Byline: SPORTS USA By Simon Lewis
CHARLIE WEIS must be thinking he's better off out of all this college football nonsense. The under-fire gridiron coach featured on these pages a couple of weeks ago has since been removed from his post as Notre Dame's head man. He's been replaced by Brian Kelly, a proud Irish-American who has worked wonders with the Cincinnati Bearcats, although a far bigger challenge awaits at the Fighting Irish.
Yet the Catholic university in South Bend, Indiana isn't the only school revolving around college football drama. The varsity game, with its multi-million dollar television and endorsement deals and massive crowds, is never far from a kerfuffle.
This past week provided a few, highlighting a) the knuckleheadedness of some of its proponents, and b) the lengths some colleges appear to go to achieve success.
At Michigan State, what started as an on-campus scuffle involving some Spartans football team members last month turned into a criminal case last Thursday when nine players were charged with conspiracy and assault in connection with a fraternity dinner nightclub altercation in East Lansing. Two of the nine have already been kicked off the team and the others suspended ahead of their final Bowl game on New Year's Eve.
Meanwhile, the recruiting practice problem at University of Tennessee (UT) is non-criminal but more complex. The New York Times, no less, has alleged that undergraduate "hostesses" were providing prospective Volunteers' players with more than just a tour of the college grounds to attract high school seniors to join its athletic programme.
Colleges that compete in any number of sports have to be affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), an umbrella body that organises national collegiate championships and lays down strict rules as to how schools recruit athletes.
TALK TO any college head coach in any varsity sport about these guidelines and they tend to speak about piles of paperwork taking up their working days at the expense of actually coaching students.
Where UT may have come a-cropper is that while many schools use hostesses to help prospective students on campus visits, its hostesses, considered university representatives, can't recruit players off campus.
It's alleged that members of the UT Orange Pride hostesses group drove from the Knoxville campus to South Carolina to woo a trio of high school football standouts, a visit said to be a violation of NCAA rules. UT officials are now 'cooperating fully' with the NCAA in its investigation.
Orange Pride is one of three UT student admissions groups that act as university ambassadors providing campus tours and assistance with admissions to prospective athletes and their families. Orange Pride has 75 undergraduate members, including six males, all of whom are paid hourly by the admissions office to liaise with students. As part of its review, the NCAA has met with four prospects and was expected to talk to two more.
The alleged visit was confirmed to the NY Times by Marcus Lattimore, a player who said several hostesses travelled from Tennessee to Byrnes High School in Duncan, South Carolina, and brandished signs including one that read 'Come to Tennessee'.
Lattimore made an unofficial visit but wasn't interested in committing to Tennessee but two teammates, Brandon Willis and Corey Miller, committed verbally. Like any hormonal teenage male would, Lattimore called the hostesses pretty and real cool. 'I haven't seen no other schools do that,' he said. 'It's crazy.' IT'S A tale that brings to mind the 1998 Spike Lee film 'He Got Game'. It focuses on the attempts by various colleges to recruit gifted high school basketballer Jesus Shuttlesworth, played by NBA star Ray Allen who won a championship with Boston Celtics.
Shuttlesworth's estranged father, played by Denzel Washington, is sprung from a high-security prison by a governor with the promise of a shorter sentence if his son signs for the governor's alma mater, while the kid's sweetheart is paid off to persuade him to sign elsewhere. On one campus visit, the basketball prodigy is shown a good time at a dormitory party and led into a bedroom where two hostesses are waiting for him. For those of us whose college athletic experience began and ended with a Wednesday afternoon kickabout followed by several pints, such goings on are mere fantasy.
Yet, if internet messageboards and anecdotal evidence are anything to go by, this is the reality for American college recruitment targets in basketball and football.
So why all the fuss now about Tennessee? The Volunteers are on the verge of a successful era, having recorded a winning 7-5 season in the super competitive South-Eastern Conference (SEC) and been given a prospective top 10 national ranking based on its recruits for the 2010 campaign next September.
Throw in a high-profile head coach in Lane Kiffin who has been reported for six minor NCAA rules violations, including the staging of a mock news conference for prospects and mentioning recruits by name on radio and on Twitter and Facebook.
Kiffin has recruited top running back prospect Bryce Brown for 2010 and Clay Travis, who chronicled the Volunteers' 2008 season in his book 'On Rocky Top: A Front Row Seat to the End of an Era', suspects more than a hint of jealousy exists among Tennessee's rivals.
A defiant Travis wrote a 12-point rebuttal to the New York Times on his ncaafootball.fanhouse.com blog, the most interesting of which laid the finger of blame at rival head coaches.
'It seems likely,' he wrote, 'that this story was the result of a tip from a rival programme. Why would a rival programme tip off Lane Kiffin and Tennessee? Because we're in the midst of a huge recruiting period and Tennessee is a hot programme.' By inference, Travis linked the story with another the same day quoting University of South Carolina SEC coaching rival Steve Spurrier.
'Would it be a surprise if Spurrier was aware of what went on in South Carolina high school games? Especially when he's competing for recruits with Kiffin and has already had several public dustups with Kiffin over recruiting?' As Travis pointed out, it seems that all's fair in love, football, and recruiting.
CAPTION(S):
ALL AMERICAN CHARM: A traditional Tennessee cheerleader works her magic and, above, under fire Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin talks business with his quarterback Jonathan Crompton (number 8). The College, however, is under fire for using hostesses to recruit players Pics: GETTY IMAGES
Pics: GETTY IMAGES
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