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 firstplace.
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 EJ Manuel 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.
