Where have you gone Mike White & Ervin Smalls? The Hypocrisy of the NCAA Rules Enforcement

Its good to be a university these days.  Its GREAT to be a university in a large dominant conference today. 

In the name of winning, you can basically break any rule, and as long as the coach is fired, quits, or resign, the school continues on its merry way.

USC commits felonious type of activities, not for the first time, but gets its national title stripped.  Coach Pete Caroll goes to the NFL, no harm to him.

Lane Kiffin skirts the edges of the rules at Tennessee and no harm no foul, BUT the same university has Bruce Pearl on the payroll.  Lie to the NCAA once?  Not a problem, do the same twice, forget about it, we'll penalize the coach.  Oh, he's not coaching there anymore, no worries.  Go about your business.

Now comes the University of Miami, Hookers, Money, whatever the players wanted.  For a period of years and a myriad of coaches.  Considering their history, obviously a ripe candidate for the worst punishement of all, the NCAA Death Penalty.  Shut the sport down, like SMU back in the day.

But wait, that won't happen these days because the power is with the superconferences, not the NCAA anymore.

Which brings us back to Mike White and Ervin Smalls.  Mike White was and still is my favorite coach that the U of I had in football.  He was 20 years ahead of his time in passing attack.  He was also 20 years ahead in terms of violating rules.  A two time offender he was all but banished from college sports, for infractions these days that wouldn't even rock a Notre Dame scissor lift. 

Ervin Smalls - A mediocre talent from a very poor family.  He played basketball at the U of I with Kenny Battle, Kendall Gill and others.  Problem was one day he showed up at Aunt Sonya's in Champaign where the coaches were at.  They loaned him $10 to get breakfast.  Somehow, the NCAA viewed this as "lack of institutional control" when the whole Deon Thomas debacle went down.  Our first introduction to the aforemntioned Bruce Pearl. 

While I hated the rulings back then as a dyed in thewool Illini fan, I think I liked the aggressive punishment better now that I look at what's happening today.