Penn State Hit With NCAA's Punitive Hammer & Paterno's Statue Comes Down (Mitigating Lawsuit Damages)

NCAA gives Penn State 'stark wake-up call' with $60 million fine

Saying it is "a stark wake-up call to everyone involved in college sports," the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced a $60 million fine against Penn State University on Monday and took away 14 seasons of football victories from the late Joe Paterno.

The school was also banned from the postseason for four years and will lose 20 football scholarships a year for four seasons, NCAA President Mark Emmert said.

Emmert said the unprecedented fine will be paid over five years to fund programs that serve the victims of child sexual abuse.

The Big Ten Conference also acted Monday, ruling that Penn State is ineligible for its conference title football game and that the Nittany Lions' share of bowl revenues for the next four seasons -- approximately $13 million -- will be donated to charities that "protect children."

The NCAA's punishments are part of the continued fallout from the child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted in late June of 45 of the 48 counts he faced involving 10 young victims.

Read more: Penn State board member resigns over Sandusky scandal

The punishments follow an independent investigation led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report held four top Penn State officials, including Paterno, responsible for failing to stop the abuse. That failure began in 1998, according to the report.

"The corrective and punitive measures the executive committee and the Division I board of directors have authorized should serve as a stark wake-up call to everyone in college sports," said Ed Ray, chairman of the NCAA's executive committee.

Penn State President Rodney Erickson said in a written statement that the university has accepted the NCAA decision and will not appeal.

"It is important to know we are entering a new chapter at Penn State and making necessary changes," he said. "We must create a culture in which people are not afraid to speak up, management is not compartmentalized, all are expected to demonstrate the highest ethical standards, and the operating philosophy is open, collegial, and collaborative."

Paterno, who coached at Penn State for 46 years, had been the all-time leader in major college football victories for a coach, with 409 wins. The NCAA's decision strikes 111 of those from his record, beginning in 1998.

"The NCAA has now become the latest party to accept the [Freeh] report as the final word on the Sandusky scandal," the Paterno family said in a statement Monday. "The sanctions announced by the NCAA today defame the legacy and contributions of a great coach and educator without any input from our family or those who knew him best."

The penalties are a major blow to one of college football's traditional powers, even though the two-time national champions avoided a suspension of at least one year. The postseason ban, which is also unprecedented, could damage the school's prestige in the eyes of potential recruits and will also affect the program's bottom line through the loss of potential millions from the conference title and bowl games.

A recent university study said the football program had a $161.5 million impact on Pennsylvania in 2009. The football team made a $53.2 million profit in 2010, according to CNN Money. The school made $24 million more through general merchandise sales, CNN Money reported.

"One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, indeed, too big to even challenge," Emmert said. "The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by the value of hero worship and winning at all cost."

The penalties also deal an emotional blow to the Penn State community, one fan said.

"By essentially taking away the main pillar of the university, you are almost pulling the university down," former student Ujas Patel told CNN. What really hurts, he said, is taking wins away from Paterno, known affectionately by fans as JoePa.

"Anybody who's gone to Penn State, that's something that really is going to bother people," he said.

A lawyer for one of Sandusky's victims said the NCAA should have heard from his client and others who were abused.

"Throughout the past several weeks, PSU and the NCAA have imposed sanctions and taken what they perceive to be corrective measures," said Ben Andreozzi, attorney for the person identified as Victim No. 4 in the Sandusky case. "I am disappointed that no effort was made to consult the victims in this case to ensure that their voices were heard in this process. After all, they are the ones who were victimized, not the NCAA or PSU. "

Emmert said current players will be allowed to transfer to other schools without having to sit out a year, as is normally required, or they can stay and keep their grants, even if they don't play football. The restrictions mean that starting in 2014, the school cannot have more than 65 players on scholarship, and it can offer only 15 new scholarships each year for four years, beginning with next year's incoming recruits.

"I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead," new coach Bill O'Brien said in a written statement. "But I am committed for the long term to Penn State and our student athletes."

On social media, some players wrote they would return next season as a team with a mission.

"PSU vs The World - Day 1 - ," tweeted tight end Garry Gilliam.

On Sunday, the 900-pound bronze statue of Paterno was removed from its place outside the 107,000-seat football stadium. Erickson issued a statement saying the statue is being stored in a "secure location." Another tribute to Paterno -- the university library that bears his name -- will remain as it is, Erickson said.

The statue was removed exactly six months after Paterno died of lung cancer. He died less than three months after he coached his last game. Under Paterno's tenure as head coach, the Nittany Lions went undefeated five times and finished in the top 25 national rankings 35 times.

The Freeh report found that several Penn State officials concealed evidence that Sandusky had sexually abused minors. Freeh concluded that Paterno could have prevented further sexual abuse had he taken action.

Sandusky is expected to be sentenced in September. His legal team has said it will appeal the convictions.

Two former university administrators are awaiting trial for their role in the scandal, and more charges are possible as the state's attorney general investigates what Penn State may have known about Sandusky's behavior.


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Sources: AP, CBS News, CNN, NY Daily News, Google Maps

NCAA Turning College Students Into "Athletic Slaves"? Raking In Billion$! Students Live In Poverty!

Top college athletes worth 6figures

The average fair market value of top-tier college football and men's basketball players is over $100,000 each, and the athletes are entitled to at least a portion of that, a new report from an advocacy group argues.

Instead of getting what they're worth, the players receive athletic scholarships that don't cover the full cost of attending school, leaving many of them living below the poverty line, says the report, "The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport."

A national college athletes' advocacy group and a sports management professor calculate in the report that if college sports shared their revenues the way pro sports do, the average Football Bowl Subdivision player would be worth $121,000 per year, while the average basketball player at that level would be worth $265,000.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report ahead of its official release, scheduled for Tuesday.

Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA linebacker who heads the National College Players Association, wrote the report with Drexel University professor Ellen J. Staurowsky. The association is an advocacy group for college athletes which Huma says has more than 14,000 members - about half of whom are currently enrolled.

