Does this seem fair?

[Da Coach]

Patrick O'Bryant's penalty was 30% of the team's games ( 8 games in his case). This was for accepting a few hundred dollars more on his paycheck, which he didn't know was wrong. It came from his boss, who is not a Bradley booster or member of the Chiefs' club. It didn't affect his decision to come to Bradley out of high school. He repaid the amount as soon as it was discovered to be improper. Bradley reported and investigated it themselves and admitted the wrongdoing and made sure restitution was made.

Kansas' Darnell Jackson received thousands of dollars of illegal benefits (including cash in the form of a "loan"), most of it while he was still in high school, from a well known Kansas booster who is also a graduate of Kansas. Kansas had just come off a self imposed probation for numerous violations last summer, and has also had a number of well publicized legal problems with their players. There is little doubt that all the gifts and cash he received influenced Jackson to commit to Kansas. He still hasn't paid the money back yet. Yet the penalty for all this was 30% of Kansas' games this season. Exactly the same as POB.

http://www.kusports.com/news/mens_basketball/story/116150

http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/nov/16/jackson_suspended_ncaa/

[Biff]

Good example of how ridiculously inconsistent the NCAA is.

It really is a sad situation.

[bu fan 9]

If I was Bradley I would never self report again and then told the players you might as well keep the money because you are going to get the same punishment.

[dogsrus]

Life is not fair as you well know Coach....except it, learn from it and move on. Takes steps to not let it happen again and make a negative into a positive.

I think we will.....you grow from mistakes and lessons learned. In the BIG picture these guys will be better people because of this. Welcome to college and higher learning.

[whatchamacallit]

Does this seem fair?
Georgia Tech was penalized for numerous violations involving
several sports over several years. Their penalty still doesn't
require even one player to miss even one game, and now the
headlines say they are going to appeal.
Any bets the penalties get reduced even further?
http://www.newsday.com/sports/college/wire/sns-ap-ga-ncaa-ga-tech,0,3346148.story?coll=sns-ap-collegesports-headlines

[64NIT]

Patrick O'Bryant's penalty was 30% of the team's games ( 8 games in his case). This was for accepting a few hundred dollars more on his paycheck, which he didn't know was wrong. It came from his boss, who is not a Bradley booster or member of the Chiefs' club. It didn't affect his decision to come to Bradley out of high school. He repaid the amount as soon as it was discovered to be improper. Bradley reported and investigated it themselves and admitted the wrongdoing and made sure restitution was made.

Kansas' Darnell Jackson received thousands of dollars of illegal benefits (including cash in the form of a "loan"), most of it while he was still in high school, from a well known Kansas booster who is also a graduate of Kansas. Kansas had just come off a self imposed probation for numerous violations last summer, and has also had a number of well publicized legal problems with their players. There is little doubt that all the gifts and cash he received influenced Jackson to commit to Kansas. He still hasn't paid the money back yet. Yet the penalty for all this was 30% of Kansas' games this season. Exactly the same as POB.

http://www.kusports.com/news/mens_basketball/story/116150

http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/nov/16/jackson_suspended_ncaa/

Well, Kansas is in the Big XII, a so-called "high-major" conference. Bradley is in the MVC, a so-called "mid-major" conference (according to some :roll: ). This means that it is fair. :-P

[Big Mike]

Welcome 64! 8)

[Dallas Brave]

I don't understand the question. Where has it ever been written or documented that the NCAA will deal with issues fairly regardless of the school involved? The lady holding the scales of justice at the NCAA has never worn a blindfold. :?

[64NIT]

Here's an article from the Bradley Scout on the suspensions. I think it includes some well-taken points.
http://buscout.com/ver5/sportsarticle.php?ID=79&date=2005-12-02

[BU fan]

The writer of that Scout article makes some good points. But he starts out criticizing Bradley and listing a number of events that Bradley had very little to do with. I wouldn't exactly put blame and shame on Bradley for the Granger situation (shouldn't McKay and Broussard be the ones shamed?) nor for the others leaving (Rembert and Stemler? I don't see anything wrong or shameful here.). And he seems to try to get some mileage out of the Sommerville transfer to Bradley. He implies some wrongdoing, when everyone involved has denied it and the NCAA found no merit to the claim.

Then the Jabbar Battle and Mike Suggs stories are resurrected. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Bradley and Jim Les handle those 2 problems the right way? Battle was suspended and Suggs was kicked off the team.

I commend the writer for his strong stance toward the NCAA though.

[MacabreMob]

Just my one cent - I think the writer was a hack. Disagreed with the writer til the end and left me confused on where he/she stands completely. Just like a political hack. No surprise really, as most in the press are a bunch of hacks. (In my opinion)

[Roll with the Funches]

I thought I had heard that the NCAA had clearly defined rules that if a player received between x and y amounts of extra compensation they were out for 20% of the games and if they received between y and z amounts of extra money they were out for 30% of the games.

Franklin got between x and y, and O'Bryant between y and z. If my info is incorrect, then disregard, but the point is, Bradley broke a rule, and breaking that rule had a clearly set punishment. Anything that happens at Kansas or anywhere else is irrelevant, unfortunate, but irrelevant.

And this is coming from somebody who loves BU and hates Bill Self.

[dogsrus]

I thought I had heard that the NCAA had clearly defined rules that if a player received between x and y amounts of extra compensation they were out for 20% of the games and if they received between y and z amounts of extra money they were out for 30% of the games.

Franklin got between x and y, and O'Bryant between y and z. If my info is incorrect, then disregard, but the point is, Bradley broke a rule, and breaking that rule had a clearly set punishment. Anything that happens at Kansas or anywhere else is irrelevant, unfortunate, but irrelevant.

