The most recent scandal to occur within the world of sports involves former USC Trojan, and eventual NBA basketball star, O.J. Mayo. It has been alleged that Mayo accepted monetary and material gifts appraised in the neighborhood of 30k during his high school and brief collegiate tenures. So the story goes, Mayo has had a long standing relationship with a Los Angeles event planner named, Rodney Guillory; who, was apparently being bankrolled by a Northern California sports agency by the name of Bill Duffy Associates. I won’t bother enumerating the particulars, but the gifts were aimed at, and evidently succeeded, in obtaining an informal commitment from Mayo to allow said agency to represent him once he turns pro.

If the story plays out as it is supposed to, denial will rule the day. Mayo will deny it. USC will deny it. Mayo’s former high school(s) and middle school(s) will deny it. Reggie Bush will become inextricably bound to Mayo, and we will be exposed to yet more babble trying to convince us of the gravity of both figures. Arlen Specter, with all the free time that politicians seem to have with the election and war going on, will probably address Congress concerning the issue, any day now. ESPN, along with the rest of the underfed sports media, will invade the lives of anyone to ever brush elbows with the guy in an attempt to put together a 15 min. segment, which will be used to spearhead a larger segment examining the ‘corruption’ in amateur athletics.

The moral flavoring of it all is almost palpable. I won’t join the proselytizers and condemn Mayo. I also will not defend him, for the simple fact that I do not think he needs defending. I will, instead, argue that he is both product and victim of a duplicitous system of hypocrisy that produces its heroes and criminals from the same mold.

What can be said of Mayo, can be said of many ‘amateur’ athletes. Here, we have humble beginnings giving rise to a player with prodigious talent. He has proven highly successful at every stop during his young career. He was touted as the next ______ (fill in whatever name you like, I’m sure it will just be applied to someone else next year) while still in high school, and was able to gain acceptance to a university he probably couldn’t have been admitted to if not for his playing ability (although, I did read that Mayo scored in the 95th percentile on the ACT). After a brief stop in academia, he will join the ranks of professional athletes, whereby, he will enter the aristocratic lifestyle of privilege conferred by fame and money.

That is only the face of the matter. Consider the social elements associated with premiere athletics. As a society, we dote upon our athletes. We liken them to gladiators, and pay handsomely to watch them compete. We empathize with their every success and failure as if it were our own. We extend them every exception from our moral and legal rules. Any possible way that a society can elevate a class of people for doing absolutely nothing deserving of such merit, America does for its athletes.

This process begins at an increasingly early age, where we teach our children the modern hymn, ‘blessed is the athlete.’ One can imagine the credulity of a child leading him to conclude that their value is directly correlative to their athletic ability. If you’ve ever experienced, or at least witnessed, the phenomenon that is fatherhood at youth sporting events, then you know full well what I mean. The successful ones will come to realize that it is possible to achieve significant degrees of distinction and privilege through the agency of sports.

Where does this adulation come from? Maybe it’s our inner primate gravitating towards conflict. Maybe we simply love to be entertained. Whatever the reason may be, there exists a surplus of what the economists call, demand. In the world of finance, demand invariably leads to investment. As luck would have it, investing in sports has proven to be quite lucrative. When we consider that the arms of modern marketing reach farther than any of us can ever hope to outrun, we come to understand the causal chain resulting in the ubiquitous profusion of sports in American life.

To describe professional sports in this way seems to give no cause for concern or controversy. As a society, we generally understand and accept the necessary business elements that allow for the existence of sports. Strangely, one could not describe collegiate sports in this same way and not cause uproar and outrage. Herein, lies the crux of our (and O.J. Mayo’s) problem.

Collegiate athletics is the proverbial temple on high. With the exception of the Olympics, it is the grandest vestige of uncorrupted human competition. Money, drugs, and other external influences are kept at arm’s length, allowing the participants to compete in the most natural of ways. These elements mix to form what I call the ‘amateur ideal.’ It is fundamentally moral in nature, and like most ideals, it strays from observable reality in obvious ways. Why do we, as a society, insist on our student-athletes being pure (often meaning poor) as the undriven snow? I can understand the aversion to drugs, as they have the potential to skew the playing field, but at what point in a basketball game does it become important whether the point guard paid for his television, or not?

