):
Jim Boeheim: "He appeals to a certain radicalized part of the country that basically hates everything that's going on, without reason." - Trumpian Punch-back: "Are there reasons for observers to hate your speeding in fatal auto accident plus excessive number of players testing positive for banned substances, sexual abuse charges involving an assistant coach, academic misconduct and extra benefits?"
Mike Krzyzewski: "I think the only person in our country who's not accountable to anybody is our president." - Trumpian Punch-back: "Who should be accountable for Corey Maggette being paid by AAU coach/convicted felon, recruiting dealings with DC swamp agent, $100G in jewelry for mediocre player, Sullen-man Title IX reporting and keeping eventual #AudacityofHype "body man" Reggie Love from raunchy partying on UNC's campus?"
Rick Pitino: "Look, I've got problems with him like everybody does." - Trumpian Punch-back: "Does everybody have problems with your failure to adequately monitor Louisville's program (at least 15 seconds) during 'Thrill in the Ville' sex-for-pay scandal?"
Shaka Smart: "When someone is elected who has a history of being hateful, of being racist, of saying certain things that are derogatory toward a certain group, it feels like a slap in the face." - Trumpian Punch-back: "Is it a slap in the face to Longhorn faithful by your failing to post an NCAA tourney victory since your hiring? Is it racially hateful to point out you couldn't compile winning record in Big 12 Conference competition despite presence of lottery picks Mo Bamba and Jaxson Hayes on your roster?"
Roy Williams: "Our president tweets out more bulls--- than anybody I've ever seen." - Trumpian Punch-back: "How much bulls--- was academic fraud scheme featuring no-show classes costing your alma mater $18 million in legal fees? How much bogus bonus money did you "earn" via academic performance clause in your contract? Does your school president think you should be more or as attentive a landlord as #TheDonald?"
The prestigious pilots exhibited a sickness worse than Trump combating COVID. Trying out for political commentary role with #MessMedia outlets CNN and MSNBC, college coaches should stop lecturing us and start working harder on cleaning up their own profession. Unless you are a mental midget fond of castrate-the-GOP professor and damage to White House caused by #SickWillie's cigar, this potentially could be the equivalent of a #TimeIsUp movement. March Madness morphed into September Sadness several years ago amid a FBI sting with no end in sight regarding NCAA probes. If the feds genuinely know "the playbook" of an institutional crime family of coaches, it's doubtful there will be enough teams with winning records to stock an NCAA tourney field of 68. Let's be real! Coaches such as Kansas' defiant Bill Self know when prize prospects take a knee, dump or exam affecting eligibility. Nonetheless, there was an instantaneous and persistent Sgt. Schultz "I Know Nothing" routine among a colossal collection of contemptible characters as ugly as disrobed #HollyweirdHarveySwinestein and his legion of leftist enablers such as NBC failing to do the right thing. Self-righteous tarnished his credibility after lame explanation that troubled Lagerald Vick missed two games just before Christmas 2015 due to "illness." Please! Gradually becoming the personification of all that's wrong with college hoopdom, keep a barf bag nearby when his lips move or he soulful struts around in Adidas/rapper T-shirt before uncensored Snoop Dogg does likewise during raunchy "Late Night in the Phog" performance. Did KU mentor also orchestrate obfuscation when several of his shady standouts on the court exhibited rapper-like "Level 1" lack of Self-control off the court?
For what it's worth, Brian Bowen Jr. wasn't ranked among H.S. Top 10 players in any of the major recruiting polls in 2017. But testimony from his father indicated he received hefty offers for his son's services from sea to shining sea before crossing Pacific Ocean to play professionally in Australia. Are we supposed to believe Bowen Jr., who subsequently sued Adias, was only recruit susceptible to peculiar final-chapter shenanigans and Top 10 players didn't secure similar underhanded deals? Closing-time release took longer than 15 seconds, but the dominoes started falling sooner than originally expected. Embracing holier-than-thou Slick Rick's own words, "we got lucky on this one" when the Pompous Pilot finally received a swift kick in the ass of his Louisville white suit rather than another proverbial slap on the wrist. One-year interim Cardinals coach David Padgett seemed to be a pleasant enough person, but how perceptive can three-year teammate of thrown-under-the-bus former assistant Andre McGee possibly be not to discern what was going on in Get-Your-Fill-In-The-Ville's basketball brothel et al? If the NCAA wants to help the FBI break the code of silence, it should force Pitino's son and the nearly dozen other former assistants serving as current head coaches to take truth serum to tell what they really know.