Huma and Staurowsky argue that the players should receive a portion of new revenues, like TV contracts, to be put in an "educational lockbox." Players could tap those funds to help cover educational costs if they exhaust their athletic eligibility before they graduate - or receive the money with no strings attached upon graduating. They also propose that athletes be free to seek commercial deals, such as endorsements, with some of the money from that going to the lockbox, and the rest available for the athlete's immediate use.

They also say that schools should pay for costs beyond the tuition, student fees and room and board covered by athletic scholarships. The report calculates the shortfall for the full cost of attending college - when things such as clothing and emergency trips home are added in - at $952 to $6,127, depending on the college. That leaves students on full athletic scholarships living below the poverty line at around 85 percent of the schools, the report claims, by comparing the value of the scholarship's room and board to the federal poverty guideline for a single individual.

Huma acknowledged that calculation does not take into account financial assistance students might get from home, or summer jobs, but he said most athletes are pressured to attend voluntary summer workouts, making it hard to get outside work.

The report calls for action from Congress to achieve some of these goals, arguing that federal intervention is necessary because college presidents aren't in a position to take meaningful reform. The NCAA, which puts the athletes' amateur status at the center of its mission, would oppose much of what the report proposes.

In a statement Monday, the NCAA said it had not yet reviewed the report, but that President Mark Emmert and university presidents made it clear at last month's retreat - a meeting called in the wake of a run of scandals in college football - that they were committed to evaluating an increase to grants in aid that would cover the full cost of attending college. The NCAA added that the Committee on Academic Performance is meeting this week to discuss the issue, and will make recommendations to the Division I Board of Directors next month.

"Dr. Emmert has been similarly clear that paying student-athletes a salary is in no way on the table," the NCAA said.

The report argues that playing big-time football and basketball is a full-time job, and an NCAA study released this year backs that up. It found that players in the Football Bowl Subdivision - the highest level - reported spending 43.3 hours per week during the season in athletic time commitment, while Division I men's basketball players reported 39 hours a week in season.

The report said that players at the most powerful programs are worth far in excess of even the average athlete. The report estimates that Duke's basketball players are worth the most, at around $1 million each, while Texas' football players top that sport at $513,000 each.

Officials at Texas and Duke did not return email and phone messages Monday.

The report argues that the main beneficiaries of preserving the current system for athletes are coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners and bowl directors, citing, for example, the multimillion-dollar salaries of several high-profile coaches.

"The NCAA's definition of amateurism has proven to be priceless to obscenely paid coaches, athletics administrators, and colleges but has inflicted poverty on college athletes," the report charges. It found that some football coaches' bonuses alone were worth more than the entire scholarship shortfall for their teams.

Huma and Staurowsky argue that compensating players would go a long way to eliminating the black market, in which athletes have violated rules for accepting things of value.

"Rules that prohibit valuable players from accepting benefits above and beyond their scholarships set athletic programs and their players up for failure," they say, citing the case of former USC receiver R. Jay Soward, who told Sports Illustrated last year that he took money from NFL agent Josh Luchs because his scholarship didn't cover his food and rent costs.

"I would do it again," Soward said. "I have four sons, and if somebody offered my son money in college and it meant he didn't have to be hungry, I would tell him to take it."

The recent scandal at Ohio State involved players trading memorabilia for cash and tattoos from a man at the center of a federal investigation. And the University of Miami is being investigated by the NCAA for the relationship a rogue booster and Ponzi scheme artist had with players and coaches.

Huma, who graduated from UCLA in 1999, said that he struggled to get by on his full athletic scholarship. Even though the school was providing him with three meals a day, he said, he needed to eat five or six times a day because of the calories he was burning playing football. And he wasn't able to get any support from home.

"I got by taking toilet paper and soap at hotels, and taking out the credit card," he recalled, adding that he had $6,000 in credit card debt when he graduated. The school did provide him with team-issued clothing, but not all of it was appropriate for everyday use, he said.

"The bottom line is that players are misled into thinking that their labor will fully pay their way through school, and they are definitely earning much less than their fair market value," he said.



Selling the NCAA

It's NCAA tournament time, and once again the Texas Longhorns' men's basketball team has a spot at the dance. All over the state fans will be slipping on burnt orange and looking for super-sophomore Jordan Hamilton and teammates to entertain them and erase the memory of last year's first-round exit. Televisions will hum, merchandise will be sold and the business of college basketball will come to a close for the year. Last season, the men's basketball program generated $15.6 million in revenue.

If this were the NBA, in which players get 57 percent of league revenue, the 13 scholarship players on last year's roster would have been paid an average of $684,102 each.

University of Texas football brought in $93.5 million in 2009, with quarterback Colt McCoy leading the Longhorns to the national championship game. Punch the numbers. NFL players get 58 percent of league revenues. If McCoy and his 80 teammates on scholarship were to divvy up that share of the pie, the average cut would be $672,676.

Instead, each athlete, by NCAA rule, could receive no more than tuition, fees, room, board and books -- valued at $18,172 for in-state students, $35,924 if for out-of-state.

"I personally think that it's the greatest injustice in American sports," said Andrew Schwarz, a Bay Area antitrust economist who has studied college sports finances. "We have these people that everyone loves to watch on TV and in person. We adore them, we adulate them, but we do not let them benefit from all of the money that they generate in anywhere near the way they would if there was a market system in place."

One of the top jobs of new NCAA president Mark Emmert, as the representative for the presidents of the leading universities who hired him, is to preserve the lid on player costs, while letting the market work its magic in just about every other aspect of college sports, from licensing fees to sponsorship deals to television contracts. The NCAA men's basketball tournament that begins Tuesday will mark the start of a new 14-year, $10.8 billion deal with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting.

Emmert has several tools at his disposal, in confronting Schwarz's argument.

Chief among those is the claim of poverty -- that NCAA programs could not afford to offer a hotshot player more than the value of a scholarship. "Fourteen schools out of the 1,100 last year actually had positive cash flow out of intercollegiate athletics," Emmert said, one of his talking points he shares with audiences across the nation when defending the NCAA's economic model.