I don’t think anyone will consciously claim that it is important; at least, not to the competition, itself. If that be the case, then the amateur ideal must refer to the way in which we prefer to view our student-athletes. If I were asked to describe a student, certain adjectives invariably come to mind. Words like young, naïve, lost, developing, future, promising, etc., and I think such words can be applied to students much younger than the collegiate ones being discussed. As a society, I think we rightly feel obligated to protect our still developing members, such as children and students.

I find nothing strange in such a stance, however, a problem arises when our conception of scholastic innocence comes in contact with the uncompromising view that corruption accompanies money. The opinion that money and power can have a corrupting effect upon people is by no means new. When examined within our present context, the idea of a monied student seems to represent the most gnarled of paradoxes. What is it about an amateur athlete that has accepted money from a booster that leads society to collectively denounce and defame him? It is a direct consequence of the fundamental incompatibility between the rosy ideal of amateurism and the staunch belief that money is inherently corrupting (particularly to our youth).

One might argue that it should not be too much to ask for an athlete to wait until they actually do become a professional to accept the benefits of the trade. I think an examination of the financial forces that provide for collegiate sports will make that statement much more difficult to accept. When one also considers the coddling and favoritism we extend to the athletic members of society, particularly the prodigious ones, we come to understand just how hypocritical it is to indict the athletes we have nurtured within a system of our own design.

In addition to being a haven for student-athletes to mature and grow, collegiate athletics is also a wildly lucrative business that grosses millions upon millions of dollars in revenue each year. Now, the actual product being sold is, of course, the athlete. As defined by the creed of amateurism, the athletes can receive no portion of the proceeds derived from their toil and strife. On top of this, student-athletes are not allowed to accept any of the advantages or benefits that have been groomed to expect (and by this point, are probably used to receiving). This is the case, despite the very observable way that we teach our talented athletes that they are exempt from many of the limitations placed upon other, less exceptional, members of society. This is in part due to the cultural emphasis placed on athletics, but the other aspect is their potential earning power. When they are denied financial benefits, a gross iniquity reveals itself in light of the business that thrives off the labor of the athlete. To put it plainly, what do we call it when one person works for free (not out of charity, mind you), and another person receives all the benefits from that work? You got it. Slavery!!!

One can argue that the university is giving them an expensive education for free. How does that apply to athletes such as O.J. Mayo, who not only do not graduate, but aren’t even close to doing so? In truth, there are many (not all) high caliber student-athletes that have no business being allowed to call themselves students, at all. One only has to peruse the collegiate sporting section to see that universities are disciplined by the NCAA for scholastic violations involving athletes on a regular basis. Consider a few examples, such as Miami University, which has had legitimate felons on their football roster. How about the eternally inexplicable and almost indigestible fact that Patrick Ewing attended Georgetown? I won’t presume that all athletes that elect to leave college for a professional athletic career never had any intention of fulfilling their degree requirements, but the numbers are telling (particularly in basketball). For every Shane Battier or Tyler Hansbrough there are 99 Allen Iversons or O.J. Mayos. I don’t think that is mere coincidence, either.

If collegiate sports are a business, then it must exist within an economy of exchange (according to capitalism, anyway). The athlete is offering their talent, time, image, etc., which can be placed at the unhindered disposal of the university. If we are going to avoid the conclusion that slavery is the basic form of college sports, then the institution must offer something in return. If it’s not the education that continually attracts America’s developing athletes, then what is it? The answer: a stage.

Collegiate sports, offers a stage upon which to showcase the athlete. They presume to offer this under the façade of education, and the pledge to guide the maturation of our youth; however, its reality is achieved (and funded) by claiming the right to any and all proceeds made in the use of that stage. It is nothing more than a prudent business exchange. It misuses the concept of education, and all the illusory benevolence inspired by the amateur ideal, to veil the fundamentally self interested motivations that produce and sustain any capitalistic business.

