Kelvin Sampson loves making phone calls to recruits. He loves it. Unfortunately for Coach Sampson, this isn’t ‘Nam, this is recruiting, there are rules. And even though the NCAA’s infraction committee often seems more like a team of monkeys than a formidable opponent to cheating, ::coughReggieBushcough::, every once in a while they try to flex a little muscle. Like when a skier wants to return punts, or when a coach has an itchy trigger finger.
What’s unfortunate in this case, is that IU’s basketball program could face sanctions after having hired Sampson without knowing about his penchant for calling high school boys. Oh. Wait. That’s right. They knew.
Sampson had been sanctioned after making impermissible phone calls while he was the coach at Oklahoma. Indiana then revealed more bad calls while Sampson was at IU. Multiple sources told ESPN.com that the NCAA was looking into whether Sampson did not tell the truth about those calls, resulting in the allegations of major violations.
The NCAA investigation came after Indiana made an announcement in October that Sampson had made 100 impermissible phone calls while he was on probation for illicit calls he made while he was the coach at Oklahoma from 2000 to 2006. During that time, he made 577 impermissible calls.
Sooo…I guess it basicaly comes down to Sampson just not being all that interested in what the NCAA calls “rules.” Or maybe he just doesn’t understand the rules. If someone would just sit down with the man and explain what ‘you can’t make any calls to recruits’ actually means, then we could avoid this in the future. Or if they punished him for his mis-steps, he might learn his lesson. Oh. Wait. That’s right. They did.
Sampson was penalized by Oklahoma by not being allowed to travel for recruiting. Indiana imposed the same penalty in his first season at IU. He was also banned from making calls and going off campus to recruit for a calendar year. He wasn’t banned from text messaging since it was allowed during that year. But it was during that year that he made the impermissible calls.
I’m sure those very vocal Illini fans could come up with a few statements to the NCAA regarding Sampson’s recruitment of certain freshman.
HT to BoilerSports.com for the great pic.