That number (14) comes from the NCAA's most recent analysis of athletic department finances at member institutions, based on data supplied by schools for the 2008-09 school year. The NCAA notes that 25 schools in each of the prior two years generated more revenue than expenses, before the nation's economic recession took hold.

But the NCAA understates the amount of revenue that flows into athletic departments.

An ESPN review of the financial statements submitted by individual schools to the NCAA, Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service found that half of all athletic departments in the Football Bowl Subdivision -- 60 of the 120 -- brought in more money than they spent during the 2008-09 year (and another 21 broke even). The organization arrives at its lower number of 14 schools in the black by not counting what it calls "allocated revenue," which it considers direct and indirect support provided by the university, student fees and direct government support. That's almost $10 million in excluded revenue at the median FBS school, according to the NCAA report.

The NCAA stopped counting allocated revenue in its 2004 report, according to NCAA spokesman Erik Christiansen. "College presidents wanted to know the real cost of intercollegiate athletics without any institutional support," he wrote in an email to ESPN.

Schwarz considers that method to be misleading because any support that flows the other way -- from the athletic department to the university -- counts as an expense in the eyes of the NCAA. Some athletic departments, for instance, give money annually to their school. Further, Schwarz argued, any payments made by universities to athletic departments could be seen as marketing fees, given that sports teams provide enormous publicity for universities.

"The NCAA wants to say these programs are horribly expensive and there's not enough money for them, but on other hand they admit they're valuable to the campus," he said. "They provide advantages in fundraising and help with admissions by driving up the quality of applicants. Those benefits don't show up on the balance sheet."

On the expense side, there are also caveats. NCAA member schools provide $2 billion a year in athletic aid to students, Emmert said. But most of those costs stay within the university; it's one department, athletics, transferring money to another, such as the bookstore. Tuition, the largest chunk of any athletic scholarship, carries no real hard cost, as it's just a seat in a classroom (though it could count as an opportunity cost, if it's true that seat would have been taken by a non-athlete paying full tuition).

Some athletic departments are showing signs of financial distress, including those at the BCS level at which entertainment dollars flow most freely. The University of California-Berkeley recently announced it is cutting baseball and men's gymnastics, in response a budget crisis in the university system that will reduce institutional support for athletics. And among the weakest programs in the FBS, football and men's basketball teams -- the breadwinners elsewhere -- often fail to cover even their own costs, much less those of other teams such as softball or tennis that lose money, according to the NCAA.

But most athletic departments are rebounding nicely from the recession. The NCAA hasn't yet released its report on the 2009-10 financial statements submitted by schools, but ESPN's independent review of the records shows that 76 of the FBS schools had higher revenues than expenses last year, up from 60 the year before. In all, 99 schools either broke even or had revenues in excess of expenses.

At the top, the rich keep getting richer. The most prominent football programs generate surpluses in the tens of millions of dollars. Texas set the pace in 2009 with $87.6 million in revenue, then added another $6 million on top of that in 2010 by advancing to the BCS National Championship Game, in which the Longhorns lost to Alabama. With bonuses, Longhorns football coach Mack Brown made a record $6.4 million that season and his assistants another $3.6 million, according to the audited financial statement the school submitted to the NCAA. The team splurged on travel, dropping $2.4 million, and other costs. Still, the Longhorns couldn't spend anywhere near the cash they generated. Total team expenses came to $23.8 million -- for a tidy surplus of $70.1 million. After all other athletic department expenses were paid, $13.1 million remained.

More largesse is in the pipeline. In January, ESPN committed $300 million over 20 years to the Longhorns to set up a cable channel dedicated to University of Texas content.

DeLoss Dodds, Texas athletic director, declined to respond to requests for an interview. Longhorns spokesman Nick Voinis said that while Texas has the cash to pay athletes above the value of their scholarships, the school would be against having that option.

"I'm not sure what athletic director would be in favor of that," Voinis said. "Where do you draw the line? How much do you pay them? Not that many schools could afford it."

The idea of being able to offer a blue-chip recruit a scholarship, plus some, terrifies Ross Bjork, athletic director at Western Kentucky University. "That could be a scary day because then you'd get into the have-and-have-not discussion, where our budget is $20 million and their budget is $100 million. They can pay their athletes more."

Karl Benson, commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference, invoked the possibility of implications from Title IX. "The day that the NCAA permits pay-for-play, if it's done for only a certain class of student-athlete -- football and men's basketball -- there will be lawsuits that follow from other sports. The gender equity issues would be massive unless you paid every student-athlete, regardless of sport or gender, the same amount."

Schwarz dismissed those fears as unfounded, noting that Title IX, a federal law designed to promote equitable educational opportunities, does not require that schools spend equally on men and women. Texas spent $8.7 million on men's basketball last year, $4.3 million on women's basketball, a gender disparity reflected in overall spending for the athletic department, too. Yet, Texas stays out of Title IX hot water because half of its athletes, like half of its campus undergraduates, are women.

As for Bjork's expressed concern, Schwarz said the glamour schools get the best talent today, even without the ability to offer more than an athletic scholarship.

"Right now, we see big programs beating up on small programs for the first few weeks of college football season, so we already have that," he said. "It is just that the people on the big team would have, I don't know, $40,000 a year in their pocket and the people on the small teams might just be getting a scholarship. But it wouldn't change the allocation of talent much at all when it is all done. There might be a little bit of shifting in conferences. Some schools might say, 'we want a scale down and compete against other schools that do not want to pay quite as much.' But we see conference shifting all the time. Right now, all sorts of schools switch to other conferences for money reasons.

"Any time there is a big change in the system, it is hard. Athletic departments would have to actually do some math, and that could be challenging, but they are smart people. Our universities are filled with lots of smart people that can solve all sorts of math problems. And in the end, we will have this great American tradition without the sort of indentured servitude that we have now."

Won't happen on his watch, Emmert insisted.