Academia, itself, is a business. Athletics can turn it into big business. Student-athletes, such as O.J. Mayo, are not playing sports while they work on their astrophysics degrees; nor, are they asked to. Their student status exists in the form of a mutual lie. For the athlete, school represents a gateway to the pros (one that is now required). For the school, the athlete represents a gateway to a high level of income, national exposure, and further recruitment to perpetuate the cycle. Nothing I have said, thus far, is mysterious or idealistic. It’s basic business.

If we revisit the plight of O.J. Mayo, again, we may notice that the reasons for which he has come under scrutiny by the media seem both hypocritical and empty. We are a society that champions the exploits of our athletes, which leads us to prize and foster athletic ability among our membership. Yet, we are an economically driven nation, of which athletic enterprising ranks among the most lucrative. We have obvious demand, but because the sports industry sells people and not peanuts, the line begins to blur when we consider the nature of our supply. Capitalism and amateurism cannot coexist. The former says ‘profit at any cost’, and the latter says ‘purity is paramount.’ To teach our athletes that privilege is the antecedent to sports, and then deny them that expected privilege on moral grounds that are not only not universally observed, but prove highly beneficial to the incumbent system, is beyond criminal.

With that said, how is it that we have come to look down upon a career athlete, such as O.J. Mayo, who has been groomed by his surroundings and society at large, to expect exemptions and caveats because of his abilities? How is it that a product of our cultural love affair with athletics is reviled and derided when he arrives at the necessary intersection between power, purity, and money? We built the very train tracks that our athletes run on, yet we have the audacity to judge the train as it passes?

To conclude, there can be no justice under our present circumstances. The reasons why society has placed the athlete on a pedestal are not compatible with the ethical posturing of amateurism. One of them must be removed from the equation. The most pragmatic solution, in my opinion, would be to discredit and discontinue the stereotype that money necessarily corrupts. Without such an assumption, the ideal of amateurism pertains only to substance enhancement, which is completely compatible with the business elements I have discussed.

Even if O.J. Mayo admits to accepting all of the gifts that the media is speculating he did, and more, it would not suffice to thin the hypocrisy at its root. O.J. Mayo is exactly the person we have taught him to be, and is only accepting that which we have taught him to feel entitled to. And, that is to say nothing of him, as a person. The ideologies conflict in such a way as to produce an endless supply of free labor for collegiate athletics, but the moment financial sovereignty is compromised, the moral guard dog is loosed, aided and abetted by the media. If morality is to hold any water it must do so in all contexts, and to continually subvert it in the name of business, only to later stand upon it cloaked in self righteous indignation, is to openly caricaturize it. Until fundamentally corrective changes are made within the system, we should expect to see the O.J. Mayos of the world paraded in front of us by the same hypocritical system that first deemed him worthy of recognition to begin with.

Tonight’s NCAA Men’s Hoops Championship game pits two very talented squads, Kansas and Memphis, against one another a mere two days after each dismantled the other two best teams in the nation — quite handily, I must say.

I am still reeling from my ‘heels getting that big Kansas D put on them… but for those sticking around and online tonight, go check out The Starting Five ’s live blog.

Game already started so no valid prediction here — rooting for that scrappy, grimy Memphis squad. Who doesn’t love the guilty pleasure of watching a “one-tourney stand” show, a la Carmelo Anthony n’ that there Orange squad?

*If folks weren’t around to keep up, Mizzo @ The Starting Five kept a great live blog during one of the most exciting NCAA Hoops National Championship games in a long, long time. We dropped off a few comments, trying to keep up as we watched Mr. Rose play what will most likely be his last college game ever.

Please, oh please, Mr. Fav…rah, prove me right.

The man inevitably headed to the NFL Hall of Fame is quite possibly (rumors, innuendo and potato chip dust says so) considering sticking around to play with another team.

(Thanks to TheBigLead for point this out.)

I post this image to make one main, important point to all Americans:

You really do live in a free nation. Seriously.

