Say it ain't so, coach

So this is what it feels like. A fan’s doomsday scenario. This is the Pete Rose supporter finding out about the gambling. It’s the Sonics diehard learning his favorite team is leaving Seattle. If suddenly Derek Jeter’s name replaced ARod’s in all the recent headlines, this is what a Yankees fan would be going through.

I like sports a little less today.

By now, recruitment violations by any coach or any program should come as no surprise. We all realize that the movie Blue Chips could very well have been a work of nonfiction. But yesterday when Yahoo! Sports reported that UConn broke NCAA rules in its courting of Nate Miles, I didn’t want to believe the story. And when I learned that the guys who broke the news, Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel, had covered the program in the past (Wajnarowski for the Waterbury Republican and Wetzel for Husky Blue & White) I figured they were just reporters with an agenda.

That’s called denial. UConn fans have been living in it for years.

When Jim Calhoun recruits a kid with a questionable background, like Miles and Caron Butler before him, we call him the father those kids never had. When outsiders start to complain about his recruiting style, like the University of Maryland did with Rudy Gay, we call it sour grapes. And when the media labels him a bully, we call him a bulldog.

Now it appears we’ve been had.

As I see it, there are only two possible explanations for what Calhoun and his staff have done. One is that in 2006, when UConn allegedly began to contact Miles illegally, the program was at a crossroads. The most talented team Calhoun had ever coached was shocked by George Mason in the regional final the season before, and the current team was about to miss the postseason entirely for the first time in 20 years.

Maybe Calhoun got nervous. Maybe he was worried that his program was about to fall off the national radar. Maybe he saw Miles as the next Butler, Ray Allen or Rip Hamilton. Maybe he was desperate.

Or maybe, and this makes me sick just thinking about it, Calhoun has been cheating all along.

That’s the second explanation and it’s completely plausible. It’s hard to believe a guy who had done it right for over 30 years needed to break the rules now. After all, could Calhoun really be that desperate? That same team who struggled in 2006/07 has a chance to reach the final four this weekend. It’s not like he was suddenly coaching St. John’s.

Was Miles, a kid who got expelled about five minutes into college, worth risking a legacy over? Of course not. But if this is how Calhoun had been doing it forever, then it was just business as usual.

Either way, even the most loyal Husky apologist shouldn’t forgive Calhoun if the allegations prove true.

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Random Rumblings

• If you have ever been in a relationship where you have put off breaking up with a girl and then just when you have finally made the decision to go through with it, she comes through with amazing plans or a nice gift, then you know exactly what Omar Minaya is going through with Willie Randolph right now.
  
  Every time it seems like Randolph is in his last day as manager of the Mets, his team seems to come through with a victory that keeps him clinging to the job. That trend may continue today if the team can sweep a double header from Texas. If not, Minaya may have to part ways with the guy he selected for the job on Father’s Day, of all days.
  
  Looks like the end of this relationship is going be even harder than he thought.
  
  
• I understand that it has become harder than ever to win big consistently in college basketball, but it’s sad to see Jim Calhoun lower his standards so much in an attempt to get the University of Connecticut back to where it was during my senior year in high school. His latest recruit, Nate Miles played at five different high schools and it took the NCAA six months of investigating his transcripts just to clear him.
  
  The guy he’ll replace is Stanley Robinson, who, coincidentally, is expected to be academically ineligible.
  
  Both Calhoun and football coach Randy Edsall have complained in the past that UConn’s admission standards are too high and that it has an effect on recruiting. Clearly, the top ranked public school in New England is now meeting their needs.
  
  
• LeBron James once said his goal is to become a global icon. He might as well have said he wants to be Tiger Woods. There is nothing like the coverage Tiger demands during a major, not even a Celtics/Lakers NBA Finals.
  
  
• Even if they win a championship this year and finish their respective careers in Boston, it’s going to be difficult to remember Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen as Celtics.
  
  Paul Pierce, on the other hand, might end up getting his jersey retired.
  
  
• Give me the Little League World Series over the College World Series any day.

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