Over the course of the semester, we will be keeping track of college sport scandals, and categorizing them to look for patterns. This summer, in advance of our first day of class, the college sport world has offered up a number of scandals to get us started.
-
Representative Jim Jordan, failing to prevent the routine sexual abuse of wrestlers by a team doctor at Ohio State University, where he was a coach in the 1990s.
-
UNC-CH football coach Larry Fedora made comments questioning the link between CTE and football. He also claimed that football was under attack in the US, and that the US would be weaker as a society without it.
-
Thirteen UNC-CH athletes were suspended for selling shoes issued to the team by Nike. The athletes received suspensions of between 2 and 3 games. UNC and Nike have a contract that has been worth, at least $35.68 million over the last decade. And Larry Fedora and Roy Williams have additional individual contracts with Nike for their teams to exclusively wear Nike apparel.
-
Reports of a toxic culture at the University of Maryland following the death of Jordan McNair has put the Terrapin’s coaching staff under scrutiny.
-
Urban Meyer has been suspended for three games, and the rest of pre-season training, as a result of failing to report domestic abuse by one of his assistant coaches. Zach Smith was reported to the police (and even arrested) for domestic abuse nine times while coaching at OSU, but Meyer and the University’s AD refused to act against him. Meyer then lied about this to the press this summer, forcing the Board of Trustees to take disciplinary action. The Board also released a 23-page report on their investigation, and resulting suspension, which has been critiqued already by some in the press.