"They are not employees, they are students," he said. "We want them to be students, and we expect them to be good students. That's really the line in the sand that I'm drawing. This isn't about the [financial] resources. This is about, 'Do they work for us? Or are they our students?' They're our students."

The NCAA has long been aggressive at defending legal challenges to its control over athletes, and Emmert appeared to be preparing for the next assault. Upon joining the NCAA in October, the former University of Washington president replaced longtime general counsel Elsa Cole with an outside litigator, Donald Remy, who he hailed in the news announcement for "his commitment to amateur athletics."

Emmert also has some judicial language on his side. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA in a case that would allow schools to negotiate their own television contracts. But Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion, dropped in one line that was unrelated to the central legal issue, stating, "In order to preserve the character and quality of the 'product,' athletes must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like."

Schwarz said he has worked with plaintiff's lawyers who want to test that language but have gotten intimidated. He said he wonders if it's ripe for a challenge now that Stevens and rest of the '84 court have retired. He also takes heart that the NCAA wasn't very good at predicting the future, if it lost the case. Its lawyers argued the games would be hurt. But just the opposite happened. College sports have never been more popular.

"Imagine a world in which paying the athletes wasn't a problem, wasn't an infraction, and what those [NCAA] enforcement people were doing was actually making sure the people in sports programs were students," he said. "With one cross-out of one NCAA bylaw, you could free up a lot of resources and get rid of a lot of bureaucracy. You could let the market prevail and find ways to really achieve the ideal of the student-athlete."

In the meantime, college athletes will look to achieve in the ideal basketball tourney.



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Sources: CNN, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Youtube, Google Maps

Duke's Basketball Team Compared To Nazis..."Glee"

Did A TV Show ("Glee") Cross The line By Comparing Duke's Basketball Team To The Nazis?



Based on a scene from Tuesday night's episode of the Fox series "Glee," it's probably safe to assume one of the writers is a "Tar Heels" fan.

When Mike O'Malley's character Burt Hummel begins dating the mother of the school jock Finn, the boy flips out at the idea of someone trying to take the place of his deceased father. Burt eventually gets Finn to warm up to him, sitting down to watch a basketball game with him and punctuating the bonding experience with the line "I hate Duke like I hate the Nazis."

As ESPN college football analyst Lou Holtz can attest, it's seldom in good taste to compare something as trivial as sports to Hitler's regime. Still, the intent here was to amuse, not to offend, and surely the Duke-hating segment of our population got a pretty good chuckle out of that scene.

Reaction to the scene on the Web on Wednesday predictably has been split largely by school affiliation thus far.

An angry Duke fan commented on Fox's Web site that the Nazi reference was "not funny" and "over the line," adding that the writers could have made the same point while using a less offensive comparison.

Meanwhile, when a Maryland fan posted the quote on a message board, fellow Terps supporters took more offense that one of their peers was watching a TV musical comedy than they did the Nazi reference.


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Sources: Fox Nation, "Glee", Huffington Post, Hulu, The Dagger, Yahoo, Google Maps

John "Jack" McKenna's Beating By Maryland Police Creates Outrage, Feds Probe

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Maryland Authorities Probe Beating Video Of Student


A Prince George's County, Maryland, police officer has been suspended, and prosecutors are investigating an incident -- caught on video -- in which officers wielding nightsticks beat a University of Maryland student, officials said Tuesday.

Authorities also are looking into documents filed by police in the case that appear to contradict the video, Prince George's County police Lt. Andy Ellis said.

The video was shot March 3 after the Maryland men's basketball team defeated Duke. In the video, students can be seen celebrating the win as officers in riot gear and on horseback are nearby. Some students are holding up their cellphones, taking pictures or video of the officers and the celebration.

The video shows a student identified as John "Jack" McKenna skipping down the street and approaching two officers on horseback. After a brief exchange, two officers on foot slam McKenna against a wall and he falls to the ground. A third officer joins the first two, and the three strike McKenna with nightsticks while he is on the ground as other students scatter.

McKenna had a cut on his head that required eight staples to close, said Sharon Weidenfeld, a private investigator working for McKenna's attorney, Chris Griffiths. In addition, he had a concussion, a badly swollen arm and bruises elsewhere on his body. Griffiths' office referred questions to Weidenfeld on Tuesday.

Another man identified as Benjamin Donat was also beaten, although that incident was not shown on the video, Weidenfeld said. On Donat's body, the imprint of the officers' nightsticks could be seen, she said. He also suffered a head injury that caused him some memory loss for a few days, although he will be all right, Weidenfeld said. "He really had his bell rung," she said.

Weidenfeld discovered the video and would say only that it was shot by another University of Maryland student.

Authorities arrested Donat and McKenna on suspicion of assaulting an officer and disorderly conduct. Documents filed by police allege that the two were causing a disturbance and that they struck mounted officers and their horses, causing minor injuries, when authorities intervened.

"Arrested 1 and Arrested 2 were both kicked by the horses and sustained minor injuries," the charging documents said.

The video does not show McKenna striking the mounted officer or horse, and the horses were not nearby while the beating was taking place. The documents tell a "totally fabricated story," Weidenfeld said Tuesday.

Prosecutors dropped charges against Donat on Friday and McKenna on Monday, she said. Griffiths is representing both youths, and a lawsuit is planned against the officers, Weidenfeld said.

"The charging documents certainly do not appear to be supported by the video," Ellis said. But he said, "I'm sure it's a stretch to say it's a cover-up," saying it's likely the officer who wrote the documents had a "miscommunication" with officers involved in the incident, who provided information.

Read the charging documents from CNN affiliate WJLA-TV (PDF)

The department's internal affairs unit is investigating and will assist Prince George's County prosecutors in their probe, he said.

Ellis said he did not know whether the officer suspended wrote the charging documents. Because the officers on the video were in full riot gear, they could not be readily identified, but authorities are looking into who was on duty that night and where officers were at the time to determine who was involved.

"We didn't know about this videotape until it came out yesterday morning," he said. "We had no idea. It's kind of caught us by surprise. As evidence comes out, or we learn more information, we'll suspend officers as they become identified."

