NCAA Football Big 12 Basketball

For a guy who often acts as though he hates nothing more than the media, Bob Knight spent an awful lot of time making media appearances during the week after he resigned as head coach at Texas Tech. I thought his interview on ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning was one of the more revealing:

Knight talked about the differences of players today and players from a few decades back, when Knight began his coaching career, and he said he missed the good old days of 1962, when he was a high school teacher and was permitted to paddle students who acted up.

"Think about that in schools today," Knight said. "That just doesn't happen. I think we've become such a lenient society and a society that not only accepts mediocrity in a lot of ways but condones mediocrity simply because you don't infringe on the rights of a student and you don't take a kid to task."

Oklahoma State linebacker Alex Odiari Odiari was cited for being in a bar underage, possessing a fake ID and most disturbing violating a protective order obtained by his ex-girlfriend.

Odiari's ex-girlfriend obtained an emergency protection order on July 5 to protect her from Odiari after she claimed Odiari had shown violent tendencies during a previous "dating relationship."

To obtain the EPO, the woman claimed Odiari in the past had thrown her against a wall and repeatedly grabbed and shoved her.

The woman also stated during the relationship he made several threats and said he would kill her and the next guy she dated if they broke up.

Odiari showed up at the same bar she was and appeared to have initiated some contact with her while there. That led to a call to the police.

This is part of a bad summer for Oklahoma State athletics,alcohol, and local bars. This is, though, the first football player to get in trouble. Perhaps Odiari thought he was part of the basketball team:

• Senior Guard, and co-Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Marcus Dove charged with a DUI, reportedly blows a 0.23 on the breathalyzer when pulled over and suspended indefinitely on July 17.
• Guard Obi Muonelo arrested for underage drinking in a local bar on June 23.
• Yet another guard, Terrel Harris was arrested for having a fake ID while trying to enter a bar in April.

It's not like things don't get dull enough for players in the offseason stuck just taking summer classes in Stillwater. Now they have to do it sober.

The NCAA released its Academic Progress Reports (APR) for every school and the teams for each sport. A total of 6110 teams are included. You can view each school's individual report (they are in PDF). The APR is supposed to be a rolling 4-year average, but the NCAA isn't at that point. This is only the third year so there are adjustments and leeway given to some teams. The grace period is granted only if they are showing that they are closing on meeting the magic number of 925 by the time the 4th year is reached. (The APR records started being kept in the 2003-04 school year.)

If a team is at 900 or so, they won't be getting penalized immediately. The penalties can range from warning letters, practice restrictions, lack of access to postseason competition, restricted membership and loss of scholarships for the teams that don't meet performance standards. Already, teams across various collegiate sports have been penalized with scholarship losses.

The BCS schools for football and basketball, generally are in good shape. Only a few programs are facing scholarship reductions. Many are close or have been warned, but scholarship reductions are rather limited. Some of the notable teams penalized after this latest report:

A follow up to the post a few days ago on Antoine Wright, who was featured on HBO's Real Sports detailing the flimsy agricultural majors he and other Texas A&M players were -- are -- put through in an effort to keep them eligible. The New York Post caught up with Wright and got the following quote out of him about how his comments were painted:

"I don't regret what I said, but I regret doing the interview," said Wright, who on HBO's "Costas Now" said his high school courses were tougher than those at A&M, where athletes were "in poultry science for a reason . . . to get this grade [not] learn about chickens."

Wright stressed "every school has majors the majority of the athletes are in. . . . To a certain extent, I feel I was taken a little advantage of because I wasn't briefed on what was going to happen.

"The interview wasn't supposed to be about A&M [but] about college sports," he added. "That wasn't my initial attempt, to come in and kill my school." Too late.

(Emphasis mine.) This is true. Michigan has an awful lot of athletes in its School of Kinesiology, Notre Dame funnels its guys into Business Administration, and Ohio State has the good fortune to be Ohio State, which sort of obviates the need for easy majors. (ZING! Cue OSU fans talking obsession in 3... 2... 1...) Every school has a few easy majors that athletes naturally gravitate towards because of the whole full-time-job-on-the-side thing, often with a side dish of awful-high-school-education. There's a fine line between providing athletes a reasonable education given the demands on their time and oft-remedial starting point, one that A&M has obviously crossed if they're handing out old tests and constructing sham ag classes. That doesn't mean Real Sports didn't cross a line of its own by misrepresenting the focus of their piece. And how many former collegiate athletes are going to come forward if producers are going make it look like anyone speaking up is "killing their school," in Wright's words.

"To be honest with you, I think I got more of an education in high school."
-Antoine Wright

Please enjoy your three-seed, Texas A&M, because if the NCAA is awake even a little bit you're about to get the hammer. On HBO's Costas Now last night, former A&M basketball star Antoine Wright dropped a bomb on his "alma mater" -- scare quotes very much warranted -- in an interview with Bob Costas. You can see the video for yourself at Bevo Sports.

Wright detailed an academic career spent in classes like "Floral Design" and "Poultry Science" featuring "a quarterback, me, a running back, and a farmer." Bevo Sports points out that the two players from A&M on this year's Academic All-Big 12 team earned that distinction by getting a great GPA in "Agricultural Leadership And Development," a major Wright has called out as mostly fictional. A&M football stars and scrubs alike -- like Reggie McNeal, Kellen Heard, and Courtney Lewis -- seem to develop a robust interest in raising livestock once they matriculate at A&M.

Or maybe not: in the interview, Wright repeatedly states that he "just had to get a grade now" and that "we're not really trying to learn about chickens." Most damningly, he describes organized cheating from old exams. Maybe we should focus less on how many recruits fail out and more on how many recruits miraculously don't.

I'm having some Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity" visions. The Oklahoma State Athletic Department will be taking out $10 million insurance policies on 25 of its alumni/donors.

OSU's "Gift of a Lifetime" program involves selected alums in a broad age spread who have qualified for $10 million individual life insurance policies and agreed to name Cowboy Athletics the beneficiary. Cowboy Athletics is paying the premiums. So far, 25 alums have qualified for the program, which is a form of testamentary giving.

Oklahoma State will pay $20 million in premiums on the 25 alums. Sort of. They borrowed the money to pay the premiums. The members of the Deathwatch class of 2007 all are between the age of 65 and 85 (and presumably white and male) and passed a physical (meaning the insurer is not the same company that Ed McMahon pitches on daytime cable).

Already other schools are inquiring about how the program works, so expect this tactic to spread. I'm sure the official names for other programs will be equally versed in double speak in how they title a program that encourages their fans to literally die for their school. I do think the Penn State program called, "Just try and outlive Joe Paterno" is a winner.

Other views on the Cowboy Deadpool:

The Wizard of Odds: Pickens Again at Center of Controversy
Every Day Should Be Saturday: T. Boone Pickens Bets on Death, Sweet Death