Kentucky Basketball: People in Glass Houses

In case you haven’t heard, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has been implicated in one of, if not the, worst academic/athletic fraud scandals in the history of intercollegiate athletics. Over 3,100 students and student-athletes were involved. The nefarious activity covered over 20 years. What started under legendary Hall of Fame Coach Dean Smith and ended, finally, in 2011 has left a deep dark stain on the powder blue of Tar Heel Nation.

Anyone with basic knowledge of college sports has a belief when it comes to the University of Kentucky, particularly the men’s basketball team, and current men’s basketball head coach, John Calipari. Detractors will point to Coach Cal and his two vacated Final Four appearances at the Universities of Massachusetts and Memphis and opine about how Calipari “has to be dirty” and is everything that’s wrong with college athletics. They’ll point to the NCAA sanctions that the university earned in the late 1980s which led to the infamous “Kentucky Shame” Sports Illustrated cover. Some will even go as far back as legendary coach Adolph Rupp and the point shaving scandal that rocked the college basketball world in the 1950s. So, obviously, the University of Kentucky is just a haven for rules breakers, cheats and general degenerates. To quote ESPN College Football Gameday’s Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.”

From Reggie Bush at USC to the Miami Hurricanes Football of the late 1980s, from SMU Football to the “help” John Wooden received while at UCLA, the NCAA infractions list is filled with programs from coast to coast, big and small and every sport sanctioned by the NCAA. It’s almost human nature to want to bend or outright break the rules and no program seems immune, even programs that claim to do everything the right way, like the Tar Heels of North Carolina.

For years, the folks in Chapel Hill and their allies in the media have portrayed Carolina as being somehow above the fray. The “Carolina Way” was about team above all else (*only Dean Smith could keep Michael Jordan from scoring 20 points per game). We were told that they didn’t need to resort to one and done basketball players because, at North Carolina, it was not just about the wins and championships on the court, it was about remembering the “student” in student-athlete off the court. The folks at UNC sold it, their media sycophants repeated it and most of us bought it.

But like most things, the Carolina Way has proven too good to be true. And, in this instance, the scandal wasn’t about one coach or one rogue booster. This was an ongoing, systemic ploy to cheat the system. Most scandals solely involve the athletic departments of colleges in universities, whose motivations are wins and revenue. What has occurred in Chapel Hill involved the academic side, the heart of the university and cheapened the diploma of every alum. By conferring degrees to those that had not earned them, the University of North Carolina gave up its very soul to hang some championship banners in the Dean Smith Center.

Oct 16, 2014; Lexington, KY, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari smiles while talking with reporters during media day at Joe Craft Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

I’ll admit, I’m smiling as the self-important folks at North Carolina are having a bit of comeuppance. After years about hearing how much superior the pastel blue was to the Wildcat Blue, I’m happy that they’ve got their own scandal to deal with, proving once again that when money and fame and prestige are involved, the rules get broken and the fine line between right and wrong can be blurred. It doesn’t just happen in Lexington. It can happen in Louisville, Bloomington and, yes, even in Chapel Hill. Tar Heels in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.