This whole college coaching thing is sketchy business. That is especially true at the large division 1 basketball and football programs. It would seem that everyone bends rules and it simply becomes a matter of what you can get away with.
The latest story is the resignation of USC head man Tim Floyd. Floyd had been the center of some controversy much of the 3 years he spent in LA. In just his second season, he landed prized recruit OJ Mayo and put USC basketball back on the map. At what cost?
There is no firm and hard evidence that implicates Floyd in major wrong doing. However, Louis Johnson, an adviser to OJ Mayo, claimed Floyd gave an agent’s “runner” who was connected to Mayo an envelope with $1,000 on Feb. 14, 2007.
Former USC star guard Daniel Hackett commend his former coach, Hackett said, “I feel like with all this speculation, Coach Floyd did a selfless act. He resigned for the sake of the program to save the players from scrutiny and embarrassment. He acted like a man.” When asked about the OJ Mayo situation, Hackkett said,”I know there were a lot of people around O.J. But I don’t think Coach Floyd did anything wrong. He would do nothing like that.”
Jeff Goodman wrote a nice piece about the situation. He believes the USC program is donezo. He compares this current saga with Indiana and then Arizona. The difference being that those two programs have a storied tradition of college basketball success—USC does not.
It’s hard to argue otherwise and it does indeed look like a program that seemed to be on such a fantastic rise might be ready for a free fall. I can’t imagine a prominent coach such as Jamie Dixon (Pitt.) wanted to go to USC. The only draw is living in LA and being able to use that to recruit. It would seem that USC is going to have to pull from a pool of lower level Pac-10 coaches and guys who do not have a job at this point.
In the end USC is a football school and it looks like they are set to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Of course, USC football isn’t exactly squeaky clean these days either.
USC’s Hackett backs ex-Coach Tim Floyd [LA Times]
USC hoops to fall hard after Floyd’s resignation [FOX Sports]
