Question for the board: Why isn't shady recruiting/bagmen exposed?

in exposing the full extent of dirty recruiting. They only report on specific cases when they are too blown up to ignore. Basketball is even worse. If ESPN reported on all the dirt on programs like Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State, etc., they'd have almost no one left to show. And I have zero respect for guys like Dick Vitale. He knows as well as anyone how dirty college bball recruiting it, but he doesn't have the balls to speak out. He loves being a privileged insider and he knows he'd lose that if he blew the whistle too loud.

I agree with the posts of many above that digging into this issue is essentially mutually assured destruction for the NCAA, and it's most profitable member schools, not to mention the athletes who benefit from the system.

I do not believe that the UM, the Athletic Department or the football program are paying players or knowingly breaking NCAA by-laws.  The reputation of UM, our alumni base and the football tradition are not worth putting into jeopardy.  That said, I know that stuff happens and you cannot control everyone connected to the university - from that perspective we are not squeaky clean.

As a fan, I've always thought that given a choice between UM running a 9-3 'clean' program that teaches young men to play by the rules, and being a perrenial national championship contender  that competes by any means necessary, I would choose the former.  I also believe that UM is more likely to always be that 9-3 program, due both to unwillingness to bend the rules, and academic standards.  If that is the case, I am fine with that.  I'd be curious to know what others think.

Also - an interesting article on bagmen for anyone who hasn't read it:

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/10/5594348/college-foot…

It's mafia-like.    There's a lot of layers, a lot of insulation.     There is probably very little evidence left behind.

"The family's got a lot of buffers".

some people justify cheating if it's just a little bit.  If you agree with that, then accept the fact that the officials "cheated just a little bit" in the Game last year.

Go Blue!

Well it's kinda the u written rule when your being recruited to just take it in stride.

How many here know for sure about Bagmen and or have had it happen. I for one could fill this thread w countless things I know, have seen and have experienced and I'm telling you the amount of stuff offered and taken is amazing.

Here's a tired response: "That recruit is going to {insert university here} instead of Michigan? {Insert university here} bag men at work."

Because the bagman exists only in the minds of delusional Michigan fans.

When done right, it's almost impossible to prove.

The NCAA doesn't have subpoena power, so it can't do much if the involved parties just clam up.  Typically it has to get lucky and have law enforcement turn something up, like in the Ed Martin case.

I recall a story years ago, about a kid who publicly discussed the shenanigans of Texas's recruiting shtick, compared to Oklahoma.  At the Red River Shootout, as a recruit he was taken to a Texas boosters' party -- money, drugs, girls were available for the taking.  Now, Mack Brown probably didn't know for sure about this.  But what coach would allow a prized recruit to do things, as part of the team's official recruiting efforts, the coach doesn't know about, or go places unsupervised? 

The story has other sordid tales.  Offers of loans with no interest (probably the kind of loan you don't ever have to pay back).  LSU having "hostesses" sit on the laps of recruits.  [WHY WASNT i A FOOTBALL RECRUIT.  CAN I STILL BE ONE?]  Etc.

So news like this is out there.  Does the NCAA care?  Does anyone?

Here's the story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/sports/ncaafootball/26recruit.html&nb…;

than bagmen.  Spring Breaks, people.  must. stop. all. trips. 

Call me a purist, but I would be fine with completely upending all CFB and returning it to how it began - true student-athletes (i.e. students who come to the university first and foremost to get a degree in a field for which they plan to have their career) who also choose to play sports.  No recruiting perks (bagmen), no early draftees, no athletic scholarships.  You get in by your academic merits only, financial support is completely separate from extra-curricular activities (and can still help those who need it - thus eliminating the need for the athletic scholarship). Cut down on the burgeoning costs of college sports (a school's highest paid employee, or a state employee for that matter, should never be a sports coach).

Those who don't want to "play school" can find another another route to the NFL (there already are some, but the increase in demand will develop that in a hurry).

Sure, the number of high caliber athletes and highlight reel plays may go down, but people who love their school and its tradition will still watch.  ESPN/FOX/CBS/NBC will still make their money.  The stands will not go empty.

It is complicated, and many posters have given good reasons why it happens, and hasn't been stopped. I don't have a whole lot to add, but several brief observations.

