USC, Tim Floyd have no excuse for turning a blind eye - Columnist

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Same Old Story
Published 5/1/2008 at ShoreBall Enterprises, LLC
We’ve heard this story before. Star Athlete A has an inner circle that consists of Person B and Person C. Person B has certain connections and provides Star Athlete A with anything that he needs and even hooks Person C up too. Things are going good and then Star Athlete A and Person C have an argument and now Person C is no longer in the inner circle. What does Person C do – he calls ESPN and provides inside scoop on Star Athlete A receiving improper gifts and benefits from agents. It’s nothing new – unfortunately that is part of the reality that exists in the underbelly of basketball and sports in general. That appears to ...

First Reggie, Now OJ & A Big Mess At USC
Published 5/11/2008 by Wrigleyville (noreply@blogger.com) at wrigleyville23
Plus, Pat Forde rips the Trojans a new one over the latest allegations of payments to athletes in LA: So you take the Bush allegations, add a side of Mayo and ask the question: Has there ever been a more textbook definition of "lack of institutional control"? Forde calls for the Trojans to get the death penalty but concedes it won't happen.

WWL's Pat Forde: Southern Cal Deserves "Death Penalty"
Published 5/11/2008 by Nestor at Bruins Nation: Front Page Posts
Bumped.  Go Bruins.  -Menelaus From WWL's Pat Forde following the (not so surprising) bomb shell on OJ2 (emphasis added): In a just world, USC basketball would have something in common with SMU football in the near future. The death penalty. It's not going to happen, because NCAA bylaws don't work that way. And ...

O.J. Mayo received cash, gifts while at USC
Published 5/11/2008 by Gilbert at Obscure Sports Quarterly
As Noah already pointed out in the comments, ESPN came out with a report today showing O.J. Mayo received cash and gifts while he was at USC, which is obviously against NCAA rules about amateurism. From ESPN.com: Louis Johnson, who was a part of Mayo’s inner circle until recently, said Mayo accepted around $30,000 in cash and ...

Breaking: ESPN is Not Biased Against Your Favorite Team
Published 5/11/2008 by billyzane at Burnt Orange Nation: Front Page Posts
... But if that was true, would the network and accompanying website be hammering this "OJ Mayo took benefits while at USC" story nearly as much as it has, including Pat Forde's incendiary column?  Hell, the ESPN show "Outside the Lines" is the group that did all the investigatory work to unearth this story.  They're the ones that broke it.  And that feeds into my point.  ESPN is hyping this story to no end precisely because they're the ones behind it.  They have no over-arching reverence for USC, just as they have no bias against Texas.  If they did ...

Mayo Fallout
Published 5/12/2008 by Paragon SC at Conquest Chronicles: Front Page Posts
... ESPN's Pat Forde Weighs in on Mayo This is rich…if not premature. In a just world, USC basketball would have something in common with SMU football in the near future. The death penalty. When I first read that this morning I said, Wow! That didn’t take long, think he had this one in the can ready to go? For the most part I have always respected Forde’s work but he is a bit premature here. ESPN does the investigation, so of course Forde, an ESPN writer, automatically believes it’s all ...

Uh-OJ: Did Mayo Put USC in Hot Water?
Published 5/12/2008 by Brian Kamenetzky at SportsHubLA
Famous (potentially) last words, courtesy of me, on April 11 when OJ Mayo officially turned pro: In the end, like most things, the reality of OJ was somewhere in between the extremes of those who figured [image] his tenure would lead to the SMUing ...

After Mayo Allegations, ESPN.com's Forde Suggests USC Has a 'Lack of Institutional Control'
Published 5/12/2008 by Sportz Assassin at FanHouse
Filed under: Pac-10 Basketball, NCAA Basketball Media Watch, NBA Prospects, USC Basketball Lemme ask you a question: Were you honestly shocked to hear that O.J. Mayo has allegedly taken cash and gifts during his high school and college career? I wasn't. And neither was ESPN.com's Pat Forde who is putting major blame on USC and coach Tim Floyd: Especially with a player everyone in Hoopsworld strongly suspected was no amateur before he set foot in Los Angeles. You had to search hard to find a soul who didn't think O.J. Mayo had been prostituted for years as his prep legend grew, starting in ...

Dr. White's Strategy and Trouble In Troy
Published 5/12/2008 by CW at Rakes Of Mallow: Front Page Posts
... ESPN's Pat Forde weighs in on the whole thing , highlighting some of the selective ignorance permeating through the Southern Cal athletic department: ...

