Revelations this week that University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro claims to have lavished cash, gifts and sex parties on recruits and Hurricane players over the course of several years brought predictable reaction, with most directly implicated in the alleged contacts refusing to comment. At least one former coach expressed (through a spokesperson) his confidence and comfort in how he conducted himself at Miami, and one former recruit, who wound up at Nebraska and who had been photographed on Shapiro's $1.6 million yacht, said only that the booster was "cool" and "a nice guy."
University president Donna Shalala, who was captured next to Shapiro holding a $50,000 donation check in a photo accompanying Yahoo! Sports reporter Charles Robinson's exposé, published Tuesday, said in a statement the following day that she was "upset, disheartened and saddened by the recent allegations leveled against some current and past student-athletes and members of our Athletic Department." One of those past student-athletes, current Cleveland Indians pitcher Chris Perez, tweeted, "I'm not upset about the U allegations, I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
It's that kind of attitude that led Sports Illustrated writer Michael Rosenberg to conclude, "The people at Miami didn't care about the rules. I don't mean they didn't care about right and wrong. I mean, that it didn't seem like a matter of right and wrong. I would bet that most of the players didn't think they were cheating. Oh, they might have known what they were doing was against the rules. But did they ever think Miami was getting some kind of competitive advantage? Did they think it was wrong? I doubt it."
And for that reason, sanctions aren't likely to change the culture in Coral Gables, or on any other campus where such business is taking place. NCAA rules - and at least four major ones were broken by Shapiro and his Miami contacts, according to Robinson's report - shouldn't even be covering such topics as alcohol, sex and material goods, according to Rosenberg, who asks, "Why does the NCAA get to stand in judgment of students at the University of Miami who partied too much and took cash from a guy who was desperate to give it to them?"
Pointing out the real tragedy, Rosenberg reminds readers that Miami fired head football coach Randy Shannon last year, despite the fact his players posted the third-best Academic Progress Rate in the nation. "Miami succeeded in the realm that should matter," Rosenberg wrote, "but completely failed in the realm that the NCAA has decided matters more."