In aftermath of North Carolina State, Georgia Tech and Kansas investigations, keep heading South for the next sweaty segment spotlighting Shoe Wars and check suit label of Auburn's smug coach for his tailor. Bruce on the Loose's "Pearl of Wisdom" prior to becoming an ESPN "expert" featured a failure to recognize his own residence. Despite "Rifle" along his side, he hardly admits even knowing the all-time leading scorer Person who chucked away his college coaching career via dumber-than-doorknob decisions. If not eventually rehired by ESPN akin to demented Keith Overbite despite dismal demonstration at first post-scandal press conference, Pearl's next gig could be as NCAA investigator or FBI mole since he has experience with surreptitious recording of a phone conversation with prize prospect. Pearl could also be BSPN's police reporter since such a high percentage of his players tortured the definition of textbook student-athlete by running afoul of the law.
If FBI doesn't switch gears because of bigger fish to fry or whale if include #Swinestein, it's just the tip of the iceberg as list of tainted schools increases weekly, if not daily. Where have the predictably pathetic press and toothless/clueless NCAA enforcement been for decades, anyway? With huge story staring them right in their beer goggles, inept national #MessMedia relied on cliches ("surprise commitment out of nowhere" and "late recruiting coup") when Brian Bowen Jr. affiliated late in the spring with Louisville before trial detailed how Pitino's hand-picked staff distributed under-the-table cash. The FBI sting gives predictably pathetic press pundits such as The Undefeated to go on another silly racial crusade. Black chief recruiters (including one with $600,000 salary) are the latest victims among the oppressed as they wander off plantations, warranting kneeling players or marches on major highways blocking traffic. Meanwhile, the NABC seeks to shed any scholastic requirement by reducing influence of ACT/SAT results and politically-correct NCAA has been more concerned with devoting time and energy to switching Indian nicknames for schools and gender-neutral restrooms as contributor to shifting national motto from "Tear Down This Wall" to "Tear Down This Stall."
Michael Jordan, the pre-endorsement Airness, donned Converse All-Star sneakers with North Carolina in the 1982 NCAA Tournament title game while Georgetown wore Nike. When did these shoe shenanigans start? The sneaker-linked fraud and corruption caught fire in mid-1980s when Nike owned the 1985 Final Four with each entrant donning the Swoosh. By the end of the "Gotta-Be-the-Shoes (Bribe)" decade, Final Four coaches connected to Nike such as ebullient Dana Kirk (Memphis State) and Jim Valvano (North Carolina State) either were imprisoned or well on their way to receiving a pink slip. Nike comrade Jerry Tarkanian (UNLV) was on suspect "sneaker" heels of Kirk and Valvano. Elsewhere on the scandal front in the Wild West days when shoes started orchestrating everything, Lefty Driesell left Nike for Reebok, which agreed to terms with Len Bias shortly before the Maryland All-American's cocaine-induced death. And guess who switched probation-shackled Kentucky from Nike to Converse upon succeeding Eddie Sutton? Yes, Slick Rick!
It's noxious to informed observers when they hear an announcer profusely identify a school by a coach's name although one can't deny college basketball fosters larger-than-life coaches. The players come and go, but the personable coaches remain, and their names become synonymous with the universities. The coaches virtually have perpetual cult followings in their propitious kingdoms. In other words, an ultra-successful coach such as Krzyzewski is the "pretty clean" King of Krzyzewskiville and isn't held accountable for multiple recruiting forays involving AAU player pimps, mediocre player with $100G in jewelry, Sullen-man Title IX incident and All-American already having abortion contract as NBA rookie. Moreover, one of his recent prize prospects helped get an ACC rival on NCAA probation by behaving boorishly attending a booby bar on recruiting visit to Atlanta. Do you wonder what sneakers this scholar donned for his entertainment excursion?
A potential conflict-of-interest exists, however, when high-profile coaches receive astonishing supplemental six-figure incomes to endorse certain brands of sneakers. No different than looters stealing from outlet store during hurricane or #ShoeLivesMatter riot, there is simply no business like sneaker business. As the endorsement paychecks increased despite all-school deals commencing in the late 1980s, the questions multiplied concerning the marriage between college athletics and shoe companies. Consider:
In the 1980s before contract numbers went crazy, where was a coach's allegiance at times after selling his "sole" and receiving more compensation from an outside interest at the time than he earned in base salary from his school?
