Whether it is academic fraud, illegal recruiting, or accepting bribes from boosters, scandal has been a major factor lately in college athletics. Recent scandals at UNC and Louisville have caused an uproar from the general public, questioning whether there is any integrity left in the industry. History tells us that with such enormity comes occasional shady business and corrupt practices from individuals. Unless universities take action, this billion dollar industry could go away. We may not be able to eliminate scandal, but there can be measures taken to manage scandal more properly.
Will McAvoy from the show “The Newsroom” (played by Jeff Daniels) once said that the “first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one.” When managing scandal it is important to demonstrate one thing, honesty. Many college athletic scandals have had head coaches and administrators start press conferences with “I didn’t know”. This response is quickly becoming laughable to the college athletics stakeholders across the country. Immediately saying as the head coach or athletic director that you did not know that this was going on in your program is unbelievable to the public and shows incompetence.
But the problem is that scandal will never go away in college sports. Yes, we can manage it with honesty, proactiveness, and regulation. Scandal in college sports does not happen because of the greed of one individual, it happens because of the corruption of the entire system. The system was flawed from the start.
Take UNC for example. Everyone thought that UNC was going to get slammed with sanctions due to their academic fraud scandal. However, the NCAA found that since the independent classes were open to the rest of the student body, they broke no rules.
In the recent report that came out on the Louisville basketball program, it clearly stated that multiple other schools are under investigation by the FBI for similar corruption charges. This shows what most people know; this isn’t an isolated issue. There is no question that what Rick Pitino and the Louisville Basketball program did was inexcusable and wrong, but the corruption of college sports is systematic.
Unless we recognize the core problems associated with amateurism in a billion-dollar industry and regulate college athletics appropriately, we will never solve the problem and will only have to manage it as best we can.