Miami Hurricanes' Paul Dee: Biggest Hypocrite in Sports a USC Perspective

I have not yet picked my mouth up off the floor after the explosive Yahoo story broke regarding  the University of Miami and former booster Nevin Shapiro.

Let’s be clear, people, near or at the center of this brouhaha lies Paul Dee, who was AD at Miami during most of the years that Shapiro was doling out money, gifts, prostitutes, booze, abortions and crash pads at his beachfront mansion and million-dollar yacht.

For Trojan fans and alumni this situation is nothing short of Dee-lightful, Dee-licious and Dee-lectable.  Why?

Paul Dee was the head of the NCAA Committee on Infractions during the USC hearings.

Let’s clarify for a moment, friends.

USC’s football case was about one person: Reggie Bush

USC’s basketball case was about one person: OJ Mayo

Miami’s case involves 72 players over nearly a decade of willful disregard for NCAA rules.

So, to quote the inimitable Alanis Morrisette: “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

Isn’t it ironic that Paul Dee was the Athletic Director of Miami during what NCAA investigators have called the worst violation of the rules they have ever seen?

A sidebar for a moment: Both the Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo issues at USC involved agents trying to lure their patronage once these vaunted players went pro. This, I, and many other pundits, remain is NOT A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

Miami, on the watch of Paul Dee, on the other hand, is involved in an eight-year, 72 (by Shapiro’s count, 73 by the NCAA’s) booster pay-for-play scandal that involved all the blithely aforementioned activities as well as BONUSES FOR BOUNTIES on competition such as Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and a three-year standing bounty on Florida State quarterback Chris Rix.

Digest that for a moment.

Oh wait, one more Paul Dee tidbit.  Dee is the biggest hypocrite in sports in recent memory, if not ever.

The eight-year reign of Nevin Shapiro’s pay-for-play scandal, which involved so many violations it is staggering and hits the NCAA’s BIG LIST, apparently flew under big Paul Dee’s radar as he was he quoted by the newspaper in Palm Beach as saying:

“We didn’t have any suspicion that he was doing anything like this,” said Dee, UM’s athletic director from 1993 to 2008. “He didn’t do anything to cause concern.”

Trojan nation, I feel you, the hypocrisy is STAGGERING.  As SI.com’s Stewart Mandel said:

“Still, it seems only fair he should spend a day at USC’s Heritage Hall wearing a sandwich board with the word “Hypocrite”.

Oh sorry, yet one more Paul Dee tidbit—he took willful flaunting of the rules to new levels, after all. This eight-year scandal qualifies for repeat offender status as Dee was AD at Miami during the Pell Grant scandal of the 1990s.

Now, consider the fact that Paul Dee, as Chairman of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, sat in judgement of USC when they presented their case for leniency before the NCAA in the matter of Reggie Bush.  USC’s now much mocked defense was that we (loosely) “did not know, could not be expected to know.”

I KNOW! Go punch a wall, I will wait. I’ve stocked up on wine and trust me, every expletive that can be uttered has been in my house in the last 24 hours.

Shall we revisit the things Paul Dee said about USC? I mean, why not pour salt in our wounds at this point, right? In light of this info, this BS almost feels good.

Dee, who famously sat on the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING AT MIAMI famously told USC that even though the extra benefits a wannabe sports agent paid to Reggie Bush’s family happened in San Diego, some 130 miles from campus, USC “should have known” it was happening.

Go read the Yahoo investigative report if you haven’t. Read about how blatant Shapiro’s support of Miami football and basketball players was right under Dee and University President Donna Shalala’s noses.

Read about how Shapiro got into a physical fight with the U’s director of compliance in the press box at a Miami football game and still Dee & Co. claim they did not know. 

Read about how he paid for Devin Hester’s girlfriend’s engagement ring, how he got the stripper another player got pregnant an abortion, how he made his home and his yacht available for parties and provided cars and clothes and cash and VIP club access and…

Paul Dee stated that the USC case was “three feet high”—referring to how high the evidence would stack if you laid all the paperwork up into a pile.

Well now. If ever there was a more pitch perfect case of  “eating crow” I have never, in my entire life, been witness to it before now.

The evidence against Dee, “U” president Donna Shalala, numerous coaches both with and no longer with Miami and, well, 72-73 players might actually be able to be laid end to end and stretch from the Coral Gables campus of  the University of Miami to the downtown Los Angeles campus of the University of Southern California.

And that, my friends, is way more than “Three feet high.”

This piece originally appeared on Gridiron Goddess.