WEEKEND DIGEST - 5/12/08
Published 5/12/2008 by eirishis at Thirtyfive Seconds
  The daily spin through the day’s top stories - got something we should cover? Email us at thirtyfiveseconds[at]yahoo[dot]com.   Perhaps an ill-advised cover shoot.   THE ...

OJ Mayo might have made as much money as Reggie Bush at USC
Published 5/12/2008 at The Dagger
Mother's Day can be a special time for a mom. Maybe your kids take you out to Olive Garden for a lovely meal. Maybe you get a special gift as a token of a child's appreciation. Maybe you relax and reminisce about the zany misadventures of your children when they were young. Or, maybe you turn on ESPN and watch Kelly Naqi go to work on your son with her menacing journalistic hammer. Outside the Lines aired a thorough and scathing report yesterday about thousands of dollars that were allegedly funneled to Mayo through his high school and college days. It's a long and complex story (and I'd encourage you to read about it/watch it here), ...

OJ Mayo Accepted Gifts? Color Me Surprised
Published 5/12/2008 by Tar Heel Fan at Tar Heel Fan
Sarcasm is a valid blogging technique. ESPN reported over the weekend the results of an Outside the Lines investigation which showed that USC freshman OJ Mayo received a variety of goodies from an agent middleman called a “runner” during the course of his brief NCAA career in Los Angeles.  Mayo naturally has denied the ...

OJ MAYO STORY REINFORCES NEED FOR CHANGE
Published 5/12/2008 by CollegeHoopsNut (noreply@blogger.com) at College Basketball Blog Report
... 'Outside the Lines', has broken the story that USC's ballyhooed freshman OJ Mayo was receiving money and gifts before and during his one (and only) season of college basketball. Nobody is shocked. Nobody is surprised. It seems as though nobody is outraged, either. Most people are just turning the page with a yawn... I worked last night and this morning on an article on Mayo and USC and what a joke it is that this continues to happen, but Pat Forde at ESPN.com basically says it all as USC, Tim Floyd Have No Excuse for Turning a Blind Eye (ESPN.com) throughout this episode that ...

O.J. Mayo accepted $30,000? Chris Webber Laughs, Then Rubs Himself In $100 Bills
Published 5/12/2008 by Maize n Brew Dave at Maize n Brew: Front Page Posts
... What about how poor Mayo's family was? What about the single mom aspect? Shouldn't that raise eyebrows that he was in nice clothes and had a TV? Give me a bleeping break. Oh no. Poor kid has something nice. Something's wrong! If you listen to Pat Forde, it all lines up : ...

Monday Musings.......
Published 5/12/2008 by Berger at Sports Business Radio blogs
Hope you enjoyed your weekend. If you missed our show this past weekend, we talked NBA hoops and international sports business. Check out the podcast here. Here's what's on my mind today: - At 9:00am PT, 95.5FM The Game launches in Portland. The station will be the new flagship home of Sports Business Radio and the new Portland-based all-sports radio station promises to make some noise on the FM dial by broadcasting the Portland Trail Blazers, University of Oregon Ducks and Seattle Seahawks. Our show airs every Sunday from 3:00pm - 5:00pm starting this Sunday, May 18th. - When most people discuss the trade between the Marlins and Red Sox a ...

Hold the Mayo
Published 5/12/2008 by jclay@herald-leader.com at Sidelines
Was anyone surprised by Sunday's "Outside the Lines" reports that now former USC basketball star O.J. Mayo allegedly took at least $30,000 in cash and benefits from someone who was attempting to sign the future NBA draft pick as an agent? I didn't think so. Is USC to blame? Of course USC is to blame. The university already knew about Rodney Guillroy, who is accused of supplying Mayo with fringe benefits. In fact, USC knew when it took Mayo for his one-and-done, the former Rose Hill star owned a shady entourage, with the potential of rule-breaking trouble. Desperate to compete with cross-town behemoth UCLA, the Trojans rolled the dice. Looks like ...

Shocking News: College Athlete Takes Inappropriate Gifts
Published 5/12/2008 by J Money (noreply@blogger.com) at Boiled Sports
It's funny. People get mad when Boilerdowd posts comments about how he's pretty sure some of the successful college programs out there cheat to varying degrees and that few programs are clean. And then when ESPN decides to actually look into a player, probably because he seems like the perfect candidate to be doing shady things, look what turns up. Looks like OJ Mayo was receiving cash, gifts, cell phone service, etc., the list goes on. During his one year at USC. He, and the lowlifes who can't wait to get their hooks into him -- their meal ticket -- couldn't wait the one year until he was a pro. Nope, gotta make sure he knows you're his "friend" now and ...

