RUTGERS AND PERNETTI JUMP INTO NCAA'S CESSPOOL

 

Integrity and honesty among NCAA schools are like Manti Teo's girlfriend. Dead and

never really existed. Lying, cheating, and looking the other way, have long been part of the
culture of big-time athletics. The governing body can hand down the toughest sanctions in
college sports history and hardly anybody blinks. It just keeps happening over and over and
over again. The NCAA took a wrecking ball to Penn State football program last year with
unprecedented penalties designed to cripple the entire athletic department and nobody learned
a thing. Nobody.

Rutgers University sure didn't. The athletic administration at the school in New Jersey
must have been on vacation when the big shots at Penn State got caught protecting their
image and golden goose, rather than ensuring the safety and welfare of young children who
wound up getting abused on its campus. Young student-athletes were getting physically and
emotionally abused on their campus by a maniac coach who used them as target practice and
to test out his MMA moves he had just learned about.

Nobody had a tape of the things that were going on at Penn State, thankfully, but Rutgers had
moving pictures of a coach gone wild, not only kicking, punching, and throwing basketballs at
them, but spewing homophobic slurs. Instead of doing the right thing, they did the right thing
for themselves and Rutgers. They didn't care about the players who were getting nailed in the
head with projectiles  or the ones who were called f*g#ts.  The administration  somehow forgot
about the Rutgers student who recently killed himself after being humiliated by two fellow
students for his sexuality.

As we saw as Penn State, the administration at Rutgers looked the other way for two reasons:
image and money. A scandal like this, as we've seen, can hang a black cloud over a school
for many years. Pernetti, the athletic director, is image conscious in every facet of his life,
but most of all, his career. He was the one who hired Mike Rice and knew of his volcanic-style
of coaching. Pernetti knew of Rice's reputation. If he didn't perform due diligence on it, then
he should be fired on that alone. Pernetti saw that tape before anybody else at Rutgers and
I'm sure his reaction, as least internally, was like everyone else's: holy effin crap! There isn't
a human on this planet who would say, "Man, it's not that bad. My pop warner coach did that
to me all the time."

Pernetti knew what he had on his hands and that was a major problem. He could have done
the right thing and that was to fire Rice immediately. He had the smoking gun (video) and there
was no way Rice could defend himself or a chance the public would have a problem with his
decision. But to Pernetti, it wasn't about doing the right thing, it was about doing the right thing
for Rutgers and himself. Firing Rice surely would've brought headlines the school didn't want
or need. Pernetti didn't want Rice, whom he hired, to be the first big mistake on his otherwise
sterling resume. If you asked Pernetti before Wednesday if he had ever made a mistake in his
entire life, his retort would've been, "Are your kidding me? None."

The other reason Rutgers looked the other way, was the money. Isn't it always about the money?
Integrity, honesty, and strong moral fiber always seem to evaporate when people are chasing the
almighty dollar. It did at Penn State where the football program generated more than $60 million
a year. They tried to protect the golden goose at all costs and ended up killing it because they
couldn't deal with the truth. And neither could Rutgers. They had a combustible coach who wasn't
even that good.  I mean, who the heck is Mike Rice and what did he do in his career to warrant
such protection against his despicable behavior? He sure isn't within 50 miles of the elite group
running at the head of the pack like Coach K, Rick Pitino, Jim Boeheim, and Roy Williams.

Yet, he was. for some unfathomable reason, protected. Oh, wait, it wasn't so unfathomable.
Pernetti didn't want he or the school to look bad, especially at a time when he was negotiating to
get into the Big Ten, which he became the golden boy on campus for. Pernetti ensured Rutgers
an extra $25 million a year just by moving into that glamorous conference. Yep, it's about the
money, isn't it? It's ALWAYS about the money.

But can you imagine an athletic director spending any kind of money to have an independent
investigator come in to look at a tape where a coach is yelling, kicking, screaming, punching,
and grabbing players all over the court. What, you can't make that decision yourself?  Seriously?
Grow a spine, get a clue, and make your own decision. Isn't that what they are paying you for?
Doesn't the state of New Jersey, which is paying your salary, expect you to protect the welfare
of its students?

The stain of this scandal won't go away for Rutgers anytime soon. Perhaps, if it happened in
a place like Lubbock, Texas or Ames, Iowa it would die down pretty quickly. But Rutgers is
a Mike Rice basketball toss away from New York City, the media capital of the world. The
journalists there dig, claw, and scratch for every morsel of dirt they can find. There are high-profile
politicians who have their own agendas and don't have any problem grandstanding to get the
answers and the heads on a platter the public wants.

Pernetti did this to himself. Rutgers did this to themselves. They should have done the right thing,
instead of doing what they felt was the right thing for Rutgers. And just like at Penn State it
has blown up in the faces for the entire country to see.

With the NCAA, the cesspool is always open and Rutgers is swimming in it right now without
a life preserver.