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[Cloudy]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/9983062.htm

Ron Zook allegedly taking part of his University of Florida football team to a frat house, looking for a fight?

Allow Heat coach Stan Van Gundy to cut through the hypocrisy.

''If you are 5-0, it is not a fireable offense,'' he says. ``If your team is 1-4 or 2-3, it is a fireable offense.''

Van Gundy, a good and smart man, doesn't do controversy. He has been working in this town for more than a decade without uttering a flammable syllable. But don't get him started on the subject of shamateurism. He knows more than most that it is only a loss-column ''L'' that separates higher learning from higher earning.

''College athletics, they're supposed to be this bastion of purity,'' Van Gundy says. ``You've got to be kidding me. Pro athletics are far more upfront and honest. We know what it's all about at this level. They do in college, too, but they try to fool people into thinking its about the kids and education, which is a bunch of crap.''

WINNING MASKS ALL WARTS

Debaucherous Larry Eustachy didn't get fired for perception problems at Iowa State. He got fired for having perception problems while losing. All would have been forgiven if he had been winning and drunk, as the University of Cincinnati's Bob Huggins has proven. Huggins couldn't get through the slurred alphabet during a police-videotaped DUI arrest but he, unlike Eustachy, has been to the NCAA tournament 13 years in a row. So he remains Cincinnati's highest-paid employee, of course.

''I listen to Dick Vitale and Billy Packer talking about how these kids should go to college for the education and experience,'

' Van Gundy says. ``What a joke. I'm telling you, it's all about winning, and those people will do anything to keep those kids eligible. A lot of them will discourage kids from taking classes that can be very valuable to them. If you think any of those [college] administrators are worried about integrity, you're crazy.''

Van Gundy has no problem with high school kids jumping straight to the pros. The choice for the star recruit, as he sees it, is between being a mercenary for slave wages at the college level or being a mercenary for millions at the pro level. Which isn't much of a choice at all.

''I don't think the NCAA cares anything about the athlete,'' he says. ``Some of their rules make that very, very clear. I wouldn't want my kid going to any college that can't teach him it is a good decision to bypass college for $5 million a year.''

DOUBLE STANDARD

High school kids jump to the pros all the time in baseball and hockey, with far more frequency and far less success. But NBA players get criticized for it more often and more loudly, even though they are earning far more in the transaction than those slumming through minor-league baseball and hockey towns.

''The reason people never have gotten upset with kids leaving college to play minor-league baseball for $300 a month is that it was mainly white kids playing for very little money,'' Van Gundy says. ``What they don't like is black kids from the inner-city coming out and making millions of dollars without going to college. Quite frankly, I think it is racist.''

We aren't used to hearing Van Gundy talk this way.

It is controversial, opinionated and harsh.

It's something else, though, too.

The truth.

Fuck college sports....

 

[Doc Holliday]

+1 stan van gundy, nice read..thanks.

 

[bishoptl]

Wow! I just gained a lot of respect for SVG - he said out loud what I (and many others) have been screaming for years. Good for him.

I'm cheering for the Heat this year!

 

[Cloudy]

I'd cheer for the Heat (i do like Wade and now their coach) but I want Shaq to fail badly

 

[Incognito]

nice!

 

[Brian Fellows]

I agree with him too bad he coaches in the worst pro league i nthe country. NBA basketball is a joke. Hell high school basketball is 10x more fun to watch than the NBA.

 

[Brodequin]

+1 stan van gundy, nice read..thanks.

Yup. Absolutely right. I'm glad someone involved in the sport actually publicly spoke the truth.

 

[Pimpwerx]

''I don't think the NCAA cares anything about the athlete,'' he says. ``Some of their rules make that very, very clear. I wouldn't want my kid going to any college that can't teach him it is a good decision to bypass college for $5 million a year.''

Yo, that's my boy SVG spitting some truth. Seriously, that's what a lot of people have been saying for years. The NCAA is crooked. This quote is priceless though. I wouldn't want a kid going to a school that won't teach him that $5M out of high school is a good idea. You make that money and you can fund your college education 50 times. Why not at least try? Oh, so the schools can make money off their asses. The same thing with the lack of a playoff system in 1A football. It's for money. It's all a numbers game, and when people say the kids are getting an education, it's a lie. They get a scholarship, but their workout schedules are so ridiculous that they don't take any real classes, and don't really learn much. And they don't get to work part-time to make their own money, so they rely on the stipends they get, which is why some sell drugs and take money from boosters. Because the NCAA has forced them into a corner. I agree with what Van Gundy says 110%. Go Heat! PEACE.

 

[DCX]

Stan the Man +1000

DCX

 

[Ninja Scooter]

not only did he say this, but he also looks like Ron Jeremy. SVG + 2