Jim Calhoun is a gruf, sullen, angry looking man who snarls at the media, yells at his students, and refuses to censor his thoughts and his words. If he coached another team, I admit, I wouldn't like him. He isn't the type of personality you can love from afar. He isn't someone who evokes a lot of blah feelings, ala Bill Self or Roy Williams. You either love him or you hate him and, chances are, if you love him it's because you're a University of Connecticut Men's Basketball fan.
I get that. I really do. I get that, in athletics of all sorts, we, as fans, use whatever we can, whenever we can, to find a way to hate the other side, and paint them as evil and fraudulent. In a lot of ways, it's a defense mechanism. Win and you not only have won a game, you have vanquished a deplorable adversary who, in the world of right and wrong, did not deserve victory. Lose, and it's because you choose to do things the right, proper, moral way, while your opponent threw morality to the wind and sacrificed all in the name of wins and loses.
We see it in everything. How many Red Sox and Yankee fans were holding their breath, waiting anxiously for a player on either team to be implicated in the steroid scandal? For all the high-browed talk of “staining the game,” steroids simply became an extension of the playing field. You had more cheaters than we did, so we win.
Don't think North Carolina or Duke fans cross their fingers that some nasty scandal will come out enveloping their hated rivals? Forget the damage it would do to the school, the people involved with the program, the players on the team at the moment, and the image of college athletics in general. That's a small price to pay for being able to stick it to the other team's fanbase.
When Uconn beat Kentucky on Saturday night, I wasn't expecting what came. Uconn was immediately billed as evil, Butler as good. I was prepared for David versus Goliath. Uconn has won two national titles, now been to four final fours, and has a bevy of NBA star players that count Uconn as their home. Butler is the upstart, the little college that could, having shocked the world with an appearance in the final game last year (a Gordon Hayward desperation at the end away from beating Duke) and then made an even more astounding run at the championship this year, all with a group of players that probably won't get a sniff from the professional ranks.
I was expecting that and, in all honesty, was ready to revel in that. While the rest of the country might look at Uconn as one of the premier college basketball programs in the country, I am still somewhat amazed they reside on that level. I remember when Uconn WAS Butler. I remember when their run with Coach Calhoun in 1990 was as amazing as anything current Cinderella's do every year. To have turned that great initial run into two decades of dominance is amazing.
That's why I am shocked that so many have decided to bill this game as good versus evil, morality versus greed, right way versus any way.
You can dislike Jim Calhoun all you want, but to brand him a cheater, an example of all that is wrong with college athletics, is absurd. It is indecent. It is just plain wrong.
The NCAA found that Uconn had a relationship with a former team manager who became an agent. That agent evidently steered recruit Nate Miles towards Uconn. Here is what we know: Uconn coaches made too many phones and sent too many text messages to Miles as they recruited him. If anyone can explain to me why making too many calls or texts is bad, I'll pay your $1,000. I'm fairly confident I'll be holding onto my money.
We also know that some free tickets to a couple of Uconn games were left for Miles and a coach. If you've ever been to a game at the XL Center, you wouldn't be up in arms about someone getting free tickets.
That's what we KNOW the University did.
There was no allegation of grades tampering. There was no allegation that Miles received money from Calhoun, the school, or anyone associated with the school. Even the accusations levied against Nochimson, the agent, seem fuzzy. Miles needed surgery on his foot, yet it is unclear whether Nochimson actually paid for the surgery or just helped Miles secure money for the surgery. Either way, there's no evidence Uconn knew anything about it.
Miles, who hasn't wanted to talk to the NCAA at all, now says he will. He says Calhoun “knew” about the allegations, though offers no proof other than an assumption. He now says Nochimson paid Miles $250 from time to time to help him with expenses, yet, again, offers no proof. By the way, Miles now says he won't grant interviews with media outlets unless he is paid. He needs the cash. What a shock.
I honestly fail to see what is so bad about the infractions Uconn is accused of violating. Phone calls? Text messaging? You honestly care about that?
Should Uconn have been smarter about its relationship with a former team assistant turned agent? Of course. But, really, what is the difference between that and having a relationship with a booster? And, how many schools have relationships with AAU coaches? The answer, all of them. Why? To help steer kids to colleges.
If there were proof that Jim Calhoun and his coaching staff either paid, or knowingly provided money, thousands of dollars, to Nate Miles, I would be outraged. If there were proof that grades had been fixed, data tampered with to get Miles into school, I would be ashamed. But, in the grand scheme of college athletics, what Uconn did was......nothing. Uconn violated NCAA rules that shouldn't be rules to begin with. Should they have adhered to those rules, regardless? Yes. But, to paint Jim Calhoun and Uconn as all that is wrong with college basketball without asking “well, what did they really do” is intellectually lazy.
And I think it has become transparent that no one really cares all that much about the violations. Want proof? Pick any story that has come out in the last 24 hours, one that paints Calhoun or Uconn as dirty, and count how many times they mention something more than just “NCAA violations.” There is never, ever, ever any explanation about those infractions. Why? Because the details are boring, mundane, and run the risk of getting every reader thinking “wait, that's a big deal?” When USC was getting pounded for the Reggie Bush scandal, every article recapped how much Reggie had gotten from his booster, his new car, and the house for his parents. It was tangible. You could put your arms around it and say “jeez, that's not right.”
When Calipari's troubles are mentioned in the media, they talk about the money Marcus Camby received at Umass and the SAT scandal with Derek Rose. Again, the detail feed the story.
Here, the details would ruin the story.
If you write Jim Calhoun will be suspended three games next year because his staff sent too many text messages and called Nate Miles too many times, people go, “What?” If you say the coaches might have left a few free tickets to college basketball games for the kid, people go “who cares?”
But, if you just simply write “major NCAA infractions” people think the worst. They think money changing hands. They think grades appearing or disappearing. They think Jerry Tarkanian and UNLV. They think Blue Chips with Nick Nolte.
Say “major NCAA infractions” and then call Jim Calhoun a cheat, a fraud, and a black eye for college athletics, and you have your story. No need to elaborate. No need to explain. Let the imagination run wild because, hell, we know it will be a lot more interesting than the truth.
I don't know why this has bothered me so much, but it has. I guess I expected more than just a tar and feathering of a man and a program that came up from nothing and, in 25 years, never had so much as an accusation made. I guess I expected people to put rooting interests aside and look at the facts. I guess I was hoping people wouldn't look to continue character assisination just simply to further a fun little narrative about clean cut Butler versus nasty cheating Uconn.
This couldn't have just been a game, could it? Butler's run couldn't have been appreciated for it's brilliance? Uconn and Jim Calhoun couldn't have been given credit for rising well beyond expectations and doing more in one month than most teams do in four years?
Instead, we needed “good vesus evil.” We needed to annoint Brad Stevens as a saint, Jim Calhoun as a demon. And, in so doing, paint a respected, and respectable University with an undeserving brush of corruption, and tarnish the talents of Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lamb, Shabazz Napier, and the rest as somehow unclean.
Let's go Uconn. Shove this up everyone's ass. And, if this is truly “good against evil,” then let's hope its Halloween tonight.
GO HUSKIES!!!!!
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