SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—The growing college basketball recruiting scandal reverberated Saturday throughout the gym at Westmont College, an NAIA school near the beaches of this coastal paradise where the U.S. women’s senior basketball team is holding its first mini-camp prior to the 2018 World Cup next summer in the Canary Islands.
None of the coaches or the players seemed shocked by what they’ve read or heard.
But they were surprised by the power that has been unleashed by the FBI during this ongoing three-year investigation that has already resulted in the arrests of four prominent assistant coaches and six shoe company executives, runners and financial advisors on charges of money laundering and bribery.
“It used to be big boosters, but this scandal is that times a million,’’ four-time Olympic point guard Sue Bird said. “When the NCAA runs an investigation, coaches can lie. If you lie to the FBI, you’re going to jail. The FBI has subpoena power, undercover agents, access to wire-tapping.’’
No one has any idea how deep or far reaching the investigation will go or how many head coaches will be affected. “It could be the biggest scandal in sports before it’s over,’’ Olympic forward Breanna Stewart added.
No argument here.
Notre Dame Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw hasn’t been shy about the fact she feels there has been some spillover in the women’s game. “Clearly, we don’t have that kind of money involved,’’ McGraw told the ND Insider, and that’s probably why we’re not having the same problem, but there’s still cheating going on and maybe this is a wake-up call to clean that up.
“I don’t think it’s surprising to anyone,’’ McGraw said. “I don’t think it’s surprising to anyone. I think there have been rumors for years about players being paid. It’s disappointing. Our jobs as coaches are first and foremost to be educators. We’re supposed to be teaching them about accountability and how to live your life and to see what’s going on in men’s basketball, it’s a travesty.’’
Newly minted U.S. Olympic women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley agreed. “Muffett started the conversation and we need to keep it going,’’ Staley said. “I’ve tried to read everything I could on it. The women’s game needs to be cleaned up. Our game is the purest of all the sports and we need to keep it that way.’’
The corruption in women’s recruiting hasn’t made for splashy headlines, yet. The sport hasn’t really had a major scandal.
“I don’t ever think it will reach the magnitude of what we’ve read about in the men’s game this week,’’ Connecticut’s iconic coach Geno Auriemma said. The money just isn’t there. Who’s going to who invest that kind of money into a someone who might only make $200,000 over the course of her WNBA career.
“Players like Diana Taurasi only come along once in a generation.’’
The 35-year old Taurasi from the WNBA Phoenix Mercury, who was arguably the best player in the world last year, made $1.5 million playing for UMMC Yekaterinberg, in Russia, which is backed by a huge corporation that is the second biggest copper producer in the country, during the WNBA offseason. Other stars like point guard Sue Bird and 6-8 center Brittany Griner, have also struck gold in that country. The maximum a veteran WNBA player could earn in the 2017 season was $115,000.
Staley is all for paying college players.
“But how?’’ she asked.
Auriemma has an idea.
“Right now,’’ he said, “they get cost of attendance. What’s that? $5,000. Players see schools getting big pay days from TV contracts and they want some of that money.
“Maybe they should sign players to four-year employee contracts with schools that have non-compete clauses so they can’t transfer. But how do you determine who gets what? Do everybody get the same money? Do the stars get more? And what about the agents? What happens If you pay a player x and the agent comes in and adds y and z to the equation?
“These are just some things I think about.’’