LEXINGTON, Ky. _ To hear the snickers, the head coaches of the four semifinalists of the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournaments Midwest Region might have to pony up for extra charges given the amount of baggage theyre carrying to Kansas City.
Theres Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, NCAA show cause judgment alumnus, now under scrutiny for questionable hiring decisions. Theres Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, punished not once but twice for living through his phone. Theres Kentucky coach John Calipari, with vacated listed next to two of his six Final Four trips. Theres North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose players appeared in an academic fraud scandal after taking fake classes. Well, as they say, if you dont like second chances then you shouldnt eat refried beans.
That being the question in this age of FBI college basketball corruption investigations, embarrassing wiretap revelations lookin at you, suspended LSU coach Will Wade and porn star lawyer indictments. At what point is a coachs prior sins forgiven and we all move beyond the dark shadows of the past?
Not yet, apparently. Last week, Pearl chafed at a press conference question about his three years of forced exile after being fired by Tennessee for lying to the NCAA. The coach said he wanted the attention on his players. And it would be if two of Pearls assistants werent making news. Former assistant Chuck Person pleaded guilty to a charge of accepting money to steer players to certain agents and advisers. Current assistant Ira Bowman was suspended after being named in another alleged bribery scheme when he was at Penn.
I like Bruce Pearl. I think hes a good coach and an even better promoter. For a football school like Auburn, hes manna from hoops heaven. And after paying his NCAA debt, hes done wonders at Charles Barkley U. Pearl just needs a more stringent vetting process when it comes to job candidates.
Sampson did Pearl one better. He left both Oklahoma and Indiana on probation for, among other things, making hundreds of impermissible phone calls to recruits. As a repeat offender, Sampson received a five-year show cause penalty. He spent six seasons in NBA assistant coaching purgatory before the University of Houston hired him in 2014.
His teams rough-it-up style is not my cup of tea, but Sampson can coach. Oklahoma reached the 2002 Final Four. He was 43-15 before Indiana pulled the plug. His Cougars are 33-3 this season, proving Ws can trump a few redactions on the resume.
Williams case is more complex. North Carolinas problems came after athletes arrived in Chapel Hill. A significant number, including basketball players, ended up in sham classes. After a lengthy investigation and a flood of billable hours, the NCAA threw up its hands and said it could not conclude that the University of North Carolina violated NCAA academic rules. Ol Roys three title banners still hang at the Smith Center, but the Carolina Way took a bloody beating.
Locally, Caliparis reputation exceeds his rap sheet. Hes never been personally cited in an NCAA violation, much less sniffed at a show cause. True, his programs have been called to the principals office Marcus Cambys money-taking at UMass; Derrick Roses suspicious test score at Memphis and there were plenty of furrowed brows when Kentucky gave him the call in 2009.
First, a disclaimer: No program is completely clean. (Its not an excuse to say everybodys doing it, an LSU backer told me in Jacksonville when defending Wade, but everybodys doing it.) But UKs been free of scandal during Cals decade of gold-standard-setting. His blueprint: UK now, equals NBA later. Cals got framed jerseys used as backdrops for ESPN interviews to prove it.
So in a different world of one-and-done, maybe these guys get booted for life. Thats not this world. Theres too much money involved for winning coaches not to be given second, even third chances. You know that right now somewhere theres an administrator thinking, maybe, just maybe, we could hire Rick Pitino.
And, personally, I like refried beans.