He revealed his involvement to the feds nearly a year ago while cooperating in their investigation, as part of his plea bargain. Yahoo! Sports picked it up and dug into the bankruptcy records and interviewed people. Since it was going to be in the open, this Shapiro guy probably said “Screw it, might as well tell my side.” I believe pretty much everything he says.
Yahoo says he’s going public because he’s angry. (And like MOIDALIZE said, the finances were disclosed in his criminal case.) When he got busted, everybody at Miami acted like they didn’t know him because they didn’t want to be associated with him. That’s one of the risks of a system like this: someone gets caught, everyone turns their backs, and then the person who gets caught is upset and goes public.
I’m one of the people who say nobody will ever get the death penalty again, but wow, this is enormous. They even managed to work abortion in there.
Beaten to the punch, but this came out a year ago: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/29/1797096/new-book-to-allege-violations.html
He never got a chance to get his book published, of course, and I’d imagine that book deal is worthless now that Yahoo! has put out so much info. I also agree that he’s just trying to weasel his way out of his share of responsability, which makes sense for a weasel.
The details of that are to be taken with a grain of salt or more. An unnamed player went to a strip club and had sex with a stripper. Certainly plausible/likely. But he’s the only guy she had sex with, and she knew she was pregnant after 2 weeks, so he paid for the abortion? And he didn’t tell the player? Sure, I’ll buy that.
We can’t really evaluate it since there are no names in the story (although they evidently did get the player’s name from Shapiro). I’m just saying that the story even manages to touch on that controversial issue. I don’t think it’s implausible but I’m inclined to think the story is generally true. We’ll see if the inquiry bears it out.
Since Miami is playing Ohio St next month, I guess it will be dubbed the “Inelig-Bowl”
Assuming the 12 players named are forced to sit during the investigation, we’ll only be without our best linebacker, the 2 starting safeties and their top back-up, our best DE, and a top-2 wr. Nevermind the depth. At least our qb situation looks to be settled. Jacory Harris’ penchant for throwing lots and lots of INTs will be eliminated. Also, the team’s strength was already going to be running the ball, and the top 2 RBs and all the O-linemen look like they’ll be alright.
Miami 56
OSU* 49
This is how Vegas pays for giant hotels. Dude, you guys are a 7-5 team at best this year. OSU, Va Tech, and FSU are all going to spank your ass.
Speaking of ESPN, they’ve upped it to millions.
I don’t bet. And it was a joke.
Oh. Well, whoosh on me.
For what’s it worth, as a life-long Seminole fan, I hate this situation. Look, “The U” made convenient bad guys for a lot of years and certainly, you had Bobby’s number for years, but I would still rather play and beat (or not) competition at the top of their game. Abusing a down team just seems…meaningless.
Agreed. Growing up, Miami-FSU was THE game for cfb, and so it always will be for me. It finally looked like both could get back up high, especially with Meyer leaving UF. Now this. :smack:
Here’s an interesting read (very long). Yes, I’m a Miami fan linking a column from a Miami fansite, but it provides a bit of context to the Yahoo! articles.
Here’s something else I saw last night, with an interesting quote (as transcribed elsewhere, the link is audio):
Note that this quote is from Maria Elena Perez, the attorney for Shapiro. I’m not a lawyer nor a journalist, but in a case like this, should either of these people be using the term “my friend” when referring to the other? Maybe that’s a nitpick, or maybe it’s taken out of context. But it’s a bothersome quote at face value.
That wasn’t terribly convincing. Basically, his argument boils down to “They haven’t printed all the evidence they have in the Yahoo article!” Given that there’s apparently eleventy-billion pages of evidence, thousands of photos, and hundreds of interviews, I can only respond with “No shit, Sherlock.”
The only thing that might save Miami is that it appears that former coach Randy Shannon did specifically try to keep Shapiro away from the program (but not entirely successfully). But really, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that if Miami doesn’t get the death penalty for these violations, then no major football program will ever get the death penalty again, so go ahead and pay your players all you want because the punishment won’t be that bad.
That article is effin’ beautiful. Paul Dee, you get an F. Go eff yourself, effin’ hypocrite.
(USC fan chiming in.)
Come on, Yahoo Sports, what about Auburn? Surely you can’t believe that Cam Newton had NO IDEA Daddy got all the money for him.
I know, patience. It took them 4 years to get USC and, apparently, Miami.
Hell, one of the photos they ran is Shapiro in a nightclub VIP area with football players and assistant basketball coaches. That is lack of institutional control.
I agree. And I don’t think that dropping the death penalty bomb every 25 years could be considered excessive. And like Mandel points out, if USC lost 2 years of post season play and 30 scholarships for what happened with one player, what punishment would Miami get for issues with 72 players?
If the NCAA has to pay payroll tax if were to players get paid, an you know they don’t want to pay it, they have to use the death penalty.
Hey, on the bright side, the U won a couple of national championships the last time they came off sanctions, IIRC.
What pisses me off is that this could do serious damage to the other Florida schools because the U and/or Shapiro apparently gave a bunch of improper benefits to recruits who wound up signing elsewhere.
I like how we’re hearing the common refrain “This wouldn’t happen if we only paid college players”.
I’m thinking they wouldn’t get paid enough to afford all that bling, cars, yachts, abortions, and other VIP treatment. You never hear “Team is on probation because an agent/booster helped a player feed his family”
Agreed. I’m not necessarily opposed to paying college players, but it would have minimal impact on how many players take improper benefits.