Only in a free, democratic nation can you:

• Stand in the middle of the nation’s capital and speak out openly against the residing person in power without running the risk of persecution.
• Wear caricature-like, mocking costume (complete with jailstripes) of that same residing powerful person, while openly calling them a criminal.
• Boo and openly show disgust for the powers-that-be, even as they are in the building of a sporting event and thousands are on-hand to witness the historical event.
• Publish an article accusing coverage of a large, public event, endorsed by many bigwigs (aka. those with the most loot) and people of power, of being biased and forgetting the more important factors involved.

You see what I’m getting at?

Of course, these points are just a handful of those surrounding last weekend’s grand opening of Nationals Park. To state the obvious: this is not the end-all, be-all list of why we should appreciate being being American — but they do point out things we can do that other, less fortunate citizens of different countries cannot.

Luckily, we do not have that here (shh… conspiracy theorists, I will deal with you another day) although sometimes our gub’ment makes me have to remind folks that great saying Edward R. Murrow said way back when: “We must not confuse dissent for disloyalty.”

Check out that Dave Zirin article so you have the other side to the grand opening of Nationals Park.

I did enjoy myself at the fresh, brand spankin’ new ballpark in D.C. The trip was easy (a few metro stops and a few blocks of caddle-trotting along the street) and Nationals Park is truly easy to access.

Outside the park stood — quite loudly — the realities of the publicly funded park ($600-plus million) opening in a city full of poverty. Lots of angry citizens fighting for D.C. schools, their own residences, and the cluster-funk that will be every time a big game is in town.

Inside the park, the stadium is a beauty. The Capitol is just over left field in the distance. Lots of scattered, local food joints inside the stadium and available (and overpriced, of course!) to fit your fancy.

People inside the stadium were friendly, smiling and everything the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell told me it would be.

Again, outside the stadium, though, was a different reality. The opposite of the smiles, giggles and giddiness. Lots of anger, dissent and frustration.

Aren’t you proud to be an American?

Are the folks (like me) who picked all four No. 1 seeds to make the Final Four ingenious, or simply lucky?

Admittedly, I take myself out of the running for the “ingenious” category. As I said when I first offered my pick ‘ems, I did not follow all teams as closely as in previous years (though, don’t get it twisted, I watched a good amount of games) before filling out my bracket. Others may not admit to this, but I remain true to my “honesty is the best policy” approach.

The bracket I submitted is only doing well because of those remaining Final Four picks. Other folks in the pool chose more upsets (obviously) and though our pool rewards the upset picks (you get points for the difference in ranks in upsets… 12 defeats 5 gets you 7 extra points), they are reaping what they sowed in the risk they took.

High risk can equal high reward… until it doesn’t.

ESPN’s Andy Katz says the NCAA Selection Committee got it right this year.

That plays right into my question: How you can tell the difference between lucky and ingenious in this situation?

Can you smell that strong, refreshing, good old fashioned new stadium smell?

That, my friends, is the brand spankin’ new workplace of the Washington Nationals.

Tomorrow night, Nationals Park, located on 1500 South Capitol Street in Washington, D.C., opens up for business amid all the fanfare, attention and over-the-top adoration one can expect from the District.

President George W. Bush will throw out the inaugural first pitch. F16s will fly overhead. ESPN will broadcast the event on its nationally-viewed network.

Every bell and whistle is out and in motion, only one thing left — Play Ball!

The tiny liberal arts school from Davidson, North Carolina is impossible to root against.

Ranked No. 10 in the Midwest Region, the Wildcats of Davidson College have now officially upended the No. 7, No. 2 and No. 3 teams en route to an incredible run through the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

After beating Gonzaga* in the first round, Davidson defeated a perennial giant in NCAA hoops, the Georgetown Hoyas, to make the Sweet Sixteen. The excitement spread all the way to the Davidson board of trustees, who offered its student body of 1,700 undergraduates an all-expenses paid trip to the Sweet Sixteen game against Wisconsin in Detroit.

Think the move paid off? Ask the Badgers, whose own championship dreams were squashed by the Wildcats Friday night with a 73-56 win.

