Causes Of Corruption In College Sports

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“The college basketball world was turned upside down on Sept. 29,2017 when the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York laid out findings from an F.B.I. investigation that uncovered mass corruption, bribery and fraud involving some of the sport's top programs,” (Rapaport). The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has often exposed corruption in athletic programs. Scandals can be in many forms and have different types of penalties depending on the situation. Some scandals involve coaches who recruit players against the rules by giving players bribes or gifts that will make them come play for their program. Also, sometimes the universities may make classes easier for the athletes to pass, so the players can…show more content…
In the Michigan State scandal, a doctor named, Larry Nassar, sexually assaulted many athletes that came to him when they were injured. Some of his patients included USA Gymnast, Aly Raisman (Mintualingo). This issue has affected Michigan State’s reputation. In the Louisville scandal, their coach, Rick Pitino was accused of bribing recruits. As a result, Pitino was fired, and the Louisville Basketball Program lost a national championship, final fours, and 123 wins (“NCAA Denies Louisville”). A scandal that resulted in very little penalties was the UNC scandal. UNC was accused of cheating and making “fake classes” for athletes for twenty or so years, but they were ultimately not found guilty (Maxymuk). Finally, one of the worst scandals in college sport was at Southern Methodist University (SMU). At SMU, coaches paid their recruits so that more talented players would play for their football team. As a result, the program received the so called, “Death Penalty,” which prohibited the football team from competing for a year or more. So, while punishments and scandals vary, it is evident that these scandals dramatically affect teams, players and…show more content…
If a coach is caught up in a scandal, he/she may face serious consequences; they might even get fired. This happened to Rick Pitino at Louisville University. Prior to Rick Pitino being fired he was given a five game suspension by the NCAA (Bahr). Eventually, the NCAA decided to come to a conclusion that Louisville would be forced to fire one of their greatest coaches of all time, Rick Pitino (Bahr). This action greatly impacts Pitino and the program. This impacts Pitino because he may not be wanted anywhere else to coach, so he will have to possibly give up his coaching career, and he will lose money. This impacts the program because the team will not be as successful as they were prior to the scandal. The final way coaches are affected by college sports scandals is their reputation. A coach’s reputation may get worse after a scandal, depending on how they were involved in it. If a coach has a bad reputation, he/she will not be wanted anywhere and they will have to quit their job of coaching. This was shown by Rick Pitino because no program has offered him a job since he was fired from Louisville because he is seen as a criminal

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