Upon Further Review

I was able to find out more about the charges against Syracuse and Jim Boeheim that lead to some serious penalties.
And I haven't changed my mind one bit.
There are three majors things here:
1) A rogue employee of the YMCA had tremendous access to the players and there is good reason to believe he paid them, but at the very least they got credit for internships they didn't fulfill, and the University didn't take enough steps to make sure they did
2) Players had work done for them. One example says a player wrote a paper which fell short of the class requirements, but eventually handed in one that met those requirements, and that paper was found on the computer of a tutor
3) Players failed drug tests and nothing was done about it

That is a gross over-simplificiation but I figure if you cared enough you have already read this comprehensive summary and if you don't care enough, my above bullets are enough to get you to understand.

Based on those findings I understand why the NCAA had to deem players ineligible and dock the scholarships, but what is standing out to some people is the unprecedented 9-game suspension of head coach Jim Boeheim.

"...in his interview the head basketball coach acknowledged that he had student-athletes test positive and rather than call the student-athletes' parents, he brought the student-athletes in and talked to them. When questioned why he did not call the parents, the head basketball coach responded that the director of athletics did not require him to follow the policy and, in at least in some instances, "it would have been fruitless." At the hearing, the head basketball coach also admitted that he did not call the parents because his director of athletics told him he did not have to and he did not know that failing to follow the policy violated NCAA rules."

Here is what I gather and it seems totally plausible to me: Coach Boeheim didn't like the rules, he didn't follow the rules, he didn't think he needed to follow the rules and when questioned about it he said he didn't even know what he did violated the rules.

And he probably was rude and dismissive to the investigators.

If you're the NCAA, and you're going to bother playing whack-a-mole with this kind of stuff, you have to come down hard on Syracuse and Coach Boeheim. If you don't you look even more feckless than most people thought you were.

In summary, Syracuse committed a long list of violations over an extended period of time. They tried to blame it on outside individuals and dismissed former employees, but the University, the athletic department and especially Coach Boeheim showed little or no inclination to follow the rules, so how else to make them (and all the other schools doing the same thing) take the rules more seriously in the future, but him them with severe penalities?

Syracuse Gets Whacked

The NCAA finally coming down hard on Syracuse after a lengthy investigation into alleged infractions dating back more than 10 years.

Jim Boeheim will be suspended for the first 9 conference games of next season
The team will lose 12 scholarships over several years
SU must return money earned for participating in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 NCAA tournaments
SU has to vacate 108 wins for using ineligible players

That last one is the biggie. That really hurts Boeheim and adds and extra 4 years (at least) to his quest for 1,000 wins.

The violations included academic misconduct, extra benefits, failure to follow the drug-testing policy, and impermissible booster activity.

Other violations included impermissible academic assistance and services, Boeheim's failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff, and the school's lack of control over its athletics program.

Do I believe that? Absolutely I do. It is not hard to imagine Boeheim sitting in his office and being above it all instead of monitoring what's going on. It's the same thing Joe Paterno did and Penn State and Pete Carroll did at USC. It's better not to know, and frankly they don't care. They just hope they don't get caught.

I hate Jim Boeheim because I don't think he is a good coach, and more importantly because I think he acts like an arrogant asshole. It sucks that school, the current players and the fans will be punished because a few individuals didn't do their jobs.

Hopefully this will hasten Boeheim's retirement instead of lengthen his career in pursuit of a milestone accomplishment.

Why I Created the "Typical Yankees Fan" Tag

Curt Schilling tweeted congratulations to his daughter Gabby for getting accepted to Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island where she will be playing softball.

As usual, the trolls had to chime in, two in particular. Hollywood (@primetime227) and The Sports Guru (@Nagels_Bagels) went back in forth with a series of vile tweets about her.

"Teach me your knuckleball technique so I can shove my first in your daughter."

"I'm sure she can fit a nice Easton in there as well for some DP."

"Curt bleeds more from his sock than Gabby does from her pussy when she's on her period."

"Curt rocked the mullet- business in front, part in back...Gabby prefers the party in the back. #ButtStuff2015"

Even though the last one is kind of funny, those are still terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things to say -- about someone's daughter -- in a public forum -- fully intending for the target of the comments to read them.

To Schilling's credit he posted the entire thing on his blog and really went after them.

And in the end, he taught them an important lessons about trolling and consequences.

Adam Nagel has been suspended by Brookdale Community College.

"Hollywood" Sean MacDonald was a part-time ticket seller for the Yankees. He isn't anymore. The Yankees fired him immediately saying they "have zero tolerance for anything like this."

Song of the Week

"Touching Me" - The Ovations
Lead singer Louis Williams may be the one person who is a bigger Sam Cooke fan than I am. Williams clearly modeled his vocal style after Cooke's so much so that the first time I ever heard this song I thought for sure this was an unknown Cooke b-side I had never heard before.
The Ovations biggest hit was a remake of Cooke's "Having a Party."
Also the vamp at the beginning of this song sounds a lot like the one in Cooke's "Good Times."