At the center of the Davidson run is the thin-framed, baby-faced sharpshooting sophomore, Stephen Curry, son of former NBA player Dell Curry. His 40, 30 and 33 points in the first three rounds, respectively, all managed to come at the perfect time of each game.

Curry has the face of a high schooler, but the jumper of a seasoned vet.

And, despite his small body frame, Curry has managed to carry the Wildcats on his back all the way to the Elite Eight, where they will face the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks.

Like every other round so far, experts predict Davidson to lose Sunday. But can the Wildcats momentum be stopped?

Or, will they managed yet another amazing upset, silencing doubters and continuing the plight of the small school — a la George Mason — and make it to the Final Four?

Find out tomorrow at 5:05 p.m. EST, when the little team from North Carolina sets their sights on the giant school from Kansas.

How can you not root for the little guy?

*Correction: I mistyped and put Notre Dame here by mistake before. My apologies to the N.D. alums!

After averaging 20 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4 assists per game through his NBA career, Chris Webber is ready to hang ‘em up.

Growing up in the D.C. Metropolitan-area, the main lingering memory I have of C-Webb is when the Washington Bullets mistakingly traded him to Sacramento for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe, instead of Juwan Howard. No disrespect to Howard, who had his best NBA years in D.C., but C-Webb has Hall of Fame numbers and was much more exciting to watch.

Webber, Howard, Gheorge Muresan, Calbert Cheaney and Rod Strickland helped excite the area when intact and healthy. Here was Mike Wilbon talking about those Bullets as they were fixin’ to pick up Webber from Golden State for three 1st-rounders and Tom Gugliotta:

Even before The Trade had been announced or even completed, there was hysteria. The Washington Bullets didn’t have enough people to answer the phones or take the requests. People were walking up to the front door and pulling out checkbooks, credit cards. A guy from Pennsylvania called and bought four full season tickets — that’s all 41 home games. Lawyers and pols and VIPs called wanting in. Maybe USAir Arena isn’t so far after all. More than 500 season-ticket plans had been sold by 9:30 last night. At one point, hours before anyone knew whether Chris Webber would be coming to town, a Bullets sales staffer stood up and said to anyone who could hear above the screaming telephones, “The town’s on fire!”

The Washington Bullets have a superstar. Someone to put on posters and billboards, someone whose jersey fanatic teenagers will want, someone whom people will happily pay to see, someone who looks at Shaq and Barkley and Kemp and Pippen without blinking, a legitimate all-star prospect who can take a team deep, deep into the NBA playoffs. You think Washington is just a Redskins town? It isn’t. It’s a town long suffering for a Young Hoop God. It’s a town where people will write a check for two seats at $1,200 each to see Chris Webber in uniform, or even at a news conference.

The gang, along with Webber and his hysteria, took the Bullets to the playoffs after a nine-year drought. They fell short of championship dreams thanks to some guy named Michael Jordan. (Who hasn’t MJ made “fall short” at some point during his run?)

As mentioned above, Webber was traded away from Washington in ‘98 after the team decided he was too much trouble and needed to be split from Howard, who was his close buddy at the time.

I reiterate: Washington traded the wrong guy. Case-in-point can be seen by the career-setting stats C-Webb put up in Sacramento:

When Webber arrived, the Kings also signed center Vlade Divac and drafted point guard Jason Williams. In his first year with the Kings (the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season), Webber won the rebounding title averaging a league high 13.0 rebounds per game. The surprising Kings team made the playoffs, almost upsetting the veteran Utah Jazz. In years to come, Webber and the Kings became arguably the most exciting team in the league, and NBA title contenders. He was named to the All-Star team again in 2000 and 2001 while cementing his status as one of the premier power forwards in the NBA. Webber peaked in the 2000-01 season where he averaged a career-high 27.1 points. He also averaged 11.1 rebounds and was 4th in MVP voting. Webber was an All-NBA player five years in a row as a Sacramento King (1999-2003), making the 1st team in 2001 for the only time in his career.

On July 27, 2001 Webber signed a $127 million, seven-year contract with the Kings. In the 2001-02 NBA season, Webber led the Kings to a franchise record 61-21. He also made his fourth All-Star team and they made it to the Western Conference Finals, against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Kings lost in 7 games.

