Rick Reilly on Majerus's Violations (from 2003)

[davidnark]

Corrupting Our Utes

Posted: Wednesday August 06, 2003 9:51 AM

Thank God for the NCAA. Without it, college sports would have more thugs than a Snoop Dogg video.

Last week, for instance, the NCAA brought notorious Utah coach Rick Majerus and his outlaw basketball program to justice. Just look what the NCAA nailed this cretin on:

Unashamedly purchasing a dinner in 1994 for his player Keith Van Horn at a Salt Lake City deli. At 3 a.m., no less! So what if Van Horn's father had died that night? Or that Majerus was the one who had to tell him? Or that Van Horn wanted Majerus to stay with him until his 8 a.m. flight home? This ain't Dr. Phil!

"I guess I should've reached over as he was getting on the plane and said, 'Hey, you owe me $9.90 for the ham and eggs,'" Majerus says.

Do you see? Do you see the attitude?

Brazenly buying a bagel for a player. Who cares if the player was upset about his brother's recent suicide attempt and had come to Majerus to talk? "I could've talked to the kid in my office, I guess," Majerus says. "But if you go get a bagel, it kind of relaxes a kid. It's not coach-player anymore. It's two guys talkin'."

Bah! It's one guy cheating, and, in truth, Majerus got lucky. The report never states what kind of bagel Majerus bought the kid. For instance, an "everything" bagel is a considerably larger offense in the eyes of the NCAA. And don't even get me started on the ramifications of lox.

Twice -- twice! -- allowing assistants to buy groceries for players who didn't have enough money to eat: $20-$30 for a player whose meal plan hadn't begun yet and $20 for a prospect who hadn't yet received his scholarship. "I just felt sorry for those guys," Majerus says. "Maybe because I was that kid once, you know? No money, no friends, and you haven't eaten for two days."

Sentimental hogwash!

Majerus just doesn't get it. Take the pizza. In one instance he bought himself and a player a pizza pie at a Salt Lake eatery. So what if seeing Majerus not eating pizza is like seeing Carmen Electra in a nun's habit? Buying the pie was still wrong. And it doesn't matter that according to NCAA rules, Majerus would've committed no infraction had that very same pizza been a) delivered, sent up by room service, c) carried back to his room or d) served at home.

In fact a coach can serve his players catered lobster and caviar in his home if he wants, at least on occasion. (True, Majerus doesn't have a home. He lives in a hotel room year-round. Is that the NCAA's fault?) But when you wantonly go to a known pizza joint, mister, you're just begging for it.

And I don't want to hear how clean the Utah program has been either, or how, under Majerus, the Utes have had four Academic All-Americas in the last five years, more than any other Division I basketball program. Clyde Barrow used to floss. So what?

And so what if the NCAA didn't find any hidden cars or substitute test takers? What about the massive slush-fund payments? The worst example was Majerus's giving the players $10 each to go see Remember the Titans. Ten bucks? The discount theater in question charged $5 for a ticket. That leftover $5 could've gone toward all kinds of temptations -- drugs, alcohol, Junior Mints.

There was more: letting a player send a housing application in a FedEx envelope when the NCAA rule specifically states that only transcripts or standardized test scores can be included; serving milk and cookies made by Majerus's 76-year-old mother, or by Utes basketball fans, or by an athletic department secretary, at film meetings. Sure, milk and cookies sounds small, but how long is it before we're talking about the harder stuff, like pie and coffee?

There were other violations: practices going over the allotted four hours a day; Majerus watching 15 minutes of a pickup game he wasn't supposed to see and another 10 minutes of informal dribbling and dunking. You let that stuff go unchecked, and pretty soon you've got frogs falling from the clouds.

It's not an easy job, picking nits this tiny, but nobody is up to the task like the NCAA. Take the time the organization told Aaron Adair, a third baseman at Oklahoma, that the book he'd written about surviving brain cancer meant his amateur career was over. Or the work the NCAA is selflessly doing today, like making Colorado receiver Jeremy Bloom curtail his world-class skiing career and kill his modeling because they would somehow make him a professional football player. (Now, when the NCAA uses its athletes in TV ads to promote itself during the Final Four, that's just good marketing.)

I support the small-mindedness of the NCAA. In fact, my hope is that someday the NCAA will get so small -- so microscopic -- that it will slide down the holes in its shower drain and be gone for good.

Issue date: August 11, 2003

[gmerts]

He was on with Frank and Bob today. Appareently he is a friend of Majerus. In the interview he gave the quote that is now my signature. Here is the link to the interview

http://kfns.com/vdDynamic/AudioBits/2-AudioBit2997.mp3

[Schasz]

You gotta love Rick Reilly. If you have not read his "Who's Your Caddy" book then I would recommend it, as that book is a funny and entertaining read.

[inthelou]

What an A-**** he is.

Colorado got so tired of his antics they removed him from their press guide as a prominent alum.

[bhayes520]

personally i flip to his article on the back inside cover before i read anything else in SI

[slu72]

Same here. He's got a way with metaphors that is unmatched. Usually he makes me LMAO.