As I Was Saying

Receipts? Receipts?! Why not release a fucking documentary?

Remember when I wrote this?

I am also still wary of Mayo, though Floyd's account of the New York Times story's subjects fills in some gaps. I don't want to vilify someone whom I don't know and who's in a situation with which I am unfamiliar, but as a sports fan, especially one who follows college sports and the tawdry world of recruiting and alternative compensation for athletes on campus, how can you not be suspicious of a rising freshman who has already enumerated goals of marketing himself and earning recognition as a program's savior? No matter how Mayo and his advocates frame those goals--maybe it's part of a next-level marketing plan, maybe it's hubris--aren't they similar to so many of the problems teams encounter when players are selfish? Don't they seem to lend themselves to problems that already afflict the USC sports culture, one in which celebrities crawl the sidelines and agents may or may not be making illegal contact with players? Again, the rules and conventions of our college-sports system may be built on a misleading foundation and should perhaps be significantly changed, but until they are, shouldn't we be concerned about abiding by them?

And this?

As many know, he's committed to playing at generally non-basketball-inclined USC next year because, as he's said, he wants to attend a school where he will not be upstaged by any sort of heritage, and he likes Los Angeles because he can market himself before getting to the NBA. As a result, through a handler hanger-on, he told the coach, Tim Floyd, for whom he'll play that coaches don't call O.J., he calls them, and that he doesn't give out his phone number. He also said that he'd take care of additional recruiting. I can only imagine that when practice starts next year, he'll take care of installing the offense. And that on days when he's late, he'll explain that much like a wizard, he's never early or late, but arrives precisely when he means to.

Coaching Mayo next year will be a thankless task.

And this?

As has been well-established by O.J. Mayo, Tim Floyd doesn't call the shots at USC. Neither does Pete Carroll, apparently. The players run things at Southern Cal, and the "school" is proud to boast that it's a haven for superstars as they sort out the latter stages of their adolescences and then go pro, either as athletes or losers or whatever else guys who max out in college go into. That USC even continues the charade that it cares about educating its revenue-generating athletes is admirable; other schools, like the Ohio State Joke of a University, don't seem to. Buckeyes are just proud that their "student athletes" make it through five-credit courses like History of Rock and Roll or put in extra "classroom" time over the summer taking golf and AIDS awareness (for which the final exam is a one-question retrospective: Is it good to get AIDS?). And, I can only imagine that the faculty and the non-celebrity students at Southern Cal are thrilled to be at a place with such proper priorities.

Well, how's that whole O.J. Mayo thing working out? One-and-done; first-round flame out; possible probation. Totally worth it, Tim Floyd. Totes.

To be fair to USC, let's ask the obvious question--what timid response do we expect from the gutless NCAA? Maybe they'll take USC off TV for three games? Maybe the team has to perform community service one afternoon? Sell girl-scout cookies at Matt Leinart's crib? Floyd and Mike Garrett must wash cars? Yeah, you show 'em, Myles Brand!

The Mayo skeptics were legion, so I don't entertain fantasies of possessing some unique, insightful sports prescience. But still, let's also not neglect that this mess was, uh, predictable.

Oh, and how about making kids go to school for three years so that they're more accountable, schools have more incentive to maintain institutional control, and the product on the floor is better?