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The Sampson Situation

February 22, 2008|Sean Wilson

At the risk of turning this column into something of a whining, complaint section of the recent controversies in sports today, I would like to address the Kelvin Sampson Situation at Indiana University.

Let me first begin with, I grew-up loving two basketball programs, University of Kentucky and Indiana University. I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri, so this may sound weird. Let me clarifiy. Growing up in Missouri, and having a grandfather that played football at Mizzou, it was instilled in me to dislike Kansas University to the core of my body. Mizzou never had that great of a basketball program under Norm Stewart, but every now and again Norm would crank up the boys and pull one out from under Roy Williams. There were two schools that seemed to have Roy's number back in the day. Rick Pitino at UK and Bob Knight at IU. Thus, the love affair with UK and IU.

Now to the present with this Sampson debacle.

I was one of those that fell in line with the crowd saying that this would be a risky chance but the reward was worth it. Kelvin Sampson took a non-existent Oklahoma program and turned them into a Big XII power, and this was at a school where football is king, not just at the school but the state. Just think what he could do at a school where basketball was given the endless resources.

It now appears that Sampson has taken advantage of those endless resources and will now reap the consequences of not being able to look at a calendar. Sampson is out at Indiana University because of making improper phone calls to recruits. I know that with how the NCAA runs things there has to be a calendar saying when he could and could not contact recruits, not to mention he was on probation for the same offense when he was the coach at Oklahoma. So he had to have had some idea?

Did he think that no one was watching? Or that the NCAA wouldn't check up on him? I find it hard to believe that someone who is smart enough to coach a Big Ten program would not think that some one would be watching in the wings to nail him on something like this.

Indiana University had prided itself on running a clean, and law-abiding program. Up until the Bob Knight incident there had been no reports of tarnishing of this image. Now with the programs' second ding in a shiny reputation that image looks to be in jeopardy. The next head coach better mind his P's and Q's with the NCAA, or IU might find its reputation in the cellar.

As for my love affair with Indiana, they still may have Kansas's number but I tend to focus more on how the Wildcats fair. Do I smell bacon cooking???

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