Miami Football Scandal: Former Booster's Transgressions Have Power to Ruin the U

For the most part, every college football scandal follows a set pattern. First, there is the rumor of trouble, then one secret comes out and then many, many closely guarded secrets come to light. When they do, it's not long before judgment is rendered.

The scandal that has come to light involving the University of Miami's football program is very much adhering to the formula. And as of right now, it is in the midst of Phase 3. Thanks to an investigative report from Yahoo Sports!, many, many secrets have been revealed.

If you're a die-hard Hurricanes fan, be warned: The meat of this particular report is not easy to stomach.

The subject of the report is a man named Nevin Shapiro, who used to be a Miami booster before he was sent to prison for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme.

Before Johnny Law finally caught up to him, Shapiro was involved with Miami athletics for nearly a decade, and he spent the bulk of that time arranging for impermissible benefits for over 70 athletes, the bulk of whom were members of the football program. Some still are.

What kind of benefits, you ask? Well, I'll let Yahoo! Sports' Charles Robinson explain:

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At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, [Shapiro] said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to: cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and on one occasion, an abortion.

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Upon reading that little preamble, all you can really do is sit back and say, "Woah." But when you get into the details, it gets far, far more upsetting.

As far as the payments go, your garden-variety cash gift was very much a part of Shapiro's operation. There were a lot of players who came to Shapiro looking for cash because they needed it, and he supposedly never turned any of them down.

But if they were so inclined, Miami players could also earn their dues. Off the field, Shapiro hosted things like fishing, bowling and pool tournaments, with the winners getting nice cash bonuses. On the field, players could earn money for satisfying one of the bounties that Shapiro gave out for big plays and even big hits.

Oftentimes, the latter bounties were put on specific players, including former Florida great Tim Tebow. There was even a $5,000 bounty on former Florida State quarterback Chris Rix. To get it, a Miami player merely had to knock Rix out of the game.

Cash and gifts aside, Shapiro also took care of players when it came time to party. His home was definitely a hot spot, and so was his yacht. Robinson noted that Shapiro spared no expense when it came to letting players use it:

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Shapiro’s $1.6 million yacht was also available to players on a regular basis for fishing trips, leisure trips and lodging for the availability of prostitution. Like his home, Shapiro stocked the boat with food and drinks and paid for fuel and captain fees any time players would take the yacht out – a process that cost in excess of $2,000 per trip depending on gas prices and maintenance... Miami athletes were taking Shapiro’s boat out “twice a week” while the booster was incurring all of the costs.

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When Shapiro and Miami players weren't partying at his yacht or at his home, they often did things like visit night clubs and strip clubs. Shapiro tossed around plenty of cash during these excursions, and he also charged thousands of dollars to his credit cards.

Moreover, Robinson notes that it was a "regular occurrence" for Shapiro to arrange for players to have private rooms, and then he would pay dancers to "engage in whatever behavior the players desired."

Naturally, it gets worse. In addition to paying dancers big bucks to do whatever players wanted, Shapiro also arranged for prostitutes to meet with players in hotel rooms and on his boat. He claims that he never engaged in sex with any of the women that he arranged for, but he was able to name 39 players who did.

The most disturbing part of the report, though, involves an incident in which Shapiro paid a strip club dancer to have sex with one player. A few weeks later, Shapiro was informed that the player had gotten the woman pregnant. Without telling him, Shapiro paid for the woman to have an abortion.

“I was doing him a favor,” said Shapiro. “That idiot might have wanted to keep [the baby].”

There's a whole lot more that went on, but you probably get the gist. Between the years 2002 and 2010, Shapiro was basically the U's personal sugar daddy, and he was quite proud of that fact.

Naturally, the question is what the university was doing while all this was going on. Sadly, Shapiro insists that Miami officials were very much aware of what he was up to. As Robinson tells the tale, Shapiro was hiding in plain sight:

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... Miami could have seized on countless incidents and ended [Shapiro's] flagrant assault on NCAA bylaws. Just a 20-minute drive northwest from campus, across one of the causeways and into Miami Beach, Shapiro’s high-rolling routine with Hurricanes football players was on display on a daily basis. And according to Shapiro, all Miami needed to do was look.

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Instead, Shapiro says he was "enabled" by the university. He points to the two times he was even allowed to lead the team onto the field, and the university didn't do itself any favors when it named an athlete lounge after him following a $250,000 pledge.

As Shapiro tells the tale, the university was more than happy to turn a blind eye as long as the cash kept flowing:

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Let’s not kid ourselves. The whole time I was out there rocking and rolling, they were just waiting for the big check to come. And you know what? If I wasn’t sitting in jail right now, they probably would have gotten it, too.

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If all of this was coming from a guy just running his mouth, this is where I would insert the disclaimer to take all of it with a huge grain of salt. But to back up his claims, Shapiro has no shortage of records, bills and photos, and the total package is as damning as can be.

So instead, let's take a step back and ask just how much Shapiro's actions could end up costing the University of Miami.

Well, suffice it to say that it could be bad. Shapiro willingly led players to commit a whole host of NCAA violations, but the NCAA could also find that the university itself is guilty of “a pattern of willful violations.”

In other words, we could very well be looking at a “death penalty” situation.

Given what Shapiro had to say about university officials, including president Donna Shalala, that would be a pretty easy card for the NCAA to play. Because the U’s football program is one of the more high-profile programs in the land, my gut tells me that they will try to avoid doing so.

At the same time, the NCAA is going to have to determine that it can’t walk away from this situation without sending an appropriately loud message, and giving the U the death penalty would certainly suffice in that regard.

But that's Phase 4. For now, we're still in Phase 3, and we're probably going to be here for a long time. A whole lot of dirt just came to light, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's not more where it all came from.

Make no mistake, this is going to get worse before it gets better.

-Zachary D. Rymer