Remember when you got bad grades in school or forgot to do your chores for the 47th time? Then before your parents could take off their belt or banish you to your bedroom for an eternity, you’d attempt to negotiate a much less severe punishment in order to preserve your freedoms and civil liberties as a valued citizen of your Black-ass household?
“Okay, so no allowance for a week, aaaaaaand I’ll cut the grass on Saturday! We good, right?”
It didn’t always work, but sometimes it paid to demonstrate initiative. So in the case of LSU’s football and basketball programs, which are currently under investigation for one too many major rule violations, LSU is trying its damnedest to avoid the unyielding wrath of the NCAA and is sending itself to the corner.
From Sports Illustrated:
The school is docking itself eight football scholarships over a two-year period and reducing recruiting visits, evaluations and communication after a nearly two-year investigation uncovered booster payments to the father of a football player, sources tell Sports Illustrated. The school is banning from its facilities for two years ex-LSU receiver and current NFL star Odell Beckham Jr., who distributed $2,000 worth of $100 bills during a wild scene that unfolded on the field following LSU’s win over Clemson in the national championship game in the New Orleans Superdome.
Ouch.
“LSU has worked proactively and in cooperation with the NCAA to identify and self-report any violations that occurred within our football program,” Robert Munson, LSU’s senior associate athletic director, said in a statement. “We believe these self-imposed penalties are appropriate and we will continue to coordinate and cooperate with the NCAA on this matter.”
As many of you recall, Beckham committed a Level III violation himself when he infamously cashed out several LSU players after they won the national championship in January.
As for the wider allegations that the NCAA is investigating, wellllllll...
In a document released to ESPN by the university in August, NCAA vice president of enforcement Jonathan Duncan wrote that LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade either arranged for or offered “impermissible payments” to at least 11 potential recruits or others around them.
Duncan wrote that the NCAA enforcement staff received information that Wade “arranged for, offered and/or provided impermissible payments, including cash payments, to at least 11 men’s basketball prospective student-athletes, their family members, individuals associated with the prospects and/or nonscholastic coaches in exchange for the prospects’ enrollment at LSU.”
Oh, and this too:
The father of former offensive lineman Vadal Alexander received $180,000 in stolen money from LSU booster John Paul Funes, who admitted in 2019 that he embezzled more than half a million dollars from Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. The money was payment from 2012 to 2017 for what the NCAA characterized as a “no-show job.”
An impermissible recruiting contact in January 2019 by LSU coach Ed Orgeron. The school self-imposed recruiting restrictions on Orgeron.
This is a big ass mess that will only get uglier before any of it gets better. But for LSU’s sake, at least former athletic director Joe Alleva and former head coach Les Miles, who held prominent positions at LSU while all of this foolishness and fuckery was going down, are no longer with the school. Alleva stepped down in 2019 and Miles was fired in 2016—by Alleva.
I’m not completely sold that these self-imposed penalties will keep Mom and Dad off of LSU’s ass, but it was at least worth a try, right?