Should a coach receive any remuneration at all, let alone a fat paycheck, for outfitting his players in apparel they would don anyway? Since a clear conscience makes the softest pillow, how much are the overpaid pariahs spending on medication these days to try to secure a decent night's sleep?
What about the majority of a roster or even just one player who prefers a brand other than the one with which the coach and school is affiliated? Don't the exploited players warrant a piece of the action inasmuch as they are the primary running, walking and jumping human billboards?
Where is the institutional control when coaches cut outrageous outside deals? Times really haven't changed from when coaches formed lines to sell their allotted Final Four tickets to brokers and took unreported-income bribes behind closed doors from promoters for in-season tournament participation.
Doesn't this involvement in a corporate battle where coaches earn significantly more than university presidents shove college athletics deeper into commercialization and further away from the spirit of competition as part of the textbook overall educational experience? Schools shifted comprehensive athletic department-wide arrangements with shoe manufacturers, but much of the largess is still funneled to the marquee coaches.
Where is media accountability? Shouldn't press pundits covering college games be held to a standard where the public knows how much they've received over the years from a sneaker company sponsoring the teams they're covering on any given day?
Converse, with its Chuck Taylors, was king of the shoe industry before Nike aggressively started signing prominent coaches to endorsement deals in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, other companies such as Reebok, Puma, Pony, L.A. Gear and Adidas entered the "shoe wars." When the can-you-top-this perks seemingly turned obscene, some of the companies chose to invest their promotional dollars elsewhere at the grassroots level (AAU). Although detractors suggest Odor-Eaters should be in vogue because the arrangement stinks when coaches, and not players, are paid by sneaker companies, the bidding war for celebrated coaches and their schools escalated in intensity more than ever after Under Armour arrived on the scene.
The grand payoff for shoe companies arrived each March when the NCAA playoffs provide untold millions of dollars in free advertising. While Nike appeared to be overdosing on signing as many coaches as possible on its advisory board, adidas was more selective for several years in the early 1990s and had just two coaches under contract - Bob Knight (Indiana) and protege Krzyzewski. It is difficult to dispute the argument that adidas, with five championship game appearances in seven years from 1986 through 1992, might have received the best return on its investment in that period. But that was before Nike, the Beaverton, Ore.-based conglomerate turned Tobacco Road into Nikeville prior to the start of the 1993-94 season by luring Krzyzewski away from adidas and North Carolina's Dean Smith away from Converse, ending a 22-year marriage. At the time, the 15-year contract cooked up with "Shoe-chefski" included a $1 million signing bonus, $375,000 annually plus stock options. Talk about "feet-first" coaches who want to "Be Like Mike!" although current Carolina coach Williams claims Nike was a "no-show" and never helped the Tar Heels secure a recruit. Of course, Roy knows this "fact" but wasn't aware of type of classes his scholars took enabling him to "earn" academic progress contractual bonuses. Meanwhile, N.C. State's unwillingness to admit to the NCAA what transpired during recruitment of Dennis Smith Jr. is an affront to common sense and pre-school level of logic.
Bench bosses got down on their hands and knees and thanked the Lord (or Devil) for Sonny Vaccaro when he started the supply-and-demand shoe-endorsement scheme. Vaccaro concocted the idea of personal-services contracts for Nike and initiated signing coaches to multi-year promotional deals. Sonny left Nike and subsequently headed adidas' fortunes. This move triggered raising the stakes under George Raveling, Vaccaro's spread-the-wealth successor at Nike. Depending upon your level of cynicism, the cozy relationship paid two-way street dividends. No wonder Nike nabob Raveling got plenty of support from coaching community regarding HOF enshrinement despite "sugar daddy" registering grand total of two NCAA playoff victories and zero league titles in 22 seasons as power-conference mentor (including 12 second-division finishes). During March on Washington in August 1963, Raveling worked security and came to possess the hard copy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King's famed "I Have a Dream" speech. By offering inside info, perhaps Raveling can also secure originals of Hall of Shame documents from intelligence agencies' files including a secret FBI analysis portraying MLK in a harshly-negative light.
Who benefited the most from Raveling and Vaccaro individually and shoe companies in general? Based on Slick Rick's 98% confiscation of Louisville shoe deal, it's time for some enterprising reporters to cite cumulative bounty prominent coaches received from sneaker manufacturers over the years. If not, we'll continue to hear drivel from Boeheim such as the following: "I sure as hell would rather have them (FBI) looking into terrorism and not spending three years investigating AAU programs or shoe companies. It's the least of our concern." Turns out FBI probe revealed just the tip of the iceberg of dirty dealing going on under the table.
