Recruiting Wars: NCAA Must Crack Down on Illegal Recruiting Methods Now

As Final Four Saturday fast approaches, new allegations have surfaced against two of the colleges involved, Kentucky and Connecticut.

But is anyone really surprised?

University of Kentucky head coach John Calipari is taking his third team to the Final Four in the past 15 years, which would in itself be considered a pretty remarkable achievement if it hadn’t been for the fact that Calipari cheated the first two times.

Both of Calipari’s previous Final Four appearances, with UMass in 1996 and Memphis in 2008, had to be vacated because of various violations with recruits, including cash payments.

Now, Calipari is at the center of another scandal involving recruits. This time, a former Calipari staffer, Bilal Bately, made several phone calls to recruits, including former Wildcat DeMarcus Cousins. Bately was not authorized to make phone calls to recruits. Bately worked with Calipari at both Memphis and Kentucky.

A staffer like Bately does NOT make phone calls on his own without his boss knowing about it.

UConn head coach Jim Calhoun is not without dirt, either.

Calhoun, already suspended by the NCAA for the first three games of next season after being found guilty of committing several recruiting violations, is under scrutiny once again after former recruit Nate Miles told the New York Times that Calhoun was fully aware of illegal payments being made to Miles by a UConn booster and that he had received “help” on standardized tests.

Miles essentially called Calhoun a liar, and said Calhoun was fully aware of everything going on.

UConn had their NCAA tournament appearance vacated in 1996 after it was revealed that a player agent had given several “gifts” to UConn players. That was under Calhoun’s watch as well.

Before we go any further, let’s get one fact straight. If anyone seriously thinks that head coaches don’t know about EVERYTHING going on under their watch, then I have several bridges I can sell you.

College athletics are already under heavy scrutiny. The Auburn, Ohio State and Oregon football programs are already under investigation for alleged violations at each university and the BCS will most likely drop the Fiesta Bowl after it was revealed last week that rampant fraud and illegal payment activities have been going on there for years.

On the heels of last fall’s news that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton was shopped around to several universities by his father, this week, allegations surfaced that Patrick Peterson, the All-American from LSU, was being shopped around by “street agent” Willie Lyles. Lyles was apparently looking for $80,000 from Texas A&M. Lyles was involved in the recruiting violations currently being investigated at Oregon.

While none of this is anything new, there is no question that “pay for play” schemes and other illegal recruiting activities have become rampant in the big money world of college athletics. In all honesty, it’s pretty hard to hold student-athletes to the fire for their indiscretions. They are being approached by unscrupulous boosters, agents and coaches alike with promises of fame, money and all the comforts that money can buy.

At 18 or 19 years of age, how many kids would turn that down?

Wednesday night’s HBO Real Sports shed a harsh light on the "pay for play" scheme reportedly being perpetrated at Auburn University and only serves to magnify the rampant violations going on at literally dozens of schools across the country.

It is time for the NCAA to put a stop to this madness, and now. Programs like Auburn, Ohio State and Oregon need to made examples of, and in a major way. Instead of slapping their wrists, how about completely shutting down their football programs for at least at a year? That ought to open a few eyes and serve as a deterrent.

Ditto for coaches like Calhoun and Calipari, who continually bend the rules to pad their winning records. Suspending them completely for at least a year and not allowing them anywhere near a college campus might send a message to other coaches in a hurry, don’t you think?

College athletics are taking a major hit right now with the various violations being reported. It’s high time that the NCAA sends the proper message, and now.

As for me, I’ll be rooting for whoever wins the Butler-Virginia Commonwealth game to win it all on Monday night. At least I’ll know one of those schools did it the right way.

For continuing coverage of college athletics, follow Doug on Twitter @Sports_A_Holic.