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NCAA, Sam Gilbert, John Wooden, UCLA Basketball Program
Topic Started: Apr 25 2012, 03:42 PM (459 Views)
*TennesseeTuxedo
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Most people do not realize that John Wooden was a good man on the surface but turned his back to what went on behind the scenes, which ultimately built his basketball empire at UCLA. Wooden's UCLA powerhouse was rotten to the core and bought and paid for by Papa Sam Gilbert.....and the NCAA knew about it and covered it up.

The NCAA Covered Up UCLA Violations During Wooden Years
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*TennesseeTuxedo
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http://silkroadsandsiamesesmiles.com/2009/11/14/the-gilded-saints-of-ucla-and-sam-gilbert-a-collection-of-articles/
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“UCLA players were so well taken care of – far beyond the ground rules of the NCAA – that even players from poor backgrounds never left UCLA prematurely (for pro basketball) during John Wooden’s championship years.

“If the UCLA teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s were subjected to the kind of scrutiny (other schools) have been, UCLA would probably have to forfeit about eight national championships and be on probation for the next 100 years.

“I hate to say anything that may hurt UCLA, but I can’t be quiet when I see what the NCAA is doing (to other coaches) only because (they have) a reputation for giving a second chance to many black athletes other coaches have branded as troublemakers. The NCAA is working night and day trying to get (them), but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA.”

Those quotes come from none other than Bill Walton, maybe the greatest Bruin of them all, in his 1978 book “On the Road with the Portland Trailblazers”, which went on to detail how Sam Gilbert, a Los Angeles contractor the feds allege made millions laundering drug money, bought a decade worth of recruits for UCLA.

“It’s hard for me to have a proper perspective on financial matters, since I’ve always had whatever I wanted since I enrolled at UCLA,” Walton wrote.

That is the conundrum of UCLA and college sports as the Bruins go for their 12th NCAA title here Monday against Florida.

On one hand, UCLA has a tradition rich with success, class and glory. Good people, great stories, wonderful memories. On the other is the fact the Bruins eviscerated the rule book like no program before or after, but went largely unpunished by a NCAA that wanted no part of taking down its marquee team.

And the truth is, neither image is wrong. And neither one is right. This is college athletics, yesterday, today and probably forever, no matter how sweet the package, now matter how pretty the bow.

It is how Wooden, universally hailed for his remarkable grace and humility, has wound up seemingly beyond reproach. No matter how dirty his program, today he sells books, speeches and financial planning commercials based on his image of trust and honesty.

The question is always why would UCLA have to cheat, what with its tremendous academics, beautiful campus and proximity to talent. But it is telling that it took Wooden, arguably the greatest coach of all time, 15 seasons to win a national title. Before Gilbert got involved and the talent arrived, the Bruins weren’t the best. Which ought to tell you what the competition was up to.

Maybe it is Wooden’s class that has kept talk of tainted titles to a minimum. But none of this is a secret in basketball. In the late 1970s, after Wooden retired, the Los Angeles Times did an investigation of Gilbert and the NCAA was forced to sanction UCLA, but never vacated any championships. Then there is Walton’s book, which couldn’t be more damning.

The NCAA never bothered to investigate UCLA during Wooden’s time, part of its history of selective enforcement. During the 1960s and ’70s, the organization, run by old white men, was too busy going after small, upstart programs that dared to play too many African-Americans, launching inquiries into Texas Western/UTEP, Western Kentucky, Centenary and Long Beach State.

Apparently a team capturing 10 titles in 12 years, putting together undefeated season after undefeated season, recruiting high school All-Americans from all over the country to sit on the bench, yet never having them transfer or declare hardship wasn’t enough for it to dawn on anyone at the NCAA that, gee, maybe they’re cheating?

But that is your NCAA.

And that is your college athletics, where corner cutting doesn’t make a guy a bad person; it makes him a successful coach.

In Wooden’s defense, some, including Walton, have argued that he wasn’t aware of Gilbert’s largesse, or at most just looked the other way. But other coaches in Southern California at the time, most notably Jerry Tarkanian, laugh at that, claiming Gilbert proudly boasted of his payouts. Tark claims Gilbert once offered to pay one of his Long Beach State stars, Robert Smith, just because he liked the way he played.

