The only thing that surprised this columnist was the low, low price that allegedly bought O.J. Mayo
By Adam de Jong
May 12, 2008 9:43 p.m.
If the allegation that Los Angeles events promoter Rodney Guillory provided former USC basketball star O.J. Mayo with nearly $30,000 in money and gifts while Mayo was still an amateur turns out to be correct, the fallout will likely lead to the firings of USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett and basketball coach Tim Floyd.
I don’t think anybody would really object.
After all, Garrett oversees a football program that the NCAA is currently investigating for the Reggie Bush fiasco, and Floyd will all but certainly be shown the door for what Michael Wilbon aptly called “a lack of institutional control.”
After the necessary people have been disposed of, we will likely ask a few broader questions such as: Why does the NBA impose the “one and done” rule when this is what happens? Why doesn’t the NCAA get serious about keeping leeches such as Guillory away from the student-athletes? Why do we make a mockery of the business of college athletics by even referring to guys like Mayo as “student-athletes”?
The more we ask the same questions, the more evidence we have to show that the corruption that has infested this country’s major athletic departments is only getting worse as the profit margins rise.
I suppose these questions are fine. All they show is that some people are still noble ““ or naive ““ enough to think college athletics still stand for something better than the likes of sycophants such as Guillory. But there is one question I can’t be bothered to answer: Why didn’t Mayo know it was wrong to take that money?
Sorry, but we should be questioning Mayo’s intelligence, not his ethics. If you were Mayo, how were you only seeing about $30,000 in cash and gifts if Bill Duffy Associates Sports Management was funneling Guillory more than $200,000, as alleged by former Mayo confidant Louis Johnson, to make sure you signed with BDA once you went pro?
Why weren’t you the one driving that fancy Infinity QX56 that Johnson claims BDA gave Guillory for landing the agency a big client?
I can already see the media charade that will engulf this scandal ““ I cringe as I type out the word “scandal” because there is not one mentally equipped adult who thought Mayo wasn’t planning on leaving USC after his freshman year or that he wasn’t getting some sort of reward for his temporary services.
I tire over debating the best way for the NCAA to clean up the major football and basketball programs around the country, all the while seeing people shake their fingers at innocent teenagers when the kids aren’t even making the serious money. I know my esteemed colleague Nik Lampros is making skeptical arguments about the best way to reform the problematic relationship between the NBA and the NCAA.
I should state my sincere belief that Lampros will inject more rationale and eloquence into the debate than any other professional sportswriter in Los Angeles is capable of doing, yet I must object to the basis of his argument.
The relationship between the NBA and NCAA doesn’t need any perfecting. It is working exactly as it should. The NBA organizations ““ just like their NFL counterparts ““ ensure that their future employees improve their skills against high-level competition in a development league without picking up the bill, while the athletic departments make enormous amounts of money in ticket sales, sports memorabilia, advertising and television revenues.
Everybody makes out smashingly well in this fix. That is, everybody except the ones playing the games and creating all that revenue.
That’s why Mayo should have demanded more money from BDA, if the allegations are correct. He was the guy putting people in the seats of that fancy new Galen Center, not Floyd or Garrett, and certainly not Guillory.
If I had to call for reform, I would second legendary Frank DeFord’s argument that college basketball and football players should be paid and be allowed to major in athletics. Of course, that is out of the domain of what we like to call reality.
So if we can’t fix the whole rotten situation, we can at least be honest about it and wonder why Mayo wasn’t smart enough to realize that he was the laborer; his talent was the means of production, and he should have been getting more money from the start.
If you think de Jong should demand more money from the Daily Bruin, e”‘mail him at [email protected].