Similarly, why else would Krzyzewski gaze down at "blip" from his ivory tower and proclaim: "Shoe companies have been great for our sport. Understand the total positive impact shoe companies have on our sport. It pays for a lot." Meanwhile, UNC's right-to-my-feelings Williams claims sneaker underworld is "foreign to me."
Countered AAU coach Myron Piggie, who wound up in prison: "Well, that's (expletive)," he told Yahoo Sports. "I mean, come on! You know Roy knew. He was in the mix. He knew what was going on. Roy's got amnesia." But Roy Boy does demonstrate dynamic dance delusions possibly triggering vertigo or causing heart problems comparable to Bernie "Doc Brown" Sanders when his college-running-into-the-ground spouse said she wanted to go "Back to the Future" on a second honeymoon to Russia.
Yes, coaching profiles for elite mentors such as Boeheim, John Calipari, Tom Izzo, Krzyzewski, Pitino, Self and Williams should include career sneaker-endorsement payouts alongside totals of victories, league titles and NCAA playoff appearances. Also, we should be aware of what percentage of their one- or two-year menacing mercenaries signed sponsorship deals with same sneaker company upon turning pro. For instance, what percentage of Kansas undergraduates this decade promptly and Self-lessly affiliated with Adidas? What choice did they have if Adidas bag man was indeed a client for same attorney as the Mafia hit man suspected of murdering former South Boston organized crime boss Whitey Bulger in a West Virginia federal prison? Former Big Ten Conference coaches John Beilein (ex-Michigan) and Tim Miles (ex-Nebraska) told cheating counterparts to "get the heck out of the game" while Calipari isn't certain corruption trials will faze cheaters. We do know, however, the new baseline one-year figure for premier prospects (G-League $125,000 remuneration) and Nebraska probably never will win an NCAA playoff game until there is a level playing field. Also, only a fool believes Gregg Marshall (Wichita State) is an isolated case of player abuse.
By any measure and in many sordid ways, gimme-gimme-gimme Shoe Wars remains in an out-of-control spiral, exhibiting me-myself-and-I attitude with little integrity and no moral compass. If ESPN belatedly informs the masses that Kevin Love (UCLA) was worth $250,000, what was value of Anthony Davis before guiding Kentucky to 2012 national title as a freshman despite school threatening to sue Chicago Sun-Times for implying a significantly lower fee(t)-for-services? In the meantime, if Pitino really does "love the players," he should have proclaimed he would donate any settlement from millions remaining on his salary, at least the sneaker proceeds since the Cards were Adidas' flagship school after UCLA departed for Under Armour, to try to help Louisville's arena (KFC Yum! Center) from defaulting on debt payments. Hall of Shamer Pitino and other feet-elite/father-figure coaches owe the sport that and so much more. Instead, they circled the wagons similar to hypocritical Dimorats such as creepy Clinton cronies Lisa Bloom, David Boies, Lanny Davis and Anita Dunn protecting denizen donor #HollyweirdHarveySwinestein as if movie mogul was #SickWillie clone. In the same way they subsequently abandoned a sinking ship like so many rats, there eventually will be similar self-preservation of about two dozen prominent programs maneuvering through the plea-bargain minefield as series of "sold-your-sole-and-soul" trials unfolded in the last year. Stonewalling remarks such as those by Arizona's Sean Miller, LSU's Will Wade and Self of late can't possibly survive for long. We almost long for the simpler "good old days" at the turn of this century when Florida's Brent Wright sued Nike seeking damages after his Maxair shoe ripped open during a SEC contest. Wright claimed the defective sneaker caused permanent damage to his right foot, limiting his earning capacity as a professional player. In the big picture, Nike and its competitive counterparts have caused permanent damage to ethical standards in college sports by completely corrupting an unprincipled coaching community. College coaches bow before sneaker-company funding similar to quivering NBA mentors and "misinformed" social-justice warrior LeBron James kowtowing before "free-speech loving" China. After winning an NBA crown, self-righteous King James appears far more interested in visiting Beijing for ceremony than the White House. Well, shoe salesman can take his talents there with holier-than-thou Charles "Round Mound of Expound" Barkley as they are poised to be "shut-the-hell-up" Communist ambassadors similar to intellectual heavyweight Dennis Rodman coziness with North Korea.