The most Miami picture ever will baffle future anthropologists.I've never met Nevin Shapiro, but chances are, I wouldn't like him if I did. He seems like a poor human being. Granted, I'm a poor human being as well... as are most people reading this... but I believe Shapiro to be in another league of contemptibility. Shapiro was a scumbag long before he became a "renegade booster" at the U; though, I would argue Shapiro's "renegade booster" days were Nevin Shapiro at his most charitable.
Granted, I don't know Nevin Shapiro's life story, but I doubt one gets to the head of a 930 million dollar ponzi scheme by making moral and ethical decisions throughout life. While still nefarious in nature, at least at Miami, Nevin Shapiro was spreading the wealth as opposed to leaving people broke and hopeless.
The persona Shapiro had at Miami was as fraudulent as the money he used to purchase it, but Shapiro's weasel-like traits were with him long before Kellen Winslow was wrecking gold-plated jet-skis into his yacht. After turning state's witness to send another fraudster to prison, Shapiro had another moral awakening; this time against people he was salty with because he bought their company and then they didn't have his back when it turned out he was a sociopathic criminal on his way to Federal prison.
First, there was the infamous jailhouse interview with Yahoo!'s Charles Robinson, where the convicted felon hand-fed the "investigative journalist" stories about times he gave 18-22 year old athletes free money because they were good at a children's game involving an oval-shaped ball. He also took on his Schadenfreude-driven moral crusade against the institution itself, spilling beans about The U being more than willing to take his money. He did this all the while failing to mention American colleges will take almost anyone's money, even the money of sweatshop profiteers. The hoopla was as pathetic as it was ridiculous even before Jerry Sandusky's soul showed the world its remix on the word "sociopath." But because Nevin Shapiro's soul craves attention, he is back to his rantings and jailhouse threats; this time declaring he would be taking the U "down to Chinatown."
That's tough talk coming from a man who apparently used to go to the club in Abercrombie & Fitch shirts and drink Flower-liquor. However, seeing as Miami has returned Shapiro's money, those associates of Shapiro who are still at Miami have already been punished, Miami inflicted its own bowl ban, and Shapiro is rotting away in a federal penitentiary... I think it's time we officially retire this story and only bring it off the shelf when we want to reminisce on an era of simpler collegiate football scandals.
Doing this would make Shapiro's deepest fears come to fruition. He would become irrelevant, which is what he deserves, because he is nothing more than a damned internet troll. The best way to defeat a troll is to ignore it, no matter what inane vitriol they're spraying from their poorly manicured fingertips. That's why I must ask the national media to do the responsible thing here, and quit feeding the troll by putting tape recorders under his fat mouth.
Anthony Shadid was an actual "investigative journalist".As the most genetically pasty person in the room, I understand White America's moral tittering when a "scandal" like this breaks. Young, athletically gifted black males have always made White America grind its teeth, let alone ones which are perceived to be getting breaks from an institution. (To be fair, this comes from the same people usually wondering what's up with the lack of a "White History Month".) The concept of a 20-year old Kellen Winslow Jr. ramming a gold-plated jet-ski into a yacht is red meat for these people, proven by the blow-up over Kellen Winslow Jr.'s heat-of-the-moment, "I'm a fucking soldier" rant. People like Orange Jim Rome were quick to wag their fingers at KW2, while always failing to correlate it to the bigger issue it hand. (Namely, if this was the product of a football culture which routinely uses phrases like "war in the trenches" to describe line-play and uses words like "courageous" to describe coaches going for it on fourth down.) Instead, people like Orange Jim Rome chose to scold an overly emotional teenager for saying something stupid in the heat of the moment. Neat.
Shapiro has already gotten what he wants... people know "Nevin Shapiro" is the name of a real person who actually existed. (He may pretend to revel in public hatred, but I for one only pity the man.) The fact I'm writing sixty thousand words pleading for people to ignore Nevin Shapiro speaks to what a master class level of troll he is. Why, though, must we give this man a platform for relevancy by allowing people who don't know anything about investigation (or have actual investigative power other than to intimidate 18-22 year old kids with control over their future) like the NCAA, when the final result will just punish people who had nothing to do with the original "crime" in the first place? Outside of the NCAA's dog and pony show, where would punishment be extolled with this brand of logic in Western Society? (This makes the NCAA no better than the steroid-saturated bouncer at a bar just looking to manhandle intoxicated kids half their size.)
The dirty secret of college football is it depends on rich boosters affiliated with schools to stay profitable. (#SHOUTOUT TO LES WEXNER'S WAR CHEST THO!!!!) Seeing as boosters and other well-wishers have been slipping cash to players since at least 1929, it would seem this issue would be impossible to regulate, especially since the NCAA is a bureaucratic monstrosity that would probably make Congress point and laugh, which is probably why Capitol Hill will come knocking soon.
How colleges in America still see themselves.Colleges will usually be the first to say they stand entirely for the betterment of Man. Seeing as the NCAA is about student-athletes going professional in something other than sports, one would think the NCAA and colleges would have removed the concept of an "athletic booster" long ago; but then universities would lose the financing to a great drum to bang on every time they extended their other hand and asked for cash. Every big-time college may not have somebody as diabolical and sick as Nevin Shapiro, but they all certainly have boosters more than willing to make sure he's the guy "taking care" of the athletes moving an oval-shaped ball into designated touchdown areas on Saturdays. (Salutations to Bobby DiGeronimo, a grown-ass man who hid in an Ohio State locker in attempts to hear a pre-game speech from [the befallen] Jim Tressel in 2001, facilitated the compounding of Ohio State's mess with the NCAA in 2011, and is second only to Gene Smith in culpability for Ohio State's bowl ban in 2012.)
Snakes like Nevin Shapiro are inevitable given the NCAA's setup. The NCAA knows this, but they accept and rationalize the snakes' existence by putting in measures which have been intrinsically proven to be failures. Then, when the snakes bite naive 18-22 year olds, the 18-22 year olds get punished more than the snakes. Snitching can only go upwards, it cannot run down. That's the rules of the game Nevin Shapiro wanted to play, and those are the rules now that Shapiro has lost.
Nevin Shapiro's opinions on this matter should be forfeit until his debts to society have been paid. That's why I hope the next time somebody puts something close to Nevin Shapiro's mouth, it's a binkie en route to calming his next child-like outburst from his Federally funded time-out area.
