For this week's Blog I I want you to read the article below about the Louisville basketball scandal that is rocking the NCAA. I think it is important to keep up with current issues related to basketball, especially as March Madness gets closer. Rick Pitino has been one of my favorite coaches because he always seems to be able to get the most out of his players. However, the allegations against him and the Men's Basketball program will greatly impact his program this year and for years to come. Please read the article below and answer the questions at the bottom the article. Please remember to put your name on the Blog.
'Continuum' of Sexism in Sports
Recruits visiting the University of Louisville were allegedly entertained by nude dancers and prostitutes paid for by a program assistant. How culpable is head coach Rick Pitino, and is the case a symptom of a larger problem in college sports?
October 26, 2015
First it was the claim of one prostitute, but now a scandal at the University of Louisville has grown. For years, Louisville basketball recruits attended parties at a campus residence hall that included nude dancers and paid sex, former and prospective players told ESPN, lending credence to claims made by a former prostitute in a book published this month.
The former escort, Katina Powell, said she was paid by Andre McGee, the team's former graduate assistant and director of basketball operations, to provide recruits with strip shows and sex during campus visits. Powell said she was given about $10,000 by McGee for supplying dancers -- including her own teenage daughters -- for more than two dozen parties during a four-year period. In one instance, McGee allegedly offered the escort a bottle of whiskey signed by the team's head coach, Rick Pitino, as payment.
On Friday, McGee resigned from his position as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he moved before the scandal broke. “The university deserves a full-time assistant coach and I am not able to provide that to the basketball team while the false allegations against me are being investigated,” McGee stated.
But some Louisville faculty members and other critics aren’t satisfied with McGee’s resignation, saying that Pitino is also culpable and that blame can ultimately be laid at the feet of big-time college sports as a whole. In the arms race that is Division I intercollegiate athletics, they say, some colleges are all too comfortable using attractive young women as a recruiting tool, and powerful coaches can count on underlings to handle the logistics.
“If Pitino didn’t have knowledge about this sort of thing, then he should not be a coach at all,” Nancy Theriot, a professor and chair of women’s and gender studies at Louisville, said. “If he did have knowledge, then he shouldn’t resign. He should be fired.”
While the case is being investigated by both the university and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Louisville officials are adamant that the university has no plans to fire Pitino, who denies knowing about the parties. The veteran Hall of Fame coach said last week that he’s not quitting.
“I will not resign and let you down,” Pitino wrote in a blog post. “Someday I will walk away in celebration of many memorable years, but that time is not now. I do not fight these accusations by others, but rather turn the other cheek. Couldn’t do it at 33, but at 63 it’s the wise thing to do. Let’s let the investigators do their job and we will play basketball.”
In the post, he also referenced Pope Francis’s recent visit to the United States, saying the pope would frequently answer controversial questions with the phrase “we will let God judge.” It’s advice Pitino said Louisville students and fans should remember as the investigation continues. “Let’s not try to justify,” he wrote, “but let the Lord judge.”
Pitino will also be judged, however, by a considerably less celestial entity: the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
Louisville alerted the association about the possible recruiting violations (providing impermissible “extra benefits” to prospects) a month before Powell’s book was published, but it could be months before an investigation is complete. Even if Pitino was unaware of the alleged sex parties, he would likely still be found to have violated NCAA rules. Recent NCAA decisions about recruiting and academic violations at Syracuse University and Southern Methodist University have placed sanctions on head coaches despite finding no evidence that the coaches knew about the misconduct.
That’s because the NCAA revised its rules last year to hold coaches more accountable for all violations within their programs.
“An institution's head coach is presumed to be responsible for the actions of all institutional staff members who report, directly or indirectly, to the head coach,” the revised rule states. “An institution's head coach shall promote an atmosphere of compliance within his or her program and shall monitor the activities of all institutional staff members involved with the program who report, directly or indirectly, to the coach.”
Pitino’s contract -- which runs through 2026 -- contains similar language. The coach is required to “diligently supervise compliance of assistant coaches and any other employees for which [he] is administratively responsible.” The dormitory in which the parties took place was also under Pitino’s purview. The building is designated for athletes and was built at his request.
“You build a basketball dorm because you want more control, not less control,” sports columnist Rick Bozich wrote. “You build a basketball dorm because you want more information about what is going on with your players, not less information. You build a basketball dorm to make certain that scandals like this scandal do not turn your program into a national punch line. You control the security there. You control who comes and goes. You control everything because coaches like Pitino insist upon control.”
As tawdry and sensational as the Louisville case may seem, it is not the first time a program has been accused of using sex to attract athletes to a university.