1. The assumption is that everyone is on the take, and every institution is corrupt. The reality is that there are indeed some athletes (and coaches) who want nothing to do with this. Mgoblog is never the place for religious discussion. However, you will find that there are always some athletes (and coaches) who are genuine in their faith life, and their personal morality. You don't generally hear about this, because of it being personal, no one's business, etc. But if you were around the players on the team, you would find that some of them have no desire to cheat, no desire to sleep around, to do drugs, etc. Others do. But some of those good guys are more likely to end up at some schools than others.
2. In terms of the "everyone does it" argument, there is also the issue of degree. Let's take speeding as an example, shall we? I think the general consensus is that you can go about 5 mph over the posted limit and you will not be stopped, 99.9% of the time. 5 - 10 mph over is generally safe. But going more than 10 mph over the limit, it gets dicier. If the speed limit is 65 mph but someone blows by at 100, he/she will probably get stopped. They have brought attention to themselves by speeding far over the limit, far beyond what is socially acceptable. Just use that as an analogy for payoffs and bagmen. No one is going to come after a school for providing free cream cheese with bagels, even if it is technically an impermissible benefit. But providing bags of bagels and cream cheese with $100 bills for the napkins? Might be a problem.

Charles Barkley has talked about Auburn paying him and others a bunch of times.  There was case a couple of years ago and I don't recall anything happening to them. (Didn't follow it.)  There was also that Alabama player in the NFL talking about a recruit going to Auburn and saying something to the effect of Alabama can't pay Auburn level money.  

We had Weber and others.  I'm sure we're not totally squeaky clean, but I think on the whole the actual university and coaches try to stop it from happening whereas SEC schools encourage it.

A couple of points: 1. People who think that nothing is going on anywhere, and people who think that certain schools are so corrupt that the coach is signing checks and/or whole rosters are becoming millionaires, are both off on deep ends. It's pretty obvious stuff goes on. All it takes is a fan with some extra cash or something else that's a "benefit" who can manage to bump into a player or family of a player in a small town. There is no evidence that guys are getting filthy rich here. Tunsil, a top recruit and NFL prospect who attended what is believed to be one of the dirtiest places in football, was caught begging a coach for rent money for family. That's not a situation where a guy is pocketing $20k or more a month. 2. There is no real way of learning how deep things go. As discussed above, the NCAA is incapable of properly investigating this sort of thing (people who suggest they are just deliberately allowing it are way overstating, but it's human nature to not pick a scab too deeply whose contents you know you won't like either). More importantly, news organizations with the ability to expose these situations through reporting will not do so. No paper who covers a team in the SEC will ever investigate a team in their readership area, and nobody has the contacts to investigate a team outside of that area. Why won't they? Pretty simple. Even if they're willing to weather the loss of connection to the school they cover, the fans of that team will boycott them and, in today's tenuous news environment, a newspaper that loses that kind of readership could well collapse. We already know this will happen, because we think of ourselves as far more rational than SEC fans, and the Freeport/Rosenberg tag team is still persona non grata here 8 years after that went down. Since then, Rosenberg has left, Drew Sharp (the classic antagonist) has died, two coaches and an AD have been fired, two generations of players have matriculated, and people still seek non-Freep links to post in threads. And I say this as someone who avoids the Freep. So just imagine the blowback in Louisiana or Alabama. They won't do it. There's no upside. And people from outside the area won't do it, because what's the point of, say, the Detroit News sending Angelique Chengelis to Tuscaloosa to investigate shady recruiting practices?

An old college buddy of mine is a film guy for college Football, hopped around quite a bit, AAC/SEC/BIG10.  During Gary's recruitment, he happened to work for one of the schools making a late surge for Rashan (not clemson), from my friends mouth "We asked, but couldn't put together a big enough package to compete with what Michigan was offering"......He is a jokster and likes to get at me, but IMO it's silly for us to condemn Bama and OSU and other bluebloods when they have never been convicted and think Michigan is squeaky clean.....

Easy these bagmen keep dropping off money to the NCAA committee, so the kids know nothing will get done. Seriously look at the state of the NCAA today. Some kids get slammed and some get slap on wrist. Some programs get blasted and some nothing. Everyone thought UNC was dead in the water and here we are.

NCAA is a joke and the money flows in a direction that prevents the punishments of the old days. 

The video below shows a truly astonishing interview with a journalist that studied bagmen IN THE SOUTH.  While he does not directly address the OP's question, 

I mean, it is brought up, but unless you are Ole Miss you are usually pretty good at keeping the evidence at a minimum.  And most schools, even UM, have some part of their recruiting process that is at least in a grey area compared to NCAA rules, so unless it is just egregious most won't say anything.

Actually, I'd guess it's because in the NCAA's brilliance, they are as likely to punish the snitcher as the snitchee... and, we all know how hard the NCAA pounds the kinds of schools who employ bagman the most.  Combined with the severity of the pounding the NCAA could offer the snitcher, I don't think it's much of a surprise that most top-flight recruits are either on the take, or just shrug their shoulders at a system that simply is what it is...

