For the Buckeye faithful looking to point and scream about a double standard, there is news out of Southern California this week about the preferential treatment of yet another athlete for the University of Spoiled Children.
One-and-done USC guard O.J. Mayo allegedly received about $30,000, which included a 42-inch flat-screen TV for his dorm room, hotel rooms, airline tickets for friends and family, meals and thousands of dollars worth of clothing from a "runner" while supposedly being a "student athlete" for the Trojans.
A "runner," for those of you who are behind on the times when it comes to corruption in college sports, is someone who establishes a relationship with a young star athlete in the hopes they will sign with their company's agency when they go pro. What constitutes as "establishing a relationship" is about as shady and corrupt as Halliburton bidding on government contracts.
ESPN's "Outside the Lines" did a full report on the gifts and goodies that Mayo received from Rodney Guillory, the "runner" for Bill Duffy Associates Sports Management (BDA). It's too massive of a report to go through in detail but you can read Kelly Naqi's report for yourself.
To summarize, BDA denies any illegal action and chalks it all up to the price of doing business. Guillory's money supply from BDA dried up last summer and in order to keep catering to Mayo, Guillory got in touch with longtime-friend Tony Hicks.
Hicks is the CEO of The National Organization of Sickle Cell Prevention and Awareness Foundation (NOSCPAF) and gave Guillory an American Express card. Hicks has a criminal record that includes mail fraud and a probation violation for "fraudulently representing himself as The Red Cross" by setting up a Web site soliciting donations for victims of the 2004 tsunami in Asia in which more than 275,000 people died. The sickle cell foundation has not registered with the California Attorney General's office as a charitable trust despite two requests to do so and is not known by any other sickle cell groups in the area, according to the ESPN report.
Guillory, through his connections with BDA, purchased an Infiniti SUV from a dealership owned by ex-USC star Ronnie Lott, who denies any awareness of the allegations against Guillory.
On the home front, former Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger was forced to resign in 2005 amidst the story of Troy Smith taking $500 from a football booster and the Maurice Clarett allegations against OSU. Had Geiger not put his own head on the chopping block coach Tressel might have gotten the ax. Many in the media were calling for that at the time, and national sports writers routinely refer to Tressel as "Teflon" for his ability to allude scandal.
Former men's basketball coach Jim O'Brien was fired for recruiting violations and the program was suspended from postseason play for a season. Kelvin Sampson was fired as Indiana's basketball coach this season amidst recruiting violations regarding text messages.
In the middle of these allegations against Mayo, and who can forget Reggie Bush and his family allegedly receiving benefits during his senior season at USC, how can Mike Garrett or USC basketball coach, Tim Floyd or even football coach and media darling Pete Carroll keep their jobs?
Given all the attention paid to OSU due to the actions of Smith and Clarett it would only be fair for Garrett and Floyd to get the boot for the actions of Bush and Mayo.
How could they be unaware of O.J. Mayo's ties to Guillory and the gifts he supposedly received? How could you even allow someone to be tied to one of your players when they are linked to the NOSCPAF, clearly a fraudulent organization run by a career criminal?
NOSCPAF should be the new slogan of the USC program - Numerous Outstanding Southern California Players Are Frauds.
Of course, if we were lucky enough to see Pete Carroll lose his job in light of these corruption charges, he could just find a job with his former employer, the New England Patriots. They're not corrupt, right?
James Crepea can be reached at crepea.1@osu.edu.
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