By Whason Jitlock
Some days I wonder about the youth of America. Specifically, sometimes the young athletes of America, which is probably because it's my job to wonder about them.
Which of course brings me to the basketball program at KU. These last few years have been years of undeniable success for KU, with conference titles galore and a national title this spring.
However, the supposedly solid foundation built by $queaky-clean Bill $elf is starting to crumble.
You know the foundation is crumbling when the participants get away from what got them to where they are. Specifically, we recently found that apparently Sherron Collins thinks wearing the red-and-blue is sufficient license to slap his private parts on a woman in an elevator.
Of course, if that's where Collins' actions ended, they could possibly be understood if not endorsed. Athletes at the major-college level have the cliched sense of entitlement that we have seen all too often.
But no, beyond that, Collins was so brazen as to try and thwart the legal system by not answering the woman's complaint. He claims he didn't know what was expected of him. I may not be a legal system expert, but it would seem to me that if you are given notice that you've been sued, doing almost anything other than what Collins did (i.e., nothing) would be the best course of action.
But Collins is a KU athlete, so he felt bulletproof and figured even the legal system in Lawrence couldn't touch him.
Of course, the news about Collins came hot on the heels of reports out of Dallas that Darrell "Shady" Arthur couldn't pass a math class most youth get through in middle school. When the news broke, KU officials immediately screamed they had nothing to do with it, knew nothing of it, and were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.
Of course they did.
The fact that KU has never been in trouble with the NCAA before, except for the two times they've been on probation, makes their denials ring hollow. To me, little doubt exists they had a hand in this. Oh, and did I mention that, according to my double-secret sources in Lawrence, Shady has been repeatedly tooling around campus in an Escalade? I'm just sayin'.
What it all comes down to is this. KU has shown it is a program that will regularly flout the rules to win, creating a culture of corruption (or "lack of institutional control" as the NCAA terms it) among its players, coaches, administrators, fans and anyone who walks into the Lawrence city limits.
After all, it's better to cheat and win than to cheat and not win. Right, Missouri fans?