In 2013, Sports Illustrated reported that Oklahoma State University’s football program used a group of women to entice recruits. Officially, the group, called Orange Pride, was meant to show visiting high school athletes around campus. Unofficially, according to Sports Illustrated, some of the women were having sex with the players. “There's no other way a female can convince you to come play football at a school besides sex,” one former OSU football player said. “The idea was to get [recruits] to think that if they came to Oklahoma State, it was gonna be like that all the time.”
The NCAA ruled that the allegations were "unfounded" but found the university in violation of "engaging in impermissible hosting activities" for using Orange Pride in recruiting activities. Such recruitment groups, or hostess programs, are not uncommon, despite the NCAA having banned “gender-based student hosting groups.” Louisville has used such programs in the past, too. Sex isn’t always part of the job description -- especially not formally -- but it does happen, and sometimes it happens without consent.
In 2007, the University of Colorado at Boulder reached a settlement with two women who said they were gang-raped at a party for recruits. The alleged assaults stemmed from a larger recruiting scandal that included strippers hired to entertain recruits and allegations that hostesses were being paid to sleep with the athletes.
Scandals involving hostess programs have also hit Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
To be clear, Theriot, the chair of Louisville’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, said, using recruiting hostesses is not the same thing as paying for prostitutes to have sex with players. But the two “do exist on a continuum,” she said. They’re both part of a larger pattern of behavior where women are offered up as eye candy or more in an attempt to entice male athletes to join a team.
“With this sort of case, where staff members are paying for sex, it puts an extreme spotlight on what I think is actually a very widespread problem,” Theriot said. “And that is this sexist situation on campus where men are recruiting other men to play sports by providing them with girls.”
1. Name 3 other university's that have been involved in recruiting scandals besides Louisville.
2. Does Rick Pitino plan on resigning?
3. Do you think Rick Pitino should be penalized for these violations if he didn't know anything about them? Why or why not?
4. Do you think this goes on at other top-notch universities? Why or why not?
The former escort, Katina Powell, said she was paid by Andre McGee, the team's former graduate assistant and director of basketball operations, to provide recruits with strip shows and sex during campus visits. Powell said she was given about $10,000 by McGee for supplying dancers -- including her own teenage daughters -- for more than two dozen parties during a four-year period. In one instance, McGee allegedly offered the escort a bottle of whiskey signed by the team's head coach, Rick Pitino, as payment.
On Friday, McGee resigned from his position as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he moved before the scandal broke. “The university deserves a full-time assistant coach and I am not able to provide that to the basketball team while the false allegations against me are being investigated,” McGee stated.
But some Louisville faculty members and other critics aren’t satisfied with McGee’s resignation, saying that Pitino is also culpable and that blame can ultimately be laid at the feet of big-time college sports as a whole. In the arms race that is Division I intercollegiate athletics, they say, some colleges are all too comfortable using attractive young women as a recruiting tool, and powerful coaches can count on underlings to handle the logistics.
“If Pitino didn’t have knowledge about this sort of thing, then he should not be a coach at all,” Nancy Theriot, a professor and chair of women’s and gender studies at Louisville, said. “If he did have knowledge, then he shouldn’t resign. He should be fired.”
While the case is being investigated by both the university and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Louisville officials are adamant that the university has no plans to fire Pitino, who denies knowing about the parties. The veteran Hall of Fame coach said last week that he’s not quitting.
“I will not resign and let you down,” Pitino wrote in a blog post. “Someday I will walk away in celebration of many memorable years, but that time is not now. I do not fight these accusations by others, but rather turn the other cheek. Couldn’t do it at 33, but at 63 it’s the wise thing to do. Let’s let the investigators do their job and we will play basketball.”
In the post, he also referenced Pope Francis’s recent visit to the United States, saying the pope would frequently answer controversial questions with the phrase “we will let God judge.” It’s advice Pitino said Louisville students and fans should remember as the investigation continues. “Let’s not try to justify,” he wrote, “but let the Lord judge.”
Pitino will also be judged, however, by a considerably less celestial entity: the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
Louisville alerted the association about the possible recruiting violations (providing impermissible “extra benefits” to prospects) a month before Powell’s book was published, but it could be months before an investigation is complete. Even if Pitino was unaware of the alleged sex parties, he would likely still be found to have violated NCAA rules. Recent NCAA decisions about recruiting and academic violations at Syracuse University and Southern Methodist University have placed sanctions on head coaches despite finding no evidence that the coaches knew about the misconduct.
That’s because the NCAA revised its rules last year to hold coaches more accountable for all violations within their programs.
