NCAA Commissioner Mark Emmert and his advisors seemed to have stepped in something while crossing the field down in Miami……so much so that the NCAA is doing an investigation into their investigation. Frank Haith was he Head Basketball Coach with the Miami Hurricanes from 2004-2011. He accepted the head coaching job at the University of Missouri in April 2011 and proceeded to win the AP Big 12 Coach of the Year Award and the AP College Basketball Coach of the year there with the Tigers.
Five months later, Haith was named in the Nevin Shapiro recruiting scandal at the University of Miami. It was reported that Haith “acknowledged” that Miami assistant basketball coach Jake Morton received $10,000 from Shapiro to recruit DeQuan Jones. Back in 2008 Haith along with Miami president Danna Shalada showed up in a photo with Shapiro accepting a $50,000 check from Shapiro who later claimed that the 50 dimes had come from his Ponzi scheme for which he is currently imprisoned. A $930,000,000 Ponzi scheme!
In interviews given by Shapiro he admitted to rampant violations of NCAA and University regulations for over eight years as a booster for the University of Miami athletes. He is said to have provided cash, goods, prostitutes, assorted favors to athletes. Shapiro even purchased a yacht on which sex parties with prostitutes were held.
Now, that all looks pretty bad for coach Haith. But when the NCAA opened an investigation into the matter, Frank Haith said that he would cooperate with the investigation and that the allegations “are not an accurate portrayal of my character”.
Commissioner Emmert has since said that any information obtained improperly will be “thrown out”. So now the charges against Frank Haith are suspended and will probably be toned down or perhaps dropped altogether. Haith has always denied wrongdoing and the NCAA surely wants to avoid the possible lawsuits that are already being talked about in the press.
Emmert said last week that his organization is investigating itself for “improper conduct” related to its investigation of the Miami incident. Why would he say that? Well, as it turns out, the lawyer that the NCAA was using to investigate Frank Haith was none other than Nevin Shapiro’s attorney who somehow ended up on the payroll of the NCAA!
Go ahead now, Mr. Commissioner, and explain that one, if you please.
