We could debate all the ways in which the NCAA’s 2010 investigation of USC football and Reggie Bush was unfair, but one reason certainly seems to stand out from others: Paul Dee.
This was the man who led the committee on infractions and, all the while, was presiding over a program at Miami which was running afoul of NCAA rules.
We wrote this four years ago:
“People within and outside the walls of the USC athletic department knew that Paul Dee, then the NCAA committee on infractions chairman, was running an unclean program at Miami… and that he didn’t much care.
“People knew that while Bush was ostensibly the central focus of the NCAA’s punitive actions, the real reason for the severity of the punishment was that USC athletic director Mike Garrett was combative with the NCAA and didn’t try to finesse the situation.”
The NCAA could have had an infractions committee chairman who was truly independent-minded and a figure everyone in the room could respect as impartial and honorable. Paul Dee didn’t remotely pass the sniff test. That is, quite reasonably, the biggest sign the NCAA was never interested in fair treatment of USC.
RB coach Todd McNair’s defamation lawsuit defeated the NCAA at every step of the legal process before the NCAA quietly settled after 10 years of losses.
During this process COI chairman Paul Dee was revealed to have overseen massive violations at Miami.https://t.co/lHeTufJhev
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) April 24, 2024
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