Reporters around the nation are panting heavily at the discovery of a conflict of interest involving NCAA and BCS committee members with the Fiesta Bowl game and Fiesta Bowl events organizations, the very non-profit entities said members are allegedly investigating. Is that really news? When former Fiesta CEO John Junker admitted that gifts he and his cronies heaped on athletic, media, and political power brokers were meant to influence their decisions? When it was disclosed that former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods received $55,000 from the Fiesta Bowl to allegedly provide a rubber-stamped, in-house investigative report last year concluding no improprieties occurred, though Mr. Grant himself had received college football game tickets gratis from Fiesta Bowl officials while in office back in the '90s?
No. The real news would have been if no conflict of interest had been discovered, if Junker & Friends' tentacles had not reached into the BCS and NCAA executive committees themselves. Interestingly, much of this current news and evidence is coming from Playoff PAC, a previously-unknown-to-this-author lobbying group that promotes a playoff system in post-season major college football and the dismantling of the inequitable BCS system. The Playoff PAC forwarded the latest evidence to the AP which ran with it.
First, there was news about the BCS panel entrusted to investigate the Junker-Fiesta Bowl scandal. Of its seven members (including Florida A.D. Jeremy Foley, N. Illinois President John Peters, Stanford A.D. Bob Bowlsby, So. Mississippi A.D. Richard Giannini, Sun Belt Commish Wright Waters, Big East Commish John Marinatto, and Penn State President /BCS Presidential Oversight Committee Chairman Graham Spanier), two admitted to taking advantage of the free junkets offered them by the Fiesta and Orange Bowl organizations. Better yet, BCS Executive Director and smug spokesperson (though not as condescending as The Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee) Bill Hancock confessed to attending the big annual Fiesta Bowl off-season event formerly known as the Fiesta Frolic, where he received (at the very least) free green fees and spa treatments for him and his wife as well as gifts (shirt and shoes, at least) from Nike.
The Frolic, now known by the more sober term Fiesta Bowl Spring College Football Seminar, is a long weekend retreat held every April at a Phoenix area golf resort, bringing together academic, athletic, media, political, and sponsor executives, with host Fiesta Bowl officials keeping everybody happy. Mr. Hancock called the Frolic "a remarkable business opportunity" for college executives to network. Mr. Waters attended at least one Fiesta Frolic as well, wherein the bowl organization paid for two dinners, two nights of lodging, and two days of golf and spa treatments for guests and their spouses.
Mr. Giannini and his wife took a free Caribbean trip, courtesy of the Orange Bowl, with other athletic directors and conference commissioners. When queried, Giannini said, "These trips are an accepted practice and do not violate any rule set forth by any regulatory authority. Until a decision is made that athletic directors traveling to bowl functions be deemed unethical or illegal, these trips will continue because this is where business is done."
One can only imagine what kind of business transpires at the desert frolics and Caribbean carnivals. Could it involve alcohol? Gambling? Sex? Even if it's nothing more than just the bonding of pro-BCS forces, that is depravity and decadence enough.
The latest news came out yesterday, when the AP, courtesy of Playoff PAC, revealed that 9 of the 11 members of the NCAA's own investigative group (the Postseason Bowl Licensing Subcommittee) responsible for the licensing of bowls and currently scrutinizing the Junker-Fiesta Bowl antics attended the 2008 Fiesta Frolic. Now exactly how unbiased and objective will the NCAA investigation and ruling be? How unbiased and objective will the BCS investigation and ruling be?No wonder Mr. Hancock is reluctant to rush to judgment or penalize the Fiesta Bowl. His loyalty was influenced by the man whom Sports Illustrated once called the seventh most powerful man in college football, John Junker.
Do any of these executives on the two committees know anything about the judicial concept of recusing? Whenever there is the appearance of or an actual conflict of interest in a particular case, or where prejudice might exist against one of the parties, a judge will disqualify or withdraw himself or herself from presiding over same. Could media, political, and public pressure force a reconstituting of the committees? Time will tell. Something tells me the Playoff PAC group will stay involved.
Is there any good news coming out of the Fiesta Bowl culture of corruption and cover-ups? There is. The major newspaper of Phoenix, The Arizona Republic, has done an outstanding job so far of preserving its own integrity and watchdog objective status. First, every Fiesta Bowl article in the Republic is accompanied by a closing paragraph that discloses the publisher's involvement with the Fiesta Bowl enterprises. John Zidich has been on the bowl's 25-member board of directors since 2005 and joined the bowl's 5-member executive committee in 2010. They also made it clear that the Republic is a bowl sponsor.
Second, the Republic reporters have pulled no punches so far in carrying the story and doing its own investigation. They are digging deep into the ever-growing scandal. It makes one proud of America and freedom of the press.
One suspects a reason the reporters are so excited about pursuing the story has to do with Mr. Junker's pro-Republican partisanship. One hopes they would be as excited if the ostensibly guilty politicos were Democrat. Still, the stories of fundraisers for Republicans organized by Fiesta Bowl officials are ominous. The stories of Fiesta Bowl staffers being compensated for "encouraged" campaign donations in the form of bonuses are equally disturbing.
Kudos must also go out to the Columbus Dispatch for its open coverage of the Tressel messel at Ohio State. Reporters there are helping to give the beloved Buckeyes another black eye. Terrific!
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