“You couldn’t be more obvious than Sam,” said Tarkanian. “He just laughed about it. Everyone in America knew.”

Moreover, in a striking 2004 interview with Basketball Times, Wooden described confronting players Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe in 1969 about expensive new clothes he suspected Gilbert had purchased. “Did you get this from Sam Gilbert,” he asked. “I don’t like this.”

“People want to say this is tainted,” Wooden told BT, before folding his arms in a rare bit of anger. “I don’t care. I don’t believe that.”

The truth of college athletics is that winning, let alone at the championship level, without rule breaking is nearly impossible. Fans and apologetic media don’t want to admit this about the icons of the games, but nothing about this has changed for decades. And it probably never will.

There are no angels in this business, no white hats and black hats as the NCAA would like people to believe with its public relations campaign of a rule book. Everything is a shade of grey. Everything is situational ethics. Everything is pick your poison.

Even the great UCLA legacy. Even the great John Wooden.

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*TennesseeTuxedo
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John Wooden and Pete Carroll
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But facts are facts. And the fact is, Wooden was at UCLA for 15 years, from 1948-63, without winning an NCAA championship. And then from 1964-76 he won 10 titles in 12 years. What changed? Sam Gilbert's involvement changed.

Gilbert, a UCLA alum and wealthy contractor, opened his home and apparently his wallet to the Bruins, from Lew Alcindor to Lucius Allen to Bill Walton. When the best Bruins left school, Gilbert represented them as an agent, which is one of the most brazen unpunished NCAA violations in college sports history: Rich booster spoils the best players on campus, then becomes their agent. And the coach doesn't stop it. Doesn't even know about it.

Maybe Wooden didn't know. But his attention to detail was legendary. Wooden literally monitored how his players tied their shoes and how they wore their socks ... but he didn't know Gilbert -- the players called him "Papa Sam" -- was giving them cash and clothes and cars before becoming their agent? Maybe. More likely, Wooden didn't want to know. That's how he slept at night, and that's how he won 10 national titles.

But now Pete Carroll faces the same situation. Carroll was a mediocre, twice-fired NFL coach who in 2001 went to USC, which had gone 65-52 over the previous decade, and within two seasons led the Trojans to their first national title in 25 years. Since 2002 Carroll has become Wooden, leading USC to an 82-9 record with two championships, and has never finished worse than No. 4 nationally. Clearly USC, with its location and weather and tradition dating to the 1960s and earlier, was a sleeping giant. Carroll woke the giant up.

But what was the alarm clock? The marketing rep who kept Reggie Bush happy?

And who else was kept happy?

Those are questions the NCAA is trying to answer. If the NCAA proves the financial connection between Bush and the marketing rep -- and that looks like a Lew Alcindor dunk -- it will then have to determine whether to hold Carroll responsible. Maybe Carroll, even if he is technically innocent, should be held responsible. College coaches typically know everything about their players, from the classes they're skipping to the groupies they're seeing. But they never seem to know about the rich booster or marketing rep who gives them money or cars or housing. Funny how that works.

But whatever happens to Carroll and USC, let's remember one thing. Whatever he has done, whatever cheating Pete Carroll has failed to see or chosen to ignore, he hasn't done it as well as John Wooden did it at UCLA.

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*TennesseeTuxedo
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UCLA's Tainted Dynasty

It is so sad that the NCAA covered this up and allowed John Wooden to turn a blind eye to what he knew was going on.

These days the coaches have become more sophisticated and the NCAA is in the stone ages of uncovering violations. Look no further than John Calipari and at the black church culture of the south.
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*TennesseeTuxedo
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20140121/john-wooden-book-excerpt-sam-gilbert/#all

Seth Davis wrote a book on John Wooden and this is what was written about Papa Sam Gilbert.

UCLA and Wooden would have not won many NCAA Basketball Championships without Papa Sam Gilbert buying the players. It definitely diminishes Wooden's feats.
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VolMafia
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And today- Look at Alabama.....
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