Pat Forde Really Wants Me To Hate Him
Published 5/12/2008 by Phillips (noreply@blogger.com) at Rumors and Rants
Typically, I've given guys who work for ESPN a little slack. They have some truly gifted writers and reporters at the network (no Scoop Jackson, I'm not looking in your direction) and a lot of the investigative work they do is fantastic. One guy I can typically read when I want solid, accurate analysis (read: not Andy Katz) is Pat Forde. He's always level-headed, sees both sides of most issues and rarely dives into the self-indulgent world of "over-statement" so typical of the blow-hard columnists the WWL employs. Then I read this yesterday. Apparently, Mr. Forde believes USC basketball should be given the Death Penalty for the recent allegations ...

USC Will Not Move On From The Coliseum In Order To Fight On
Published 5/12/2008 by Andrew Kamenetzky at SportsHubLA
Reggie-Gate and Mayo-Gate has led to unpleasant and tenuous recent days for [image] Trojan alums like myself, but at least the image of football games  taking place anywhere but the Coliseum (or worse, alternating with UCLA at the Rose Bowl) is no longer reason to grimace.  The University of Southern California and the stadium came to terms on a new lease that will keep the squad on their downtown field for the next twenty-five seasons (with the possibility of an extension running another twenty-seven).  ‘SC gets veto power over an NFL team sharing real estate, along with seats on the California Science Center Board and the Coliseum Commission.  In return, the ...

No more OJs at USC?
Published 5/13/2008 by nvr1983 at Rush the Court
I’m not even sure where to begin with this post. Here at RTC, we have discussed OJ Mayo several times most recently in what rtmsf myopically thought would be a final retrospective on the latest OJ to grace the USC campus. As pretty much everyone knows by now Mayo has been implicated in a rather large scandal involving Bill Duffy Agency (BDA) and Rodney ...

So We All Gather Here For The Dearly Departed
Published 5/13/2008 by PB @ BON at Burnt Orange Nation: Front Page Posts
... In a just world, USC basketball would have something in common with SMU football in the near future. The death penalty. Pat Forde, ESPN.com, "USC, Tim Floyd Have No Excuse for Turning a Blind Eye" Though there's much more in the column, the lead says it all. But is Pat Forde right? Unsurprisingly, how you answer that question depends greatly on which section of the bleachers you occupy. From my perch, four points strike me worth raising: 1. Half the story is no story ...

Joe Buck and His High Horse School of Journalism
Published 5/13/2008 by BG (noreply@blogger.com) at West Coast Bias Sports Blog
“Hi Class, thanks again for showing up to Lazy Journalism 101, I’m professor Joe Buck and our motto here is, “Beat that dead horse that nobody cares about until people start caring about it.” Let’s jump straight into this week’s dead horse story: OJ Mayo taking money from a shady agent’s rep. Who would like to comment on this story? Anyone? Anyone? Nobody wants to get fired up and worked up into a tizzy about this? Oh, I see a hand in the back there, Pat Forde, please share your thoughts.” “Well, teach…it’s like this: "When you ...

Another Culprit in the Mayo Mess
Published 5/13/2008 by rtmsf at Rush the Court
In the effluvia of the OJ Mayo report from Outside the Lines (you remember, he took money and gifts from street runner Rodney Guillory, acting as a proxy for the Bill Duffy Agency) the other night, there has been a cacophany of predictable kneejerk reactions from every corner of the media universe.  Tim Floyd and USC are to blame! ...

A SENSIBLE, YET FIRM, PUNISHMENT FOR USC ATHLETICS.
Published 5/16/2008 by WCT (noreply@blogger.com) at EPIC CARNIVAL | SPORTS NEWS WITH A TWIST
by WCT, The Ship of Fools I ruled the world, I'd free all my sons I would offer sensible, yet firm punishments for all improprieties. In most situations, there is no reason to make things complicated, or to try to "make an example" out of those who do wrong. In most cases, a simple solution, where all parties know exactly where they stand, and all repercussions are cut and dry, is usually the best one. Take the situation at USC for example. If the allegations surrounding O.J. Mayo are true, (I recognize that this is a big "if," but for the purposes of this post, let's assume they are) and the allegations surrounding ...