“We should all recognize that the rules that forbid the athletes from being paid are unfounded and don’t have any basis and are an embarrassment and should be phased out,” Branch said. “They don’t have any force. I think the colleges should be free to give athletes less than a full scholarship, no scholarship and more than a scholarship. And the athletes should be free to bargain.”
Branch wrote that the N.C.A.A. was a “classic cartel” that has never had any real power and that the terms “amateurism” and “student-athlete” were “cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes.”
He also wrote that there “is an unmistakable whiff of the plantation” in the revenue-generating sports of major-college football and men’s basketball. He added, “College sports, as overseen by the N.C.A.A., is a system imposed by well-meaning paternalists and rationalized with hoary sentiments about caring for the well-being of the colonized.”
Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro described a sustained, eight-year run of rampant NCAA rule-breaking, some of it with the knowledge or direct participation of at least seven coaches from the Miami football and basketball programs. At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, he said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.
Nevin Shapiro said this photo was taken during a basketball fundraiser in 2008, in which the booster donated $50,000 to the program. From left to right are men’s basketball coach Frank Haith, Shapiro and University of Miami president Donna Shalala. Shalala is holding Shapiro’s donation check, which the booster has said was entirely comprised of Ponzi funds.
Also among the revelations were damning details of Shapiro’s co-ownership of a sports agency – Axcess Sports & Entertainment – for nearly his entire tenure as a Hurricanes booster. The same agency that signed two first-round picks from Miami, Vince Wilfork and Jon Beason, and recruited dozens of others while Shapiro was allegedly providing cash and benefits to players. In interviews with federal prosecutors, Shapiro said many of those same players were also being funneled cash and benefits by his partner at Axcess, then-NFL agent and current UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue. Shapiro said he also made payments on behalf of Axcess, including a $50,000 lump sum to Wilfork, as a recruiting tool for the agency.
While perhaps the most egregious case of illicit boosterism that we've seen in years, and one with greater cause for concern due to the involvement of NFL-level agents and pro-football officials, this is neither the first or last we'll see of this until the NCAA recognizes that big money sports will draw this type of behavior. Trying to crack down on players without addressing the larger institutional problems will do little to change the way boosters, coaches, agents and players behave.
If you haven't seen it, check out the HBO Real Sports special, "Dirty Money," and discussion about money in the NCAA. Clips included below.
