Dear Mr. Garrett,After spending the last day celebrating the fact that the NCAA did it's duty and rightfully punished the football and basketball programs at Southern Cal, I decided to head to the internet to see what reactions were from fans, coaches, players, and administrators in Trojan Land.
I expected to hear people pleading ignorance (like Petey), people saying that the penalties were too harsh, maybe some genuine remorse (that they were caught, not that they did it). Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if I heard you talk about how the NCAA was just wrong in their findings and you don't understand how this happened.
What I did not anticipate was you, the very person who oversaw every misstep the program had made over the past decade, getting in front of a microphone and giving a talk that smacked with so much hubris that I don't even know where to begin.
This LA Times article quotes you boasting, "as I read the decision by the NCAA I read between the lines and there was nothing but a lot of envy...they wish they all were Trojans."
I'm staggered. You were just levied with the most severe sentence handed down by the NCAA since the SMU Death Penalty, a sentence that was so harsh because the program YOU ran had a total lack of institutional control...and you think it means people are jealous?
The ignorance of that statement alone--we're not even touching on the fact that you said you were "invigorated" by this stuff--leads me to believe you are so blinded by arrogance that you truly believe jealousy is the reason you were punished. Perhaps you didn't read the NCAA's stack of pages outlining why you just had a bomb dropped on your sports programs.
Allow me to enlighten you: it's because you are an incompetent, cheating moron who willingly turned a blind eye to people within your program that were knowingly breaking the most basic rules because you had the audacity to think you were above them.
Pleading ignorance in this situation is unacceptable--your reaction and stance goes completely beyond that into uncharted territories of contemptuousness. I would hope the "powers that be" at Southern Cal read the transcript of your talk and immediately drew up a letter of resignation for you to sign...you know, if they hadn't drawn it up after (officially) hearing what you had allowed to go on under your watch as athletic director over the past decade.
Mr. Garrett, you are an embarrassment to your school, your profession, and to collegiate athletics. My hope is that the skin of Southern Cal fans, alumni, and administrators crawled as much as mine did when they read your suffocatingly arrogant and ignorant words.
Your lasting legacy will no longer be the fact that you were once a Heisman Trophy winner; instead it will be that you oversaw the corrupt rise and sudden fall of the Southern Cal football program and attempted to explain away your transgressions by saying everyone is just jealous.
Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet Mr. Garrett, but dozens of wins will be vacated, a national championship will be vacated, and a Heisman Trophy will most likely be vacated.
I'd like to add that all "envy of being a Trojan" has been vacated as well. I hope your unemployment invigorates you as much as it does me.
Sincerely,
Matt Mattare
This post has invigorated me
ReplyDeleteThe Stages of acceptance at U$C might take awhile. Until then their moto "DENY ON" Continues.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great article. As a kid, I grew up watching SC football and always dreamed of attending the school. However, life happens and I ended up at another D-1 school. What an embarrassing comment by an AD. Shows how stuck up and arrogant this school is. I stopped supporting this school when I went to college, and I'm so glad I did. I wouldn't want to associate myself with this type of scum.
ReplyDeleteWell said!
ReplyDeleteI think you would have to be naiive to think nothing has happened with the Bushes.
ReplyDeleteI think you also would have to be naiive to think the NCAA did not have an agenda for the extreme level of punsihment doled out to USC, given that the NCAA report would not even come close to standing in a court of law. Mike is a wacko, but he is on to something
Anonymous #2--
ReplyDeleteI think you're nuts to think the NCAA had an agenda against Southern Cal. The fact is the program blatantly broke the rules to an extent that was easily equal to the Chris Webber/Michigan situation and probably even beyond it.
When an athletic director throws his hands up and says "I didn't know it was happening" it is totally unacceptable. Mike Garrett went beyond that and essentially threw his middle fingers up and said "you're all jealous, that's why we're getting punished." He's mind-blowingly ignorant, delusional, and arrogant.
Frankly, if they'd just gotten a slap on the wrist there would've been no incentive to change (see: the OJ Mayo recruitment and the Joe McKnight controversy just a couple years after the Reggie Bush fiasco). This sentence certainly gets their attention--though with Garrett and Kiffin at the helm the clock has already begun counting down to the next huge violation.
All that being said, if believing the NCAA had an agenda against Southern Cal helps you sleep at night dive right in. Just don't expect it to change reality.