Miami Football Scandal: Nevin Shapiro Exposes College Football's Booster Problem

Over the last few days, we've heard rumblings about an NCAA investigation into the Miami Hurricanes football program and now we finally have the damning evidence that is set to rock its foundation.

Today, Charles Robinson at Yahoo Sports published the site’s detailed 11-month investigation surrounding former Miami booster Nevin Shaprio and the many alleged benefits he supplied to high-profile Hurricanes players over the last decade.

Check it out. 

It’s a doozy.

In the report, Robinson details Shapiro’s first-hand accounts of how he provided players such as Kellen Winslow, Willis McGahee, Devin Hester, Vince Wilfork and plenty of others with benefits that are sure to make the NCAA cringe.

Strip clubs, yachts, mansions, expensive jewelry—it’s as if Shapiro saw the movie The Program and mashed it up with a raunchy Rick Ross rap video.

Shapiro, who is now facing up to 30 years in jail for his role in a nearly billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, turned his back on the team he supported for so long and effectively tore the already-damaged fabric of the program to pieces.

Miami, a school that’s been looked at as one of college football’s true bad boys since "Da U" days of the '80s and '90s, had recently been trying to clean up its tarnished image and it appeared to have a new beacon of hope with the arrival of Al Golden, a head coach who prides himself on his high emphasis on character.

But the emergence of Shapiro, who has stated his intent is to expose Miami as a fraud, has washed away any hopes of establishing a new, quality reputation.

The Hurricanes will now join the likes of USC, Ohio State, Florida State, Oregon, Auburn and Michigan as the latest major college football program to be rocked by scandal.

Only time will tell what kind of punishment will be levied by the NCAA, but if all the alleged accusations do indeed prove to be true, you would have to figure it's going to be quite severe.

Shapiro’s actions give us another glimpse into the dirty world of college football boosters.

It’s a world that’s been brought to the forefront and given increased publicity, especially with the recent Real Sports report which focused on former Auburn players, who said they received under-the-table cash and gifts from boosters during their playing days.

The NCAA needs to figure out a solution for this crisis which only seems to be expanding and getting worse with the sport’s booming popularity.

At every major college football program in America, there are dozens upon dozens of Nevin Shapiro clones who are looking to get closer to the action, and their using innocent players as their meal ticket.

Sure, you could tell a 20-year-old kid not to accept a nice watch or a wad of cash from a shady figure like Shapiro, but when that player has no time for a job and doesn’t have any source of income, it’s a little difficult to say no.

If the NCAA investigators wanted to dig deep enough, they could probably find enough violations to put every major team in America on some type of probation. But instead, they’re waiting around for the Nevin Shapiro’s of the world to do their dirty work and give all the juicy details.

This is a time when the sport of college football, which is now an annual billion-dollar industry, has never been more popular. However, it’s also a time that’s produced a ridiculous amount of serious scandals that have dominated the headlines more than the actual games have.

When players see athletic departments cashing in on their hard labor, they’re naturally going to wonder where their cut is, and right now, the boosters are seemingly the only ones who are there to reward them.

The NCAA has to make some type of drastic change soon, or this problem will only continue to spiral out of control.

Nevin Shaprio has said that he hopes to be a Jose Canseco-kind of figure, and hopefully, the NCAA makes that a reality by facing this problem and cleaning up this mess the way baseball dealt with steroids.

Time is running out and if something isn't done, it's only going to get worse.