Bruce Pearl, Kelvin Sampson, Coach Cal
College basketball is a huge money maker for universities and coaches alike. Coach Cal at Kentucky makes a sick sick amount of money to coach there. Bruce Pearl was making over 2 million a year at Tennessee and Kelvin Sampson is scrounging around for a head coaching job in the NBA because his chances of getting a college job are pretty slim at this point.
Recently Bruce Pearl admitted to lying to the NCAA about recruiting violations at his program. Couldn’t happen to a bigger piece of dirt. I’ve never hid the fact that I’m an Illinois fan and always have been. In the late 80′s Illinois was recruiting Deon Thomas and so was Iowa. Pearl was an assistant at Iowa at the time and wanted Thomas badly. Pearl was convinced that Illinois was cheating in the recruitment by paying Thomas to attend. Pearl started to record phone calls when it became clear that Thomas was going to attend Illinois. In an attempt to get Pearl off the phone Thomas admitted to getting 80k and a Chevy Blazer from Illinois assistant Jimmy Collins. The NCAA investigated and found that Illinois had not paid Thomas a dime or given him a Blazer but found them guilty of ‘lack of institutional control’ and suspended them from postseason play for a year.
For a great article about what really went down read this from Illinihq.com.
I’ve gone through some junk in my life as we all have, but with this happening to Bruce Pearl I’m watching with a giant smile on my face because it’s about time everyone else saw this guys true colors.