He added, "Not only is the conduct of the officers on tape excessive -- and clearly it's excessive -- there are other issues here we need to work through to make sure we're more organized" in such situations.

The officers on horseback were from the Maryland-National Capital Park Police. Department spokesman Lt. Stanley Johnson said the mounted officers were there for crowd control purposes. While "there were a lot of activities" going on that night, he said, no department horses or officers were injured and there were no reports of people being kicked by horses.

In a statement Monday, McKenna's family told CNN affiliate WJLA-TV in Washington that "some of these characters ought to go to jail. ... Some ought to merely be booted off the force, and the remainder should be properly trained to discover that force is not always necessary, and brutality is always wrong."

Prince George's County police Chief Roberto Hylton told WJLA, "I'll tell you that I was outraged [at the video]. I was very disappointed at the conduct that I saw on the part of my officers on the videotape."

The U.S. Justice Department is aware of the video and is "looking into it," Weidenfeld said Tuesday.

She said she is surprised officers would take such action knowing that so many people were filming the celebration.

Prince George's County police arrested 28 people after the basketball game, WJLA reported. Of those, 23 were students.

The police department emerged from federal oversight about 14 months ago, according to the station. The Justice Department had monitored it after complaints about officers using unnecessary force.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, WJLA, Google Maps

Coach K's Legacy, He Comments On Duke's 4th NCAA Title (Videos)

Coach K Cements Place Among The Greats


After a coaching career that has spanned more than three decades, and includes multiple national championships and an Olympic gold medal, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski had nothing left to prove in Monday night's national championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium.

But Coach K once again showed what we learned a long time ago: There aren't many coaches better than him, regardless of the sport.

Krzyzewski won his fourth national championship after the Blue Devils defeated Butler 61-59 in one of the more epic finals of all-time.

The first three titles came much easier than this one, as the upstart Bulldogs had two chances to win the game in the final seconds. When Butler star Gordon Hayward's final half-court heave bounced off the rim, Coach K cemented his place among college basketball's greatest coaches.

If there was an expanded Mount Rushmore for college basketball, Krzyzewski's face would be next to those of UCLA's John Wooden, North Carolina's Dean Smith, Kentucky's Adolph Rupp and Indiana's Bob Knight.

"I've been fortunate enough to be in eight national championship games, and this was a classic," Krzyzewski said afterward. "This was the toughest and the best one."

This championship season might have been Krzyzewski's best coaching job. Two years after he led the U.S. Olympics team to a gold medal in Beijing, he guided a Blue Devils team short on depth and frontcourt stardom to a 35-5 record and a share of the ACC regular-season championship. Duke won 18 of its final 19 games and took home the league tournament title.

Then there was the biggest title of them all. After guiding Duke to its first national championship since 2001, Krzyzewski joined a very select few in college basketball history:

* His four national championships tie him for second with Rupp. Only Wooden won more national titles, winning 10 at UCLA from 1964-75.

* His 11 Final Four appearances are tied with Smith for second-most among coaches. Wooden guided UCLA teams to 12 Final Fours.

* He has coached in 19 Final Four games, tied with Smith for second-most, and his 12 Final Four wins are second only to Wooden's 21 victories.

* He holds the NCAA tournament record for winning percentage (.778, 77-22) and is first in tourney history with 77 victories and 99 games coached.

* He is the first coach to win national championships in three consecutive decades (1991, '92, '01 and '10).

* Under his guidance, Duke has played more games ranked as the No. 1 team (190) than it has as an unranked team (144).

* At some point in the next two seasons, Krzyzewski will probably surpass Knight as major college basketball's winningest coach. His 868 career victories are 34 behind Knight, his coach at the United States Military Academy from 1966 to '69.


But after guiding Duke to another national championship, Krzyzewski wasn't ready to reflect on his accomplishments.

"Tonight is not about that," he said. "That's like 10 years from now or whatever. Tonight is all about these guys."

Krzyzewski's team probably wasn't the most talented in the NCAA tournament. No. 1 seeds like Kansas and Kentucky had more NBA-ready players.

But the Blue Devils were the team cutting down the nets at season's end.

"It's hard, you know?" Krzyzewski said. "I've said throughout the year they were good, then they were really good, then they were really good with great character. Before coming to the press conference, I told our team that. It's because we always wanted to keep them chasing something. But I told them before we came here and before we said a prayer, 'You are a great team. You are a great team.'"

As told by a great coach.


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Duke Re-Claims NCAA Title 61-59! Coach K Delivers!

Duke Ends Butler’s Dream, Claims 4th Title


The ball sailed from halfcourt with the buzzer sounding — bounced off the backboard, the rim, the floor.

Most of the 70,000 fans on Butler’s side let out an “Ohhhhhh,” and the Duke players piled onto forward Kyle Singler at center court. What a game! And what a way to end the season, even if America’s favorite underdog came up a little short.

Duke beat Butler 61-59 for the national championship Monday night, a win that wasn’t secure until after the buzzer sounded — when Gordon Hayward’s half-court, 3-point heave for the win barely missed to leave tiny Butler one cruel basket short of the Hollywood ending.

Singler scored 19 points and Brian Zoubek rebounded Hayward’s miss with 3.6 seconds left — the first of two chances Butler had to win it — to end the overachieving underdog’s try for a real-life “Hoosiers” sequel.

“We just came up a bounce short,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said.

That bounce went in favor of the Blue Devils (35-5), who snapped Butler’s 25-game winning streak and brought the long-awaited fourth national title back home to Carolina and the Cameron Crazies.

The “Big Three” — Singler, Jon Scheyer (15 points) and Nolan Smith (13) — won the Big One for coach Mike Krzyzewski, his first championship since 2001 and the fourth overall, tying Coach K with Adolph Rupp for second place on the all-time list.

“First of all, it was a great basketball game. I want to congratulate an amazing Butler team and their fans,” Krzyzewski said. “Fabulous year. We played a great game, they played a great game. It’s hard for me to say it, to imagine that we’re the national champions.”