“An institution's head coach is presumed to be responsible for the actions of all institutional staff members who report, directly or indirectly, to the head coach,” the revised rule states. “An institution's head coach shall promote an atmosphere of compliance within his or her program and shall monitor the activities of all institutional staff members involved with the program who report, directly or indirectly, to the coach.”
Pitino’s contract -- which runs through 2026 -- contains similar language. The coach is required to “diligently supervise compliance of assistant coaches and any other employees for which [he] is administratively responsible.” The dormitory in which the parties took place was also under Pitino’s purview. The building is designated for athletes and was built at his request.
“You build a basketball dorm because you want more control, not less control,” sports columnist Rick Bozich wrote. “You build a basketball dorm because you want more information about what is going on with your players, not less information. You build a basketball dorm to make certain that scandals like this scandal do not turn your program into a national punch line. You control the security there. You control who comes and goes. You control everything because coaches like Pitino insist upon control.”
As tawdry and sensational as the Louisville case may seem, it is not the first time a program has been accused of using sex to attract athletes to a university.
In 2013, Sports Illustrated reported that Oklahoma State University’s football program used a group of women to entice recruits. Officially, the group, called Orange Pride, was meant to show visiting high school athletes around campus. Unofficially, according to Sports Illustrated, some of the women were having sex with the players. “There's no other way a female can convince you to come play football at a school besides sex,” one former OSU football player said. “The idea was to get [recruits] to think that if they came to Oklahoma State, it was gonna be like that all the time.”
The NCAA ruled that the allegations were "unfounded" but found the university in violation of "engaging in impermissible hosting activities" for using Orange Pride in recruiting activities. Such recruitment groups, or hostess programs, are not uncommon, despite the NCAA having banned “gender-based student hosting groups.” Louisville has used such programs in the past, too. Sex isn’t always part of the job description -- especially not formally -- but it does happen, and sometimes it happens without consent.
In 2007, the University of Colorado at Boulder reached a settlement with two women who said they were gang-raped at a party for recruits. The alleged assaults stemmed from a larger recruiting scandal that included strippers hired to entertain recruits and allegations that hostesses were being paid to sleep with the athletes.
Scandals involving hostess programs have also hit Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
To be clear, Theriot, the chair of Louisville’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, said, using recruiting hostesses is not the same thing as paying for prostitutes to have sex with players. But the two “do exist on a continuum,” she said. They’re both part of a larger pattern of behavior where women are offered up as eye candy or more in an attempt to entice male athletes to join a team.
“With this sort of case, where staff members are paying for sex, it puts an extreme spotlight on what I think is actually a very widespread problem,” Theriot said. “And that is this sexist situation on campus where men are recruiting other men to play sports by providing them with girls.”
1. Name 3 other university's that have been involved in recruiting scandals besides Louisville.
2. Does Rick Pitino plan on resigning?
3. Do you think Rick Pitino should be penalized for these violations if he didn't know anything about them? Why or why not?
4. Do you think this goes on at other top-notch universities? Why or why not?
24 comments:
Ben Blutstein
1. Arizona State University, University of Oregon, and Vanderbilt University
2. No
3. I think that Rick Pitino should be penalized because he is supposed to know and direct everything about/related to his team, so if something happens he should always be held accountable
4. I think it does because there have been many similar scandals in the past
1. Arizona State University, University of Oregon, University of Tenneseee
2. No
3. Yes, he should monitor his players better
4. Yes, to get good players
Gabriel Barnaby
1. the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
2. No he doesn’t
3. If he knew nothing about them he shouldn’t be penalized because it’s not his fault
4. Similar things probably happen at other universities. They are just better at keeping it a secret.
Sourena S.
2/18/2016
1. University of Florida, Carnegie Mellon university, Ohio state university.
2. He does not plan on resigning and letting his team down.
3. No, because he didn't know about the rules and he should not be panelized for what he didn't know.
Torrance Dawkins
1. Oregon, University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University
2. He does not plan on resigning
3. I think he should be penalized because those are his players and he is responsible for what they do in school
4. I don't think so because they probably heard bout this and thought this was stupid.
Young Cho
1.Arizona State,University of Oregon,University of Tennessee
2.no
3.He should not be penalized if he didn't know anything about the scandal but if he knew what was going on he should be.
4.Yes, because every teenagers wants to do it and if there is no one that knows about this, it will just be a secret between the students.
Luke Russell
1.
Arizona State University
University of Tennessee
Vanderbilt
2.
Rick Pitino plans on leaving in the 2016-2017 school year.
3.
Pitino should be penalized because it is his responsibility to enforce rules and set an example.
4.
Yes, according to the article many other schools use female seduction to intice male athletes. If schools want top notch atheletes they are willing to do anything to get them to come to thee school.
