King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Indiana is the latest sorry tale of NCAA crime and punishment. Coach crime, athlete punishment.

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Feb. 26, 2008 | The NCAA crime and punishment machine has wheezed into action again, this time at Indiana. As usual, the coaches do the crime, the kids get the punishment.

Wonderful system the NCAA has going here.

Hoosiers men's basketball coach Kelvin Sampson stepped down Friday amid a scandal involving illegal phone calls to recruits. What a coincidence: That's the very violation he was on probation for having committed at Oklahoma when Indiana hired him. What are the odds he'd -- allegedly -- do the same thing again? And then lie about it to university and NCAA investigators.

Sampson took a $750,000 buyout, equal to a year and a half's salary. That let the university put a quick end to the matter of his continued employment while protecting itself from the kind of unlawful-termination lawsuit that universities have been losing lately. Sampson also agreed to cooperate with any investigations and not to interfere with the team.

An anonymous donor gave the university $550,000 toward that buyout. That's someone who really cares about education right there. You're able to give half a million to a state university, and you hand it over not to fund scholarships or modernize a library, but to pay off a dirty basketball coach so the program can move on as smoothly as possible.

Indiana has so far sanctioned itself, firing an assistant coach and denying itself a scholarship. The school is hoping that will keep the NCAA wolves at bay, but among the possible punishments for what the association calls five major violations would be a postseason ban. A decision isn't expected until after a hearing in June, so any such ban wouldn't take effect until next year.

But ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski writes that Indiana should punish itself by banning itself from this year's Tournament.

If that or an NCAA ban happens, just to review, it would be: Kelvin Sampson, who cheated, gets a check for $750,000. The unpaid players, who didn't cheat, including some who, at the time of Sampson's resignation, never mind his alleged offenses, were not yet enrolled at the university, get to not go to the postseason for a while.

Sweet deal for those players.

Fortunately, it's all part of their "education," which can be summed up in four words: Follow the money, boys.

Next page: The root violations, like most NCAA violations, are a little silly