Nobody figured this would be easy, and it wasn’t — no way that was going to happen against Butler, the 4,200-student private school that turned the tournament upside down and drove 5.6 miles from its historic home, Hinkle Fieldhouse, to the Final Four.

Butler (33-5) shaved a five-point deficit to one and had a chance to win it, when its best player, Hayward, took the ball at the top of the key, spun and worked his way to the baseline, but was forced to put up an off-balance fadeaway from 15 feet.

He missed, Zoubek got the rebound and made the first of two free throws. He missed the second one intentionally, and Duke’s title wasn’t secure until Hayward’s desperation heave bounded out.

“I can’t really put it into words because the last couple of plays were just not normal,” Singler said.

What a game to end one of the most memorable tournaments in history, filled with close games, upsets and underdogs; the kind of tournament that some fear could be history if the NCAA goes ahead with what an expansion to 96 teams — something very much on the table for next year.

“Both teams and all the kids on both teams played their hearts out,” Krzyzewski said. “There was never more than a couple, a few points separating, so a lot of kids made big plays for both teams.”

Nobody led by more than six.

Playing against the Bulldogs and working against a crowd of 70,930 with very few pockets of Duke fans, the Blue Devils persevered — never leading by more than six but never falling behind after Singler hit a 3-pointer with 13:03 left for a 47-43 lead.

The Blue Devils won with defense. They held the Bulldogs to 34 percent shooting and contested every possession as tenaciously as Butler, which allowed 60 points for the first time since February. Zoubek, the 7-foot-1 center, finished with two blocks, 10 rebounds and too many altered shots to count, but also came out to trap the Butler guards and disrupt an offense that was already struggling.

They won with some clutch shooting, including Singler’s 3-for-6 effort from 3-point range and 6 of 6 from the free throw line in the second half until Zoubek’s intentional miss.

They won with a mean streak, most pointed when Lance Thomas took down Hayward hard to prevent an easy layup with 5:07 left. The refs reviewed the play and decided not to call it flagrant — one of a hundred little moments that could have swung such a tight, taut game.

“They weren’t going to go away,” Singler said. “We needed every last minute of that game to get this win. It was a great game.”

In the true team fashion that has defined “The Butler Way,” the Bulldog scoring was distributed almost perfectly even. Hayward and Shelvin Mack had 12 each. Matt Howard, coming off a concussion in the semifinal win over Michigan State, finished with 11, and 2-point-a-game scorer Avery Jukes kept Butler in it with all 10 of his points in the first half.

But Butler’s 33-year-old coach, Stevens, was correct when he said his team couldn’t endure another 15-for-49 shooting night — what Butler shot Saturday in the semifinals. The Bulldogs went 20 for 58 this time — 34.5 percent. All the heart in the world couldn’t overcome that.

“I said yesterday that when you coach these guys, you can be at peace with whatever result you achieve from a won-loss standpoint because of what they gave — they gave everything we had,” Stevens said. “There’s certainly nothing to hang your head about. I told them in there, what they’ve done, what they did together, will last longer than one night, regardless of the outcome.”

A disappointing ending to those who wanted to see the “Hoosiers” sequel play out in real life. In that movie, based on the high school championship won by tiny Milan High in 1954, Jimmy Chitwood hits the game-winner at the buzzer to win one for the little guys.

Thankfully, that movie is still available on DVD.

This one, or some version of it, might be too, someday.

Despite losing, Butler may have proven its point nonetheless.

Mega-money and power conferences aren’t the only ones with a chance in big-time college sports. Nothing proves that better than the NCAA tournament — March Madness, a great event that stayed great into April this year.

Never better for Duke, which won a different way this year.

There were no superstars, just a bunch of solid players who may end up in the NBA — not with lottery-pick money in their pockets, but with a national title forever.

That’s always the goal in Krzyzewski’s program, and the fact that the Blue Devils hadn’t been to the Final Four since 2004 didn’t go unnoticed down on Tobacco Road, especially while North Carolina was winning two championships over that span.

But while last year’s champions, the Tar Heels, rebuild, Duke is this season’s standard-setter.

Everyone thought the perfect ending would be for Butler to win in its hometown, but the Blue Devils also like Indy — it’s the place where they won their first championship, with Christian Laettner at the helm, back in 1991.

It’s also the city where Smith’s late father, Derek Smith, led Louisville to a championship in 1980.

Some pretty nice symmetry there. Some might call that a Hollywood ending, too.

“I can’t explain how happy I am,” Smith said. “Like father, like son. This is so special to me right now.”


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Sources: Duke University, ESPN, McClatchy Newspapers, NBC Sports, Vodpod, Youtube, Google Maps

Coach "K" Krzyzewski Shoots Down NJ Nets $12-15M Offer (Is He Scared?)

Krzyzewski: No To NJ Nets


Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN.com Monday morning that "I wouldn't have any interest in the job," even if incoming New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov offers to make him the highest-paid coach in the NBA.

The Bergen (N.J.) Record reported Monday that Prokhorov, despite Krzyzewski's earlier public expressions of disinterest, has continued to target Coach K as his No. 1 choice to coach the Nets once the NBA's Board of Governors approves his purchase of the majority ownership of the franchise from Bruce Ratner.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson is currently the NBA's highest-paid coach with a $12 million salary, and the Record said Prokhorov might be willing to offer Krzyzewski in the range of $12 million to $15 million annually.

"I haven't been contacted," Krzyzewski said as he rode the team bus to Duke's shoot around in preparation for Monday night's NCAA championship game against Butler in Indianapolis. "I wouldn't have any interest in the job. You would be flattered if someone would offer you a job, but I would not be interested."

Krzyzewski strongly considered jumping from Duke to the NBA in 2004 when he was offered the head coaching position with the Lakers, but he has maintained in the years since that he is now totally committed to Duke and to USA Basketball, where he has signed to coach the U.S. senior men's national team through the 2012 Olympics.

Coach K reiterated at his news conference Sunday in Indianapolis that he plans to stay at Duke even after he retires from coaching.

