Anybody know why this guy has it out for ole KU?

Dan Wetzel

I'm not saying he's wrong about the article, just that it seems a little anti-KU to me (through my crimson and blue glasses),

--RC

From the cheap seats.......

College: uMass Amherst (bitter about “squid” scandal?)

From Wikipedia——appears he likes to write about sports scandals?

Sooooooo......misery loves company?

(I think it was in “meet the Fokkers”......Greg inadvertently taught the toddler a swear word. Perhaps this guy resembles that remark?!).

Rock Chalk!

Older piece, but this gives some more insight into his career history background...My take: he's hoping this turns into a book deal. So, the more muck, the better.

thebiglead.com/2006/11/28/from-casino-de...iew-with-dan-wetzel/

I don't think he has any particular beef with KU. We are at the forefront of this trial testimony. Of all the payments to all the college bound players, they are talking the most about the Louisville kid and two KU kids. It's appropriate to write articles about KU right now.

And I repeat what I said last year about Preston's mom - shut the heck up about people picking on your son and saying "wait til the truth comes out, my son is innocent." You are a crook, and now it appears you were willing to fake a personal relationship with the Adidas bag man to justify your cash receipts. Your son got exactly what he deserved.

Finally, I hate hearing from the dad of the Louisville kid. A policeman who openly took bribe money for his son's commitment. Now cutting a deal and ratting out everyone else. His son playing overseas somewhere and likely blackballed from the NBA. Disgusting.

For the sake of some simplicity, let’s narrow this down to three possibilities regarding Kansas.

1. The whole group is as guilty as sin, they knew it all and just hoped to never get caught — This simply does not comport with 15+ years of track record. Self, all of the sudden, after 15 years of developing a stellar reputation in all regards with pretty much every faction in the sports world from peers to overseers. Not to say it is not possible, but slime balls usually were slime balls, are slime balls and always will be slime balls. Track record matters. Character is not assumed it is earned. Self and the KU sports department has never shown to be even leaning in the slime ball direction. WHen they have encountered sliminess they appear to have a track record of addressing it. I simply cannot see this being a reasonable possibility given the reality of the tigers and stripes theory of human nature. I may turn out to have been duped for 15 years but count me as a supporter of coach Self until evidence shows otherwise. That is not blind allegiance, that is weighing the facts at this point.

2. They are pure as the driven snow and the Adidas actors are the slime balls — This has some merit. I think it is already established that the Adidas actors at the center of this case are slime balls. Slime balls do slime ball things. SLime balls cannot be trusted on their word alone and require evidence to substantiate their word. Self’s word has gravitas. That is not to say that it should trump hard evidence, but all things equal, the word alone has more or less weight based on the earned credibility. At this point, the evidence looks like it may be coming out. But if there is no hard evidence, only the word that “I told KU coaches we were here to help” color me unimpressed. Even if KU is determined to be completely duped, there could be some fallout and that is a little worrisome. But until more evidence comes to light, this is pretty stanky.

3. KU is not directly complicit but either tacitly complicit or remiss in their diligence to police such things (sort of the lack of institutional control thing) — This one could be a little more problematic. Let’s say this Gassnola slime ball did make a comment like “We are here to help.” Of course, you would have to fully investigate the context of that conversation. You can imagine a context where that could have been reasonably taken by KU to be completely benign such as a reference to the pending deal KU was contemplating signing with Adidas. But you can also imagine a context where it could have reasonably been taken to be leaning to the illicit. If that were the case, KU had a myriad of possible responses. They could have immediately reported it to authorities on one end to feigning complete ignorance on the other. This one is hard to get your arms around until you fully investigate the context of such a conversation and comment. Until more meat is put on that bone, I can only throw up my arms and say any conclusion at this point would be a premature rush to judgment. Going back to 1 above, I simply have a tough time believing Self would hang out KU and himself if he smelled a rat. Self has proven himself to be a pretty smart and shrewd person. Self’s ambition and ego are appropriately big but in my opinion, his character and savvy have always been in proportion to his ego and ambition. I think some have felt that there are coaches with ambitions and egos similar or possibly larger than Self but do not have the values, character or savvy to effectively counter and keep the ego and ambition in check. Once again, Self’s 15 years at KU plus the time before that portend well for him and KU.

