Pete Carroll Caught Lying About NCAA Violations, Hurting Trogans' "Appeal"

Well looky here. The LA Times actually deployed someone other than their regular Trojan beat writers and rear end kissing columnists such as Chris Duffresne and Bill Plaschke to get the inside story on Mike Garrett's program and BOOM: they come up with a report exposing Pete Carroll as a lying, two faced sleazebag (emphasis added throughout):

Former USC football coach Pete Carroll shows his game face in denouncing the NCAA's penalties against the school, contending they are too harsh because he and other administrators never knew that star athletes such as Reggie Bush had violated the rules.

But Carroll has been shy about mentioning that the NCAA found his quiet hiring of an extra coach, a big name from the NFL, was a major violation. The association also said that Carroll did not clear the hire with USC's compliance office, a finding that contradicts what he told The Times last year.

Now, as USC presses an appeal of the heavy sanctions the association imposed, Carroll's culpability could diminish the school's prospects of persuading the NCAA to ease the punishment, experts say.

"That's going to hurt USC on its appeal," said Michael Buckner, a Florida attorney and Trojan alumnus who specializes in sports law. "There are major rule violations found against not only his student athletes but against his coaching staff and a decision he made."

Good to hear there are still intellectually honest Trojan alums out there. The report then goes on to expose Pete Carroll's specific lies about this incident:

Carroll said last year that he could not give a "chronology" of his dealings with the compliance office, but "whenever we do anything, we go through all of the channels to figure out whether we can do it … whether it's OK, and we did that...."

"We've tried to do this exactly the right way — compliance, all of that stuff, to the letter."

Guess it turns out that Petey never cleared the hiring with the NCAA. Buckner - the Trojan alumnus - also had interesting comments about Petey's shameless media posturing since the NCAA hammer came down:

And Carroll's defiant YouTube declarations hardly help, said Buckner: "What I got from Pete Carroll's video statement was that he is trying to protect his legacy, his reputation."

Yup. Cheatey Petey has always been all about himself. He never cared about the school or his players (which became clear in recent years. The article also has interesting comments from another legal expert about lack of institutional control:

Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann, a sports law expert, said the Rodriguez affair goes to the heart of whether USC's administrators and its compliance staff had the will to rein in a marquee coach like Carroll, who won two national championships for the Trojans.

"The NCAA will say that Pete Carroll and others connected to him were making wrong choices, and the institution should have been uncovering it," McCann said. "It was probably hard for a compliance officer to confront Pete Carroll … but that's the way it is. Schools have to do more to not let the coach be so powerful."

Sounds simple if anyone has common sense. Unfortunately for the Trogans and their sensible alumnus, no one in Heritage Hall or Cheatey Petey has any of that common sense.

If Southern Cal was a legit academic institution with a shred of integrity they would have shown contrition and taken responsibility the way schools like Michigan has done when dealing with NCAA violations. Instead in every step of the way they have taken the route of deny, delay and whining about it in the press. In recent weeks they have gone few steps further attacking the NCAA and COI, which has been unprecedented in the history of NCAA investigations over the years.

At this point, the NCAA not only has to upheld the recent sanctions (which are arguably not harsh enough) but they ought to be looking into ramping up investigation efforts on other matters such as Joe McKnight and what recently transpired with Dillon Baxter. As more reports like this one comes out, the clearer it becomes how these guys are nothing but bunch of lying, sleazy, scumbags and until they learn their lessons the hard way, they will keep functioning as the ultimate corrupt, out of control, thuggish institution with no respect for rules or NCAA provisions.

GO BRUINS.