"I haven't changed in that regard," Krzyzewski said Monday, adding of the Lakers' opportunity in 2004: "The Lakers thing, with their franchise and my history with Kobe, if you were going to do it, I don't know how you can jump for anything better than that."




For Coach K, Still Duke Against The World



Anyone who read author Will Blythe's classic college hoops book To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever not only gained an understanding of the UNC-Duke rivalry at large but understands the level of antipathy so many college basketball fans have for Mike Krzyzewski. He is not a well-liked man. Many would admit a grudging respect, sure, but the on-court antics, the occasional sneers, and the corporate-pitchman persona have made Coach K public enemy No. 1 for years now.

The thing is, Krzyzewski doesn't care. Not one bit. He's perfectly happy being hated, perfectly happy for his team to be the bad guys, for Duke to face outward against the world. When Blythe finally sat down with his sworn enemy for the book, he found Coach K to be likable, but more than anything he found him completely willing to twist the hatred for his program into an attitude that gave his players an edge. From Blythe's excerpt, recently republished at Esquire:

"Ohio," Krzyzewski said. "Let's say at Ohio State that we did what we have done at Duke. There would be statues. There would never be anybody looking for anything wrong with what you did. It would be a different mind-set from the one we have within this community."

He was having work done on his house at the moment. Most of the workers were North Carolina and North Carolina State fans, he said. "People don't understand the magnitude of the isolation here. We have to do without that support. And actually, there are eyes close on you, looking at you, not wanting you to do real well. It's toughened us up. We're never going to lose because we have too many people patting us on the back. Never."

Coach K repeats this sentiment at his news conference Sunday, revealing his belief that Duke, because it is a private school wedged into Tar Heel country, was cloistered, embattled, constantly stuck in a foreign land, bereft on all sides by people more than willing to take shots at Krzyzewski and the program.

"I just think it's really easy to talk about not liking us because we're a private school," Krzyzewski said. "We're not a state. We don't have a state press. You know, people wouldn't take the shots at us that they do if we were a state school because the people of that state wouldn't like it and there would be a filter there. And there's no filter for us.

"So if we're gonna be really good, we're gonna get that because there's nobody to hold anybody accountable before you even start talking," he continued. "It's just true. That's just the way it is, and I'm okay with it. I think it helps us keep our edge."

This is interesting in and of itself, but it's especially fitting for Monday night's matchup with Butler. Who besides Coach K, his players, their families, and Blue Devil fans want to see Duke, Goliath, stamp out the best David this NCAA tournament has ever had? No one. Literally no one. As Pat Forde wrote Saturday night, Butler-Duke might the most one-sided rooting scenario since the 1994 Harding-Kerrigan Winter Olympics. In Coach K's opinion (a somewhat delusional one, given the program's resources and media pedestal) it's always been Duke against the world. This year, it's actually true.

What's strange is that Krzyzewski doesn't seem to mind all this hate. Matter of fact, he likes it. No wonder Duke is so good at this.


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Sources: ESPN, NBA Nets, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Obama's 2010 NCAA "Barack-etology"...His Final Four Picks

You can check out Pres. Obama's full 2010 NCAA Bracket here at ESPN.

His Final Four consists of Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky and Villanova.




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Sources: ESPN, NY Daily News, Youtube, Google Maps

Pres. Obama, Biden Attends Georgetown-Duke Game With W.H. Advisers...89-77

Pres. Barack Obama Attends Georgetown-Duke College Basketball Game


Pres. Barack Obama attended today's college basketball matchup between No. 7 Georgetown and No. 8 Duke. Among his companions were Joe Biden, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Reggie Love.

The president also offered commentary during part of the CBS broadcast of the game. He said that he typically does not have time to watch entire college basketball games, but stays up to date by watching SportsCenter. He'll make an exception for the Final Four and watch all of the games.

The home team prevailed, as Georgetown beat Duke, 89-77. Scroll down for video and photos, and to read the pool reports from the game.



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Sources: Huffington Post, AFP, Sports Buster, Youtube, Google Maps

Mike Leach's Official Facebook Page Has 11,092 Fans! Keep It Coming!

Here is the link to Mike Leach's Official Facebook Page.

Let's show our support for Coach Leach and keep it coming!

By the way I believe he should have been suspended but NOT fired.






Mike Leach: I would like to dedicate this impending victory to all my fans, especially the ones here on Facebook, from Kevin Burson to Bryan A. Garner.
Guns up!

Mike Leach: Brandon, we're gonna come out with our guns up! AAAARRRRRGGG!

Mike Leach: Where I end up coaching next year has a lot to do with how many fans I get on Facebook... so keep it coming!

Debby Mills: I agree!!!

Mike Jaster: These people at ESPN are absolutely fools. They have tried and executed you in a "Hot Minute" you stood up for what you believe in and I respect that. It is not about holding hands and eating cake. I do not believe you did anything that would hurt any of the players/folks on the team. Too much whining on their end they should suck it up and grow a ... See Morepair, this is a tough game requiring concentration, discipline etc. Otherwise they should join the scouts may teach them a thing or two.

You should carefully analyze a position for next year where there will be better support for you and roll with that and build a stellar program like you did with the Raiders!

Mike Leach: I would like to thank all my fans! Please, we need more people to support this fan page if we are going to whip Oklahoma as badly as we whipped State!

Mike Leach: I'm sure mac brown is great at recruiting and with the boosters, but mike leach makes college football a wonder to behold. congrats on tonight's victory.





(From Facebook) Petition to Keep Mike Leach a Red Raider


This a group for anybody who thinks Mike Leach is a bad a** and wants to keep him in Lubbock. I know the Leach no longer has the opportunity to go to Miami but I think we should still rally behind this great coach.

He has taken a nobody football team and put us in national headlines. I am tired of the fair weather fans trying to put him down for a still winning season. All great programs have their set backs. If we could support our teams despite of a few mistakes, maybe they would have enough confidence in themselves to perform at the level they are capable of.

