Until he’s in jail, or at least proven guilty of something, then he’s a winner. And I look forward to seeing Pete Carroll run his NFL football program.

If you want to blame someone, blame NCAA for such shoddy enforcement of their own rules. This is obviously an area with extemely high incentives to break the rules. Therefore, commensurate levels of detection and enforcement should be put in place by the NCAA.

It’s disgraceful that such rule violations were allowed to go on for so long. It’s like the NFL allowing Cushing to play despite having positive drug tests before the season began.

People cheat. Our politicians lie, cheat, steal, and are responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people every year. Our corporate executives ROB us blind and ruin our environment while padding their pockets with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year. A little perspective please on the whole Pete Carroll issue?

Pete Carroll went 97-19 in his career as an NCAA coach. But his rule infractions have cost the school greatly. I do think that it is a little unfair to the students who can’t recieve scholarships from USC, but the NCAA did what they thought they had to do.

Personally, I believe that the punishment should either carry to his next coaching job or just ban him from football. Because he has shown that he isn’t trustworthy, he’ll break your rules, and he’ll try to make excuses. And if the truth is found out, he’ll bail on the team, possibly leaving them to take the punishment and the blame.

I think it is sad that people like Pete Carroll and Mike Vick and Big Ben are the way they are. I think of it as a waste of talent. It bothers me that you can be that kind of a person, ESPECIALLY when you work for the NCAA/NFL and you know that little kids look up to you.

What a waste….

On a different note, either Yusuf’s idea of what slavery was, is extremely misguided, or he is talking WAY over the top. They do get paid, they get tuition, room, and food at the very least, and sometime a small amount of weekly spending cash, if they put there mind to it, that tuition gives the an excellent education and could set you up for the rest of your life, even after football, see Myron Rolle.

I do wish that the penalties for these actions would follow the coaches to their next job, but it might need to be written in the contract of the coaches. Something like a ethics clause in the contract that explicitly lays out the penalties and backlash of breaking the NCAA rules. If they wrote in something like that the coach would have to repay all salary, for the years of the infractions, and a fraction of their signing bonus if it is found that they committed major NCAA violations, that might be enough to stop this behavior. So Pete would owe USC roughly 8.8 million dollars plus some of his signing bonus for the 2 years that the NCAA found issues in how Bush was treated.

What gets me, is how Pete Carroll could stand there and with a straight face say, I never thought they would impose sanctions like this. Seriously, Pete? If you never thought that, you would not have bailed. I think Pete saw the writing on the wall and left before he too sank with the ship!

As for Pete Carrol, the Seahawks either didn’t feel that his at that time “alleged” past transgressions were meritorious of immediate disqualification from consideration, or they were completely ignorant of the allegations. In either case, firing Carrol at this point would simply make Seattle look more incompetent. If the NCAA wanted to stick it to Pete, they’d have their legal team working on the legality of a set of sanctions that would apply to whatever college team that wants to hire him in the instance of his 3rd NFL head coaching gig ending poorly. The could take some sore of action to make it clear that they are wise to his shenanigans and that any college program that hires him is under immediate suspicion of abandoning ethical behavior in pursuit of ill-gotten glory. I’m not entirely familiar with the governing documents of the NCAA, but such sanctions that follow coaches and punish them would help do something about the scorched earth career paths of coaches with continual recruitment violations in both football and basketball.

Reggie Bush’s mediocre career to date (individually at least) would seem to be punishment enough, as Florio suggests. But really, that’s not enough if the NCAA wants to send a message. Of course barring his, and other alleged contributors, from having contact with USC athletics should be a given. The Heisman should be vacated, as he was no longer an amateur by definition, though no revote should be cast as it is impossible to do it all over fairly given the outside knowledge (the pro careers of the nominees) that voters now possess.

As for paying players, that is an issue that should continue to be discussed given the increasing value of the dollar amounts athletic programs bring to schools. Money is tearing college rivalries apart and at some point the NCAA needs to get serious about this debate. One thing needs to be noted, however. Nothing is more unjust than the equal treatment of un-equals. That is to mean that you should not pay a 4th year senior starting tailback the same as a redshirt freshmen. Any form of payment system should be based upon playing time earned, not just participation on the team or attendance at practice. If you want to make it like the real world, then make it a meritocracy like a real job. Perform and you will be rewarded, if you try and try and find out that you’re nothing more than a 3rd string QB then take your pay and live with it or find something else to do. As for how such a program applies to other programs at a school, tie it to the relative revenue generated. The reason this is more often discussed with football is simply because college football is the NFL’s developmental league whereas the other major sports have their own form of developmental leagues or take in players much earlier than the NFL and NFLPA allow. I think that’s enough for now.

If you think the college players should get paid, then should they get paid as much as Bush got paid. USC legally paying Reggie Bush would not have done a thing as his parents had free rent and Reggie can a free car, etc. By the way Reggie did get paid probably around $30,000 – $45,000 a year in free education and let us not forget the free food coming from the training table. Paying athletes like Bush would not have changed a thing as he would have wanted more and also Title 9 would have forced the women’s track team to get paid also, and there is no way athletes from non revenue sports should get a dime.

I really hope they vacate Reggie’s Heisman. Cheaters do not win and good riddences to the cheaters in Carrol and Bush. Also Athletic Director Mike Garrert, hopefully you will get fired in the same clASSy way as you fired John Robinson, by leaving a message on his answering machine.

The NCAA should not have the to prevent college players earning, the fact that it is dishing out punishment to UCS after both Bush and Carrol are gone is just wrong. Players who are on the program are now in limbo after they were recruited by Carrol.