My advice to anyone is just like anything in life, let the evidence come and than weigh it and draw conclusions. We are short on a lot of necessary data at this point. The media always tends to color things far more black and white, cut and dried than is realistic. As an executive in industry involved in a number of issues that had necessary confidentiality, and watching many people speculate armed with minimal (and actually insufficient) evidence, you learn not to jump too quickly to conclusions or make careless and unreasonable or uncorroborated assumptions. We lack answers to a boatload of quastions at this point. I an reasonably but cautiously optimistic.

Corpus, I love your faith in Self. But, the obvious answer is everyone - including Self - knew everything, but the game has been played for so long (Wooden started it all with his own bag man Sam Gilbert), everyone keeps the players and coaches out of the direct payment process. Zero, and I mean ZERO chance Self, Williams, K, Squid, et al aren't aware of how the Nike/Adidas/Under Armor game is played, and has been played for decades. Anyone who followed college recruiting at all has read about shoe company payments. Self and his coaching brothers are in the gyms, in the AAU practices, meeting with AAU coaches and shoe company guys. If they weren't aware of the payment scheme, they're blind and clueless, which we know they're not. If the Bowen kid and his dad knew what Preston got paid and demanded the same thing, then there were no secrets at all, and everyone knew payments were made, down to the specific amount of those payments.

Move on, let the punishments, game forfeitures, and eligibility issues fall where they may, and change the system moving forward. That's it.

And on it goes . . . .




RC

Jeez. Even the AZ Wildcat Ayton is implicated thru KU. the Adidas rat felt bad his $15,000 to Ayton didn't result in him going to KU.

The funniest part of all of this - the Adidas rat gave the most money to Preston, who is probably the worst player of the group mentioned. Waste of money.

I wonder if there are Nike or Under Armor guys who will testify? They would be ratting out players from Nike schools instead of such a focus on KU, being the biggest Adidas school.

I find it interesting that the only people investigated were the Adidas group even though there is plenty of evidence that other groups such as Nike and Under Armour were involved with payments.

And some more . . . .



RC

There are times when you read something that is supposed to be journalism and have to control yourself from gagging. This article was an example. AZ in an above post said “Corpus, I love your faith in Self. But, the obvious answer is everyone - including Self - knew everything,”. With all due respect to AZ (and I mean that sincerely, I enjoy his posts) I disagree. While it is possible Self knew the details of the nefarious dealings I have seen no evidence to indicate this to be the case. Is Self aware that “in general” that these things happen and likely somewhat frequently? Of course. We all know “generally” that this stuff happens. In fact, I don’t know that you can design a system that can keep it from happening. Whatever tweaks the powers that be may make to the system, people will find a way around it. But back to the issue. Yes, everyone knows “in general” there is corruption from the AAU circuit, shoe companies, high school coaches and many other areas. But just as there are almost certainly various pockets of corruption, there are honest brokers in the system. KU has a strong vetting system to root out possible corruption but the slime balls who perpetrate the corruption are usually not complete idiots. It can be difficult to root out. While Self is, I’m sure, far more aware of all the nuances of potential corruption in the system, I simply do not see evidence that he is complicit, explicitly or tacitly. For the author of this article to basically all but say that Self is dirty is journalistic malpractice of the highest order. He may believe that but as a journalists he should adhere to the facts more than rank speculation. This was a disgusting article.

HCBS's texts . . . . .



RC

But coach Kzvgjyxwp is clean . . .

Ha!

RC

What 'nova is saying . . .

RC

Bullet proof Blue Bloods?

RC