Bruce Pearl's Humiliation

College sports seemingly can't get around scandals for very long. Yesterday's scandal involved Tennessee Men's Basketball Head Coach, Bruce Pearl. The NCAA had apparently conducted a 17th month investigation of his program's recruiting and during that time Pearl had given misleading and incorrect information to investigators. How do we know this? The NCAA sent a letter to Tennessee saying they were going to investigate the entire athletics department. This letter probably spurred Pearl into publicly apologizing for his actions. While the NCAA will likely punish Pearl and the program, Tennessee has already handed out some punishment of their own by reducing Pearl's pay $1.5 Million over the next five years and prohibiting him from participating in off campus recruiting for one year.

It seems like the NCAA is facing a new scandal every 15 minutes. USC recruiting scandals, Professional Agents signing players in the SEC, coaches leaving for new jobs while still working for some other team (Brian Kelly, Lane Kiffin, and Nick Saban to name a few). I know coaches changing jobs isn't scandalous but it should be. College Football and Basketball used to seem noble and innocent long ago but now it's all about money and benefits. With that comes problems. Coach Pearl was just a guy trying to make his program more productive by going outside the rules. These violations seem to keep coming and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of another one before the end of the year.

P.S. The NCAA seems to also be investigating possible recruiting violations involving Tennessee's Football program under Lane Kiffin's one year stint. He learned how to jump ship just like his mentor, Pete Carroll.