Bruce Pearl's Transgressions Pale in Comparison To John Calipari's Violations

Much has been made of the transgressions that Bruce Pearl committed when he and his staff at Tennessee went over the NCAA limit on phone calls to recruits, had committed recruits over to his house for dinner, and then lied about it to investigators.

However, some proportionality is in order here when comparing Pearl's shortcomings to the clear, major violations that Kentucky's John Calipari has committed throughout his career as a basketball coach.

Those in the national media that have called for the firing of Pearl seemingly have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to Calipari and his pals, including bag man "Worldwide Wes," who publicly said, "I don't work for free, baby!"

Such media are thus hypocritical in their criticism. At least Pearl wasn't using race horses to entice recruits, as Kentucky has done for years in both football and basketball, having been one of the most penalized schools in both sports in NCAA history.

Pearl has been excoriated in the media, had his salary reduced dramatically by his school's athletics director, Mike Hamilton, been suspended from league games by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, and may be facing even more penalties from the NCAA. However, there has not been even an allegation that he paid players to sign with Tennessee.

The obvious William "Wes" Wesley connection to Calipari as his street agent in procuring players for him is one the mainstream media and NCAA continue to ignore. This onerous character delivered Marcus Camby to Cal at UMass, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans to him at Memphis, and now Eric Bledsoe and John Walls to UK for Calipari.

Anyone short of a fool knows that these were payoff deals involving the Nike revolving door and Wes' connection to them through the LeBron James Skills Academy.

The influence of the likes of Wes begins at the grade school level, and the shoe companies, mostly Nike, turn young kids into prostitutes, with well-paid "mentors" as their role models.

A commitment means nothing to such street agents. They just line up the recruits with the brand that is paying the "mentors" and send them off to one of those schools. All we can hope for is that the cheaters will get caught and the NCAA will drop the hammer on them.

There is such legal leeway for the shoe brands that they are virtually untouchable, and how do you keep young guys from playing summer ball, even if it's all paid for by someone else?

Calipari has been cheating indirectly through guys like Wes, and will get turned in by his colleagues in the SEC. With the salaries that are being paid, the other schools and coaches cannot allow it to continue.  Doing it at Memphis is one thing. After all, who's going to rat you out in their league? Southern Miss? Tulsa? But the SEC has watchdogs.

As we all well know, Cal has had to forfeit all games and vacate Final Four appearances in his last seasons at both Memphis and UMass, and may also have to do the same at Kentucky. He's obviously slicker than Pearl at it.

Big-time cheating is rampant throughout college basketball and football at the big-time schools. Pearl's wrongdoings are chump change in comparison.