All Right, Let's Catch Up: The Elephant in the NCAA's Room Might Just Have Finally Eaten It

The Veil Falls: The Truth About College Basketball

It's almost too bad, in only the way of the timeliness of the breaking of the news, that this story broke while Donald Trump has been having diarrhea of the anus that is his mouth as Puerto Rico is being destroyed, Houston rebuilds, and the NFL actually has the high road for the first time in less-than-recent memory!

But, on Tuesday, the FBI might well have just destroyed NCAA Basketball.

Because, with a Federal indictment, they may just have finally lifted the lid on the absolute farce of collegiate athletics (especially in basketball) as an amateur sport.

The FBI is currently in the middle of an investigation of NCAA basketball, as it relates to at least two sets of allegations against a number of parties with a number of universities, plus financial advisors and sports agents.

The first set involves direct cash bribes to assistant coaches at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State, and USC. These bribes were designed to move top-level players at those schools to certain agents and advisors.

They are Chuck Person from Auburn (yes, that Chuck Person), Emanuel Richardson from Arizona, Lamont Evans from Oklahoma State, and Tony Bland from USC. All four coaches have been suspended, in various capacities.

According to the Department of Justice, they could get 80 years behind bars for at least six Federal felonies.

The second set states that James Gatto, on behalf of what the indictment refers to as a “sportswear company” (though it almost certainly is Adidas, of whom Gatto is the director of global sports marketing), paid six figures to at least three NCAA players to play at Adidas-sponsored schools, and it appears that at least one of the schools involved is Louisville – yet another problem for Rick Pitino!

Or at least that was apparent until Wednesday morning: Pitino and Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on leave by Louisville, but the writing is on the wall. Both, and who knows how many more, are gone.

On Thursday, sources indicate Pitino is actually in the Federal complaint.

Nike has also been subpeonaed for information on Thursday, according to sources in the media.

Also, Auburn University is refunding season tickets for their basketball program for anyone who wishes to request it.

Gatto, Merl Code from Adidas, Christian Dawkins (former NBA agent), financial advisor Munish Sood, and two others were all arrested on Tuesday.

The investigation is continuing, and, I believe, if it goes to full fruition, that will be the end of college basketball.

Why?

Because you cannot tell me this isn't going on at EVERY DAMN MAJOR INSTITUTION IN THE COUNTRY.

The first problem with believing otherwise is that doing so ignores the sickening reality of corporate sport, going back to the days of the Foolish and Wretched One-Dimensional Ballhog.

Without Nike, jordon does not happen. People forget that the whole jordon mystique was actually being promoted while he was at North Carolina. It was clear that something – we didn't know it was going to take the extent it did – was being planned for him.

It's kind of like Tiger Woods in the PGA: People knew that he was a prodigy, and then, as he was preparing to go pro, it was clear the greats of the game were tailoring him.

Why? Because he was selected by the American sports machine for greatness – and that includes the involvements of the corporate arm of this machine. I've always believed that anyone who becomes great for any period of time, especially if they are being fast-tracked, has a multidimensional array of people behind him.

You do not succeed in this country without the “stroke” behind you to get it done, and Task One is how to capitalize that into profit for the people who end up making those decisions. That happens on small scales in every job in this country, and on grander ones in situations like this.

As such, the elite athlete is being explored, recruited, and groomed, some as early as AAU youth teams and some getting viewed by colleges (still the main pipeline in the major sports to the professional ranks) as early as seventh grade.

So if someone wishes to try to tell me this isn't going on at every elite school in the country, I think they would be ignorant of the realities of what college sports are in the United States, at least with respect to the only two college sports that matter: The main minor-league pipeline.

Brian Tuohy is right: The only way to fix college sports in this country is to rid this country of college sports.