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What was Kelvin Sampson thinking? He blew it. He had one of the best jobs in NCAA basketball, Head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers. He couldn’t keep his phone fetish in order though. He reportedly made several phone calls to potential recruits. What makes this story even better is the fact that he got in trouble for the very same thing when he was coaching for Oklahoma. One can’t blame Indiana for kicking Sampson to the left, but shouldn’t they have seen this coming? When considers Indiana University’s clean cut image, It makes no since for a IU to have hired a coach who was in the middle of a NCAA investigation.
In all fairness to Sampson, a lot of the NCAA rules are stupid. Why should he only be allowed to make 1 phone call a week to potential recruits? There are lots of questions that need to be asked in this Sampson case. Did he behave in an unethical manner? Should he have been fired? The answers are no and yes. He wasn’t really unethical in his recruitment style. Yes he broke the rules, but what if the rules are dumb? Aren’t some rules meant to be broken? He should have been fired on the other for making the same mistake twice. Didn’t he learn from the first situation at Oklahoma? Indiana was his shot at creating a legacy that wasn’t tarnished and he blew it. He absolutely blew it.
We can’t feel too sorry for Sampson though. He got a nice $750,000 buyout from Indiana University in exchange for not filing a lawsuit against the school.. It sure would be nice to be paid in the high six figures for being dishonest and careless. AS of now, Dan Dakichis coach of IU. He has a mammoth task ahead of him. He has to clean up the reputation of his team, and he also has to unite them. Many of the players, D.J. White, had strong loyalty to Sampson. Several players even threatened to sit out at games. Some players have even skipped practices.
It should be interesting to see how this will affect IU and College basketball in general. Perhaps this will give the 15th ranked Hoosiers a reason to step their game. It might even provoke an outcry for the NCAA to change some of their silly rules. It is all up in the air at this point.
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