Earlier this week, Donna Shalala,
President of the University of Miami sent letters of gratitude to both Penn
State and Syracuse. In her messages Shalala graciously thanked the schools’
athletic departments for their roles in scandals that various media outlets
have widely proclaimed as being the most shocking and inexcusable in the
history of college sports. Shalala
described the incidents as being “totally worse than the whole Nevin Shapiro
incident.”
Shalala’s letters certainly contain
a fair amount of truth, as just about every sports network and news station has
stopped all coverage of the University of Miami’s scandal, in which a former
booster allegedly offered thousands of dollars worth of gifts, dinners, and
other undeniably awesome swag to former UM football players. It resulted in the suspension of a number of
student-athletes and the story was plastered across headlines all over the
country, as journalists in desperate need of something juicy to talk about
screamed for the NCAA to give the Hurricanes the “death penalty.” Luckily for
the “Canes, the Penn State and Syracuse scandals immediately stole the
spotlight away from the shady activities going on behind of the scenes of Miami’s
football program. So much so, in fact, that some University of Miami officials
have begun to insist that the booster scandal never even happened in the first
place.
Said one anonymous member of the
athletic department, “Nevin who? I’m sorry, but the only thing scandalous
around here is how well our nationally ranked tanning squad is doing!” Taylor Mckillop, a freshman at the University
of Miami, said, “I’m so glad to hear the news about Penn State and Syracuse! Now
when I go home for break I don’t have to worry about people talking about Miami
and can spend my time making fun of my friends who went to Penn State and
Syracuse! It ROCKS.”
Shalala concluded her touching
letter to Penn St. and Syracuse with one last word of thanks: “The increase of
scandals has done wonders for the University of Miami’s reputation, and I know
I speak for the entire student body her at UM, when I say thank you from the
bottom of our hearts. It really goes to show that college athletics
promotes the best in all of us.”
*UPDATE: According to inside
sources, other institutions across the land have started to repay the favor
with scandals other their own in order to further split up the disjointed and
highly volatile 24 hour news networks. FSU’s Micheal Snaer was caught Jaywalking
on a public road, in clear violation of NCAA statute number 3, resulting in an
unappealable punishment of 30,000 dollars and a loss of 14 scholarships.
Another developing scandal reportedly involves Baylor’s Robert Griffin, winner of this year’s Heisman trophy, who was allegedly caught throwing a piece of trash on the ground and not
recycling. These allegations, if true,
would of course require Griffin to vacate his winning of the Heisman.