Alex Zhang
1. University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
2. No
3.Rick Pitino shouldn't be penalized for these violations, if he truly doesn't know anything about them.
4.Yes, because all universities must have some kind of incidents even if it is on the top.
1)Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University
2)Does not plan on resigning
3)If he did not know anything about them, he should still get penalized, but not as high if he knew about them.
4)I believe that it does because security doesn't stay tight at many top-notch universities, and this isn't the first time that this has happened.
Samat Borbiev
1. The University of Oregon, University of Tennessee, and the Arizona State University have also been involved in recruiting scandals.
2. Coach Rick Pitino does not plan on resigning as a result of the scandal.
3. No, If he didn't know, then a punishment against him wouldn't really be punishing him for anything and would be unfair. Plus, coaches cannot be held accountable for every single thing relating to their basketball teams.
4. On a very small scale, things like this may have happened at other universities because scandals have occurred, but it does not likely happen now or will happen, maybe due to the publicity of this scandal.
Jerry Krieger
1.Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
2.No he doesn't plan to resign
3.Yes because Pitino was aware of these violations
4. I think it happens at other universities is just that there hasn't been news about it yet. It goes unnoticed
Egid Mills
1. Arizona State, Oregon, and Vanderbilt
2. He said he will not resign
3. If he HONESTLY didn't know about them, he shouldn't be penalized because he had nothing to do with it. But, if he knew and let it be, then he should be penalized.
4. I'm sure it does go on at other colleges, but people never knew or don't know yet about it.
-Brett Godsick Period #3
1. Arizona state university, Vanderbilt university, University of Tennessee
2. no
3.Yes, because he should know whats going on with his staff and recruits.
4.yes, because it has happened in the past and needs to be stopped.
Hannah Johsnton
1-Oklahoma State University University of Colorado at Boulder Arizona State University
2- Pitino does not plan on resigning
3- Pitino should be slightly penalized. He want apart of it so he shouldn't be fired, but he should have some punishment for allowing this to happen
4-This probably does happen at other universities bc it is a way to attract young men to comment to their universities for sports, not matter if it's morally correct.
-Gelila Yimam
1.) Arizona st, university of Oregon, university of tennessee
2.) No
3.) No because it wouldn't be fair if he got penalized because he didn't know anything about the scandal
4.) Yes because the top schools want to get the best players
Costa Borsas
Shiva
1.)Arizona state, Oregon, Tennessee
2.) no
3) Yes but not as severely because it still happend under his watch although he had nothing to do with it
4.)Yes I think this has been happening at alot of top colleges they just haven't been exposed yet
1. the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University
2. No he does not plan on resigning
3. I think he should because every coach knows what is going on whether they say so or not. He should get suspended or fired because of these illegal activities
4. I think it probably does because schools want the best players possible so they'll do anything to recruit players. It is unethical and should not be done but it probably does.
Jason Li (Final)
1. Orgeon TN Vanderbilt
2. he will not resign
3. IF he didn't know about it, then he should not be AS penalized
4. This is commonplace b/c this is how universities attract young ballers to play their team
1. University of Colorado, OSU, and Arizona State university
2. I dont think he'll resign
3. Yes because it is his team that is involved in the scandal so either way if hes involved or not, he's responsible for any scandal involving them
4. Probably because NCAA teams are willing to do the most to recruit the best players in the country
Nick John Pd. 3
1. Arizona State University, University of Oregon, and Vanderbilt University
2. Nope
3. Rick Pitino should be penalized because he is supposed to know and dictate everything about his team Or anything related so if something happens he should always be held accountable
4. I think it does because top notch colleges will recruit at any costs
1.ASU, Oregon, Vanderbilt
2.no
3. I think he should definitely be penalized because he is supposed to know what is happening Throughout his program.
4. It does because NCAA scouts will do what ever it takes to. Get the best players
Garrett Koch period 3
Michael Lin
1. the University of Oregon, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University.
2. No he doesn’t
3. If he knew nothing about them he shouldn’t be penalized because it’s not his fault
4. Similar things probably happen at other universities. They are just better at keeping it a secret.
The university of Oregon, the university of Tennessee and Vanderbilt
No he dosnt
If he knew nothing about them he shouldn't be penalized because it's not his fault
Similar things probably happen at other univercities they can keep it more private then other schools
Zachary Nannen
1. FSU, Florida, Miami.
2. rick does not plan on resigning.
3. he should not be penalized because he was unaware of the violations and therefore he could have done nothing to put an end to it.
4. Yes it does because every school looks for advantages over other schools.
John Billingsley
resubmitted
Post a Comment