Some Facts about Leach:

- Leach's offense produced school records in nearly every passing category in 2000, but surpassed those numbers in each of the last four seasons. His five teams have combined for over 150 team and individual records at Tech.

- The Red Raiders have improved their total offensive numbers from 324.8 yards per game to 491.7 yards per game since Leach's arrival. The last five seasons rank as the top five all-time at Tech in total offense, while scoring went from 23 points per game in 1999 to 36.2 points last season. The most significant increase has been in the passing game, where the Red Raiders averaged 399.7 yards per game in 2004 compared to 175.4 yards in 1999.

- In 2003, Heisman Trophy candidate and quarterback B.J. Symons capped off his senior season with an NCAA Passing Championship and an NCAA single-season record 5,833 passing yards. A year earlier, current New Orleans Saints quarterback Kliff Kingsbury finished his senior campaign ranked in total offense (2nd), completions (1st), attempts (1st) and passing touchdowns (1st). The record-setting quarterback also set 17 NCAA records during his career and tied three other marks.

- Additionally, recruiting has been one of the top beneficiaries since Leach's arrival in December 1999. The Red Raiders' 2005 recruiting class was once again ranked among the top 25. From his first class in the spring of 2000 to this year's list of newcomers, each class continues to get better. Not only is Texas Tech recruiting the Texas area, but Leach also is extending the reach of the program across the country.

- "Since Leach got to Texas Tech, they've basically doubled attendance, doubled ticket prices and beaten some of the best teams in the country," O'Hagan said. "He's had winning records every year recruiting against Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and LSU.''

Open: All content is public to the Texas Tech network.



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Sources: Facebook, Texas Monthly, Google Maps

Mike Leach vs Texas Tech & Craig James, Possible Legal Showdown Brewing

What is Mike Leach's Legal recourse in this situation?




Craig James discusses Mike Leach's termination. Did Coach Leach cross the line with James' son?








Legal Showdown Between Leach, Texas Tech May Just Be Starting



The legal showdown between football coach Mike Leach and Texas Tech administrators reached a breaking point Wednesday when the university fired Leach for cause, effective immediately.

The firing relieves Texas Tech of its remaining financial obligations in Leach's employment contract, which runs through 2013 and sets the stage for Leach to bring a wrongful termination lawsuit against the university.

Leach, who had been suspended by Texas Tech on Monday, has come under fire for his decision to require redshirt sophomore receiver Adam James to stand in an equipment garage while the rest of the team practiced.

A son of ESPN analyst and former New England Patriots running back Craig James, James was reportedly recovering from a mild or slight concussion at the time, and speculation persists that Leach disbelieved either the existence or severity of James' injury. James apparently felt humiliated by Leach's decision and that he was being wrongfully punished for having suffered a football-related injury which precluded him from practicing

Leach received notice of his firing only minutes before he was to appear in a Lubbock, Tex., courtroom to seek a Temporary Restraining Order that would have reinstated him as coach. Leach argued that he was suspended without due process and in violation of his contract.
The TRO would have restrained Texas Tech from continuing its suspension.

Leach, who reportedly refused Texas Tech's request that he apologize to James, asserted that he received no credible opportunity to present his side of the James story and that he would be personally harmed if not able to coach the Red Raiders in the Alamo Bowl on Jan. 2.

By firing Leach for cause, effectively immediately, Texas Tech relieves itself of any compensation owed to Leach. The "for cause" aspect of the firing is extremely important: it relieves Texas Tech of financial obligation to Leach (though reports indicate that Texas Tech might still pay him a $800,000 payment that will be due Dec. 31).

If Leach had been fired without cause -- for instance, if Texas Tech simply felt a coaching change would help the Red Raiders succeed -- he would have been owed $400,000 each year from 2010 to 2013. It is plausible that Leach will seek a wrongful termination claim, among other possible claims, against Texas Tech, seeking to recover not only damages under his employment contract, but also damages for harm to his reputation.

Was Texas Tech legally entitled to fire Leach for cause?

Leach's contract lists the circumstances under which Texas Tech could dismiss him for cause:


1) The commission of a major NCAA violation or an excessive accumulation of secondary violations by Leach.

2) Knowingly condoning NCAA violations by any staff member under his direct control.

3) Failure to take appropriate disciplinary action against any staff member committing NCAA violations.

4) Failure to take appropriate disciplinary action against football student-athletes.

5) Indictment for a felony criminal act.

6) A misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.

Worded literally, the six circumstances for cause might not cover Leach's alleged misbehavior. Leach has neither been charged with a felony nor a misdemeanor (Nos. 5 and 6), nor is there any indication that he will be.

Even if Leach is eventually sued by James in a civil claim, such as for false imprisonment or intentional infliction of emotional distress, such a claim would not constitute a criminal charge. There is also no indication that Leach failed to take appropriate disciplinary action against football players in this situation (No. 4).

Similarly, there are no allegations of major NCAA violations or accumulation of secondary violations (No. 1).

An arguable nexus between James' behavior and the "for cause" stipulations could emerge in Nos. 2 and 3.

The NCAA has developed player safety rules that Leach arguably breached when he instructed staff members to isolate Leach. The NCAA is also considering new rules that would demand particularly safe care for players who have suffered concussions.

With many disputed facts as to what happened, however, Leach could maintain that it was at best premature for Texas Tech to fire him for cause. Leach might also argue that his firing reflects wrongful retribution because it occurred right before he sought to protect his legal rights in the form of a temporary restraining order.

Potential litigation might extend beyond Leach and Texas Tech. James, for instance, could bring a torts lawsuit against Leach for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress and also argue that Texas Tech was vicariously responsible for the coach's actions.

In addition, both the NCAA, which is considering a new rule that would sideline a student-athlete for at least the rest of the day if he or she loses consciousness, and Congress, which recently held hearings to examine the relationship between concussions and playing football, are likely monitoring the Leach-Texas Tech battle with great interest.



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Sources: AP, Texas Tech, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Washington Post, NCAAWiki, Youtube, Google Maps