re: CAMGATE - What YOU need to know

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Auburn's defense to a prospective athlete receiving an improper benefit will be composed of three parts: a. that Cam Newton didn't know his father solicited funds -- the most crucial part b. Newton didn't attend the school his father solicited funds from and c. no funds ever changed hands for Newton to attend school at Auburn.

It's not a bad defense given how woeful Auburn's options are, but it's a desperate one that is doomed to fail. Why? Because if accepted, the defense would open up a hole in the NCAA rulebook that you could drive a Brink's truck full of cash through. If the NCAA accepts this defense to its bylaws, it would mean that any recruit's family was free to shake down the schools that were recruiting him so long as the family claimed the recruit was unaware of it and the player didn't end up attending the school.

Think about how ridiculous this would be.


Grandmother's across the country could call up head coaches, demand hundreds of thousands of dollars from those coaches, and then there would be two options for the coach: a. the money comes, the solicitation works and everyone tries to keep quiet once the player arrives on campus or b. the money doesn't come and the player remains free to play somewhere else. Whereupon the grandmother calls a new school and repeats the solicitation.

Plainly, this argument is going to fail.

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