Mike Vernon's "KU Hearings" series on KU, the NCAA and the IARP, part two

Part one can be found here if you missed it and would like to read it first.

Here's the link to part two.

If these articles don't make your blood boil re: the NCAA, I do not know what will.

EXCERPTS
The lawyer removed from the panel after Louisville, Jeffrey Benz, is a titan in sports law. The BBC called him “amongst the most experienced judges” in sport. He worked as an independent judge on the 2002 Olympic bid scandal, a mediator for FIFA, and delivered a ruling on Maria Sharapova’s doping ban. If the NCAA wanted a legal ringer with industry-wide respect, Benz was it.

And he also was summarily dismissed, seemingly, for questioning their line of argument.

“I was removed without my knowledge or consent, and so far as I know to this day I did not violate any rule to justify this being done,” Benz said in an exclusive statement to KUHearings.

Multiple sources connected to the cases believe Benz was removed because his line of questioning was too critical of the NCAA’s allegations. In theory, this would’ve made him less likely to deliver favorable results to the NCAA in future rulings. Still, two witnesses with different roles in the Louisville hearing said there was nothing unprofessional about Benz’s line of questioning in the case.

“Nothing inappropriate happened,” said one panelist. “They may not have liked the fact that most of his complaints were about lack of due process for the institutions and for the coaches involved. They didn’t like the fact that he expected there to be due process.”
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(cutting to the ending - HE)
After the Pitino hearing and its problems, Benz got news of his removal from the Arizona case. He resigned from the panel shortly after. A top sports mind the IARP powers didn’t want around.

Which may be the biggest red flag of them all.

If you haven’t yet decided to read the series, consider this, written by one KU fan after reading the Vernon series to date:

I no longer will be referring to the NCAA as "incompetent". That is the word I've used most, and after reading more about this, its the wrong word (or at the very least, not the only word). What they truly are is corrupt, self serving, and intentionally malicious liars. Petty and stubborn, and apparently have little to no moral compass. The leadership of that organization is as scummy and corrupt as it gets. Calling them incompetent implies they have no ill intent, they just suck at their jobs, but its clear thats not the full truth.

I think most of us would agree with the bolded statement.

Yeah, Vernon's maybe 80% (just a guess) right on his projections, which means he's wrong a lot on them.

But what he's doing in this series does not involve any projections.

He is tying together the information that has been reported with the information he is getting from insiders to tell the more or less accurate (hopefully more) history of what was happening behind the scenes the last 6 years, not just with KU but it looks like with all the programs that were "investigated" by the NCAA. At least given part two it sure seems as if that is where he is headed.

His biggest issue with the strict journalistic standards he admits he is not meeting is having second sources confirming what he is hearing from people speaking to him on conditions on anonymity (the NCAA is still very much Big Brother and not to be trusted to do the right thing). Of course, sometimes all it takes is one source and a publication willing to go with it to bring down those needing comeuppance (see Ben Bradlee).

For me, the fact that he is a KU J school grad (usually known as a loyal alum) and still is even-handed in his writing on KU in part one while castigating the NCAA speaks volumes for his integrity in re this series. (I can tell you that I have friends who were and still are really steamed about how he portrayed Self and KU in part one, so he must be doing something right on his "balance" card.)

My two cents.