Webber went on to play for the 76ers, Pistons and a very brief stint with the Golden State Warriors (again). His numbers, as they sit, are Hall of Fame worthy.

(Flickr Image / Vedia)

Webber first stepped into infamy as the lead member of Michigan’s “Fab Five” team — Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson — who went to two straight NCAA finals in ‘92 and ‘93 but lost both times. The second loss made C-Webb famous for all the wrong reasons when he called a time-out Michigan did not have with 11 seconds left against North Carolina with his team down 2 at the time. The ensuing two free throws helped UNC seal the victory. Many folks still blame Webber for that loss but I hold to what a coach told me long ago: “No one play determines 40-minute-long games.”

I am not a member of the “sound bite” decision-makers of America club, but those who are will only remember Webber for his last NCAA game. Following the political theater taking place with pundits and opponents jumping on Senator Barack Obama for words of those around him, earlier today on The Starting Five’s message board, I pondered whether C-Webb could coach without having to pop young hoopster knuckleheads upside the head for talking trash about “the time-out incident.”

There are too many persons in the world who, unfortunately, would judge both Obama and C-Webb by one decision of their entire lifetimes.

C-Webb does great work in the community and from everything I’ve read about him is an all-around great person. (I say that from my outsider’s perspective in mind, of course). I hope he keeps up with the charity work and doesn’t fall out of the spotlight. Even during his “get high” days in D.C., C-Webb still smiled, signed autographs and did all the other good stuff for the community.

I respect the socially conscious athlete and hold him in high regard for being one.

Maybe he will push past doubters and become a coach down the road. He will just have to keep in mind that, because of either haters or jokesters, whenever he calls a time-out he had better be ready to pop a couple folks upside the head!

(Getty Images Photo / Junko Kimura)

The Oakland Athletics became the first round of victims to the defending MLB champion Boston Red Sox’s attempt at their third title in five years. BoSox slugger Manny Ramirez took little time stepping back into the driver’s seat of his team, delivering the go-ahead double in the 10th inning of a 6-5 win in Tokyo, Japan.

I’d like to overstate the obvious by pointing out that the BoSox are projected to go 162-0 at the moment, and the A’s 0-162, both MLB records.

A’s fans: be afraid, be very, very afraid!

Yankees fans: be terrified, put a wall up around the city, “The BoSox are coming! The BoSox are coming!”
A few suggestions to enhance an 0-162 A’s team:

• Sign Jose Canseco — No one would sit next to him on the bench or on the bus, because “Jose can you sing” is always wired for sound, needing a new quote for his next book. This would convert the team into the 1st openly run sting operation in MLB history. And for entertainment purposes, there’s a 1 in 10 chance another baseball will bounce off Canseco’s head again.
• Sign Rickey Henderson — What’s a Canseco book without a few quotes from the oldest strongman in America who loves to speak in the third person? Rickey would be more than willing to sit next to Canseco in the dugout and on the bus; in fact, Rickey will sit next to anybody, anytime so long as he can talk about himself. Just think, somewhere, at this very moment, Rickey is talking the ear off someone — possibly in a Used Car lot — and loving every minute of it.
• Hire Isaiah Thomas as GM — That should get the media swarming the dugout! He would at least find a way to get rid of those pesky dollars laying around in Oakland. Does Allan Houston play baseball? Marbury? Got a pen, fellas?

UNC’s Quentin Thomas was always better than Bobby Frasor, but never better than Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson. With injuries to Lawson this year, Thomas’s playing time increased to a respectable level, and he can proudly say he contributed to getting the Tarheels into the Sweet Sixteen.

His years at UNC were filled with lots of injuries, bench-warming and one National Championship in 2005. Lots of stories for Thomas, but I was happy to see ESPN’s Heather Dinich write a piece on his role through the years at UNC.Everyone knows the bigger names like Tyler Hansborough (who looks like Hacksaw Jim Duggin) and Ty Lawson (one of the top PGs in the nation). Every once in a while it’s great to peek down the bench and see the story of the kid waiting in the wings.