Their investigators actually suck.
Note: This is based of a report from the LA Times.
In 2010, former USC running back coach Todd McNair sued the NCAA on the grounds of defamation. McNair was been implicated in the Reggie Bush payments, and the NCAA handed down a one year show cause ban for the coach. Following the end of his ban, USC would not renew his contract.
McNair would ultimately lose the lawsuit on the testament of one Lloyd Lake, a sports marketer who was allegedly in contact with McNair. Once again, it seemed the NCAA was near untouchable, until today.
Today, Judge Fredrick Shaller made the move to grant McNair a new trial against the NCAA. Apparently, the Lake conversation never happened. Basically, while he was interview, he never implicated any party. How did this fact get by the jury? The NCAA attorney’s allegedly claimed these were simply the committee paraphrasing their statement.
What does this all mean? Well, the NCAA essentially fabricated a statement to indict McNair. Keep in mind, this not the first time the NCAA investigators have botched an investigation. In the Miami Case, the committee worked with Nevin Shapiro’s attorney to depose witnesses against Miami. This would lead to the NCAA not being able to come down on Miami near as much as they wanted, as well as hurting their UNC investigation.
One may ask, so what? They have done this before, what makes this time different? They somehow one-upped themselves in being asshats.
Come to find out, one of the Jury Foreman (I.E. head juror) should have been disqualified. Why? Apparently he had a conflict of interests. What was this conflict? The firm Bruno worked for had attorneys supporting the NCAA during the case.
It is not known whether Bruno was biased or not, but it stands to reason he should have been on the jury regardless.
So What Comes Next?
What this means now is that McNair is free to take the NCAA back to court, and they should be terrified. After this most recent debacle, it is clear that the investigators might not be capable of doing what was asked of them, and they NCAA has lost their most powerful “interview”.
Hopefully, this teaches the NCAA a lesson in their shoddy tactics, and maybe, just for once, someone can bully them, like they do so many others. Nothing about college sports is clean, but maybe McNair can slap some dirt of the NCAA’s face.
Original Story by the Los Angeles Times: https://www.latimes.com/sports/usc/la-sp-usc-mcnair-trial-20190116-story.html