Great thread topic.  Most of the posts already have highlighted why it doesn't get exposed.  In summary:

 

1. The belief that "everybody does it" to some extent, so there is a norm that has been established.  They don't want to hurt friends in college football (fellow recruits, former high school friends, work friends for the coaching staffs) if everything is relative anyway.
2. The potential blowback from recruits/coaches as "trouble makers" if they squeal.  People don't want to burn professional or social bridges.
3. Administratively, the NCAA doesn't want to open a can of worms related to paying players for such a lucrative sport revenue-wise.  Don't mess with the cash cow.  Same with most of the sports media--they want the coverage rights to the games & to the locker room/coaches interviews.  Local reporters & ESPN, SEC Network, etc. don't want to get blackballed & kill their golden goose.
4. Even if somebody were motivated at the administrative level, they don't have subpoena power or investigative tools to get this out into the public.

 

In my view, the ONLY way this would ever get blown wide open is if a series of very unlikley events were to take place:

1. Some idealistic, highly ambitious reporter from a major national level news outlet wants to break this open.  If it worked it would earn him/her a pulitzer and put them on the fast track as one of the nation's foremost investigative journalists.  This reporter would have to either be a NON sports reporter, or a respected sports journalist that is at the end of their career and have zero qualms about becoming a pariah to college football and to the NCAA generally.  The journalist would also probably have to not come from or live in a hotbed of college football generally.
    
2. This journalist would have to somehow stumble upon not one, not two, but a good 6-10 cooperating people who would be willing to partake in sting operations like wire taps, secret on-camera interviews, etc.  Maybe a misture of 4-5 top recruits plus another 3-5 assistant coaches or boosters who are right in the mix and for some reason want to blow the whistle even if it's implicating themselves too.  All of whom are willing to completely end their careers in the world of football and all of whom are willing to become pariahs to their circle of friends, coaches, and often families.  And all of whom would have to be ready to face an unmitigated shit-storm of hate, vitriol & character assassination once the story broke.
    
3. This journalist & their 6-10 sources would have to do an exhaustive, fully documented, long-form undercover investigation over the period of not just one recruiting cycle or transaction, but over a good 4-7 years covering a half dozen different powerhouse schools across the country, catching people absolutely red-handed.
    
4. Once all of the data is exhaustively compiled and documented, that news outlet would then do a several part front-page top of fold series on the project, and at the same time launch a very comprehensive online movie documentary that ends up going viral.  The reporter would have to get 100% firm backing from their senior editors and the owners/shareholders of the news outlet for this, due to the massive blowback it would receive.  So it wouldn't just be ESPN breaking this.  It'd be the NYT, or the WaPo, or the Christian Science Monitor or WSJ or some non-sports related entity.  The story would have to be so damning, so air-tight, so wide in scope & pervastive, that it would be impossible to ignore.
    
5. Then, after the story broke, the outrage would have to be very strong to the point where it became a "political winner" for politicians--governors, attorney generals, congress, the justice department, the president--to actually crack down on this stuff.  Good luck finding a presidential candidate who is willing to write off Ohio or Florida if OSU or FSU/Florida gets caught up in this mess.

So, the likelihood this will ever actually get blown out into the open?  Basically zero.  Occasionally boosters and isolated incidents will come to light through random chance.  But the idea of having somebody blow this wide open in any sort of comprehensive or permanent way is basically crazy.  There's just way too much invested in it.  Until the economic model becomes destabalized generally, this system will stay in place, simply because the incentives are too much in line with keeping it going.

Bottom line is this system will never collapse due to outside pressure or whilstle-blowing.  It'll come from some other type of economic model supplanting the current model--whether it's paying players a salary above-board, moving to a minor league system with the NFL, times change over another 50-100 years and football is no longer a popular sport etc.

Probably because every school with money has them, even UM. Let's not be naive. Other schools may be more prolific with "extra benefits", brazen even. That doesn't mean we should believe there is a clean program out there that doesn't have boosters that give $100 handshakes to athletes and recruits. There is just no way to police 500 million Americans and make sure they aren't breaking some inane arcane NCAA rule that most probably don't even know about.

Am I saying UM has a guy with $100k in a bag and he follows recruits around trying influence their decision? Not that I am aware of. Would anyone really be surprised if such a person was exposed to be a reality? Maybe some UM fans, but not most of us.

In my mind if a kid wants to get paid but still wants to go to a "clean" school. What's stopping him from getting cash from bagmen at an SEC school and still going to a "clean" institution?

players don't want to be looked at in that light. Someone else is getting something good for them. Plus the NCAA isn't going to do anything about it. The schools with the bagmen are all making the NCAA big money also, so look the other way and pretend it isn't happening.