U$C: “OUR BLAND IS CRISIS”

Bland on the Run — U$C Assistant Basketball Coach and “Elite Recruiter” Tony Bland is ARRESTED by the FBI for bribery, wire fraud, and paying players

“Welcome to the party, pal!”  For all of you deniers and skeptics who have scoffed at me for the last 40 years as I have repeatedly insisted that USC runs a dirty and corrupt athletic department, now you have some hard evidence, on tape.  Proof positive, supplied by none other than the FEDS.  The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has finally gotten involved, and quickly targeted and nailed USC for not just NCAA violations, but serious Federal Crimes that have already led to arrests.

Ten different people around the Country got busted by this FBI sting, where undercover agents posed as parties interested in exploiting basketball recruits for thousands and thousands of dollars.  Four of those ten were Basketball assistant coaches involved in recruiting, including a guy at the University of Arizona, and Tony Bland of the University of Southern California.

Bland was caught by wiretap, taking bribes, calling the corrupt, illegal situation a “goldmine,” and guaranteeing that he can manipulate players into signing with whatever agents or representatives Bland chooses.  And Bland was choosing based on the big money KICKBACKS these people were showering him with.

Bland has already been placed on administrative leave, and sc has hired an investigation firm to look into these allegations.  One of their current recruits is involved, as well as a player already on the team.  This should lead to sc vacating all their wins from last year, not to mention a post-season ban for the year coming up.  Also, they should lose these new recruits, thus gutting their highly-rated incoming class.

Didn’t anybody wonder how sc suddenly landed (“Blanded?”) all these elite recruits?  Why would a good player ever want to go to a school that’s never done anything in Basketball?  Only one reason, and that’s all the money that they are being paid.  And now, that is no longer just conjecture.  Only the most obstinate of blind jackholes can deny it now.

Once again, just like with O.J. Mayo, envelopes full of cash were exchanged.  And once again, the trojan institution is denying all knowledge.  They will throw Bland under the horse cart, and claim that he acted alone.  What a crock.  If you think Head Coach Andy Enfield wasn’t aware, you are fooling yourself.  The whole staff should be canned with Bland.

Once again, a total lack of institutional control is demonstrated at u$c.  All those false promises from new Athletic Director Lynn Swann prove that he’s just another in a long line of two-faced con men running the asylum.  They should all be inmates.  Swann apparently wanted troy hoops to be “just like Football.”

The stench of usc corruption is not limited to athletics, as demonstrated by their recent medical school scandal.  The latest on that story:  The DEAN of sc’s med school at the time, Carmen Puliafito, has just had his medical license suspended.

So with this FBI investigation still ongoing, and with former UCLA affiliate Adidas heavily implicated, I must address the possibility that UCLA also gets smeared in this situation.  Let’s hope not.  If someone at UCLA is involved, that would support the viewpoint that “everybody does it,” and that it is impossible to compete for Titles without luring recruits with dubious incentives.  Well, that doesn’t make it right, and I would expect UCLA to immediately self-impose sanctions and Tournament bans if they are proven to be complicit in these types of crime.

But until UCLA is busted, I will continue to call out the school that was, and that has a long history of this sort of thing.  It is the culture there.  It is cultivated and applauded there, as in Pete Carroll.  And today will mark the first time sc has made an effort to actually cooperate with investigators.  I just hope that Bland comes clean, and fingers the rest of his slimy co-conspirators and various accomplices, taking the entire program down with him.

Anyway, here are 49 more UCLA Spirit Squad photos (from the Hawaii game this time).  Still hundreds more to be posted soon.