Come to Think of It...OJ Mayo's "Nays" Draw Skepticism, Questions

Former USC basketball player OJ Mayo has been called out by ESPN's Outside the Lines as having been the recipient of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from Rodney Guillory, who works for the sports agency Bill Duffy Associates.

Of course, Mayo has repeatedly denied the allegations. But a much larger issue here isn't whether or not he took the gifts and cash.

It's whether or not collegiate sports can solve the bigger problem of agents getting their hooks into young star athletes too early.

Between boosters, who have always been alleged to have bankrolled players to either choose their college to play with, or to keep a star player happy while enrolled, and more recently player agents, there is a real problem escalating in college sports.

And it is a serious problem for several reasons. First, there are the ramifications if yan athlete get caught.

But second, and perhaps most important, it ruins the innocence that is supposed to be the calling card of college sports.

And in this age of steroids and multi-million dollar professional contracts, where can a sports fan turn to if even collegiate sports are tainted?

And so it is. But what to do? Well, this writer, for one, doesn't believe the problem can be eliminated entirely. You will always have agents trying to gain a competitive advantage. And you will always have young athletes taking money. That cannot be stopped.

Ah, but what you must do is make the consequences so dire that it becomes a risk that only the most ruthless agent and/or team is willing to accept.

Look, it's a lot like parenting. You can't make a child stop doing bad things. You can't physically be there at all times, so the best you can do as a parent is to create consequences.  If a kid knows he can get away with something, he will. It's that simple.

And so the consequences have to be something that is not only punitive, but preventative in nature.

What I'm proposing is any agent caught giving gifts to college athletes not only lose their license, but the agency they work for (or own) gets shut down. Forever.  Do not pass Go. Do not collect, er, in this case, pay, the money.

And any college caught entertaining payments to its young athletes will be barred from postseason tournaments for ten years. That's right—ten years.

Aggressive? You bet. Tough? Damn right. But that's what it takes to create an environment where everyone knows the seriousness of cheating and how it's not going to be tolerated.

Otherwise, you may as well go with the European system and pay the athletes. The problem with that system, however, is it exacerbates the problem of young men having too much money at too young an age, leading to more of the drugs and gambling and selfishness that exists today.

It also blurs the lines of distinction between professional and amateur sports.

Like the '27 Yankees or John Wooden's UCLA basketball teams, you cannot stop it, you can only hope to contain it. And one way to contain it is to let everyone know just how serious you are.

Come to think of it, OJ Mayo is simply a pawn in a corrupt game of chess played by con men and scum. And, like addiction, it's time to admit we are powerless to stop the problem and can only hope to address it in a way that will really make the cheaters think twice.