And this is coming from somebody who loves BU and hates Bill Self.



Good point and its one that I think most are trying to express....our "situation" APPEARS to be an honest mistake while KU's APPEARS to be a bit more shady.

I used to have a professor that told his students......if you report late or don't come to class at all I don't care why. You are either here or you are not. He didn't want to be put in the situation where he had to decide what excuse was valid and what wasn't AND who was lieing and who wasn't.

It seems as if my prof. is know working for the NCAA. You either recieved "illegal" funds or you didn't.....

[user1]

Here's an article from the Bradley Scout on the suspensions. I think it includes some well-taken points.
http://buscout.com/ver5/sportsarticle.php?ID=79&date=2005-12-02

I also take strong issue with a number of statements in this article, and the guy writing it clearly doesn't even know he has many of his facts wrong.
I'll list a few of his errors, and try to correct them and comment on a few others:


--He starts off referring to the recent issue as "Bradley's most recent issue". But the NCAA has stated clearly that Bradley committed NO infraction, and only the Student Reinstatement Committee got involved, labelling this issue one of student non-compiance with rules that regard impermissable benefits. But, OK, if he wants to count this issue as Bradley's, then the next couple mistakes cannot be defended.


--He states, "The first issue came directly as a result of Les’ hiring, as star forward Danny Granger decided to transfer to New Mexico."
WRONG, as Granger's transfer to New Mexico came 10 months AFTER Les' hiring and was NOT a direct result of it, but a result of a lot of complex things that happened in between.


--Granger was talking by phone with Ritchie McKay? How does Matt Styka know this? This has never been alleged or revealed, and only Duane Broussard's phone records showed any calls to Granger. (I'm beginning to think this writer doesn't check any of his facts.)


--In regard to the Sommerville accusations, the writer fails to note that almost all the accusations of tampering were hinged on the testimony of Sommerville's father, who later recanted & stated to the press that his prior statements were incorrect, and that Les nor Buescher never contacted Cellus until after he left Iowa. Even the Iowa folks never made any official charge of tampering, only one member the local press in Peoria did, and now even he is retired and somewhat discredited.


--He makes a deal out of "Other players have moved in and out
of the program for various reasons". Like he can name a D-I program anywhere in America that this isn't true?


--In the Jabbar Battle situation, Les suspended the player, then rarely ever used him again the rest of the season. And yet the Scout had reported:
"Jabbar Battle struck his girlfriend hard enough to break the skin"
and
"suspend her attacker from an extracurricular activity for a grand total of an hour and 20 minutes."
(from the Scout, 11/14/2003)

But of course these statements were wrong, also.
I am in no way justifying the attack, but the official police report states the girlfriend had minor cuts on the inside of her mouth and mentions nothing about injury breaking the skin.
Also, duh....basketball games are not one hour long, they are only 40 minutes long, so the suspension of Battle was technically 80 minutes of playing time, not one hour and 20 minutes.


--Not sure how and why he ties right from Rembert leaving into O'Bryant's pay situation. There isn't a connection imaginable other than by this writer.


--Then after all this rambling effort to scold Bradley for what this writer sees as ethical problems,
of all things, this guy actually proposes BU should have been dishonest!!
Here are some of his final statements:
"Now, the question arises whether or not a university should ever be honest and admit fault"
"there is no incentive for the athletes, coaches or administrators to be honest in the future."
"Maybe Bradley needs to cover up any future problems from public eyes"

[BU Bill]

I found this article about the Darnell Jackson story. He is the Kansas recruit that received over $5000 in cash and gifts from a well known Kansas booster and graduate while he was in high school. He claims it didn't have anything to do with his decision to attend Kansas. Yeah, right. Jackson got the same penalty as Patrick O'Bryant -suspended for 30% of their games.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/13427430.htm

[user1]

Here is another case for the
"Does this seem fair" file.

The head coach at Oklahoma is Kelvin Sampson, thought by many to be as clean and untouchable in regards to ethics as any coach in America.

But here is the truth:

--The Oklahoma program has made over 550 impermissable phone calls to recruits since 2000, and possibly many more even before that.

--The NCAA knew about these phone calls as far back as 2001-2002 and yet they did not even begin to officially look into the situation until May of 2004.

--Oklahoma has played the old "Marathon Oil" team yearly in exhibitions (the team is now known as "Athletes First") and funneled money via such loophole to the AAU teams & players, with almost all the players on those AAU teams being the same ones that were called by the coaching staff illegally, showing an even stronger link to illegal recruiting, not just calling to wish the kid happy birthday. Now the NCAA disallows these games against amateur teams (any wonder?)

--The founder and coach of the Athletes First AAU team is a well known, long time Oklahoma booster, and several of those players have ended up at OU.

--One of the most recently hired Oklahoma assistants also was in trouble at his prior job, as Ray Lopes was fired as head coach at Fresno State in part for making over 400 impermissable phone calls there!!

--Even all the local (instate Oklahoma) press is owned and run by OU alums, so the media has pretty much swept the whole issue under the rug and ignores it.

--The present Oklahoma head coach, Kelvin Sampson, is a former president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and well respected in NCAA circles, so is seemingly being left alone by those in power, even though over 200 of the impermissable phone calls are tied directly to Sampson, and he himself made them!!

--Here we are, more than 4 years into this whole thing, and everyone involved is in agreement that this amount of violations cause this issue to fall into the "Major Violations" category (plus the coverup), and yet there has been no action and no player or coach has yet missed or been penalized even one game!!

--In the same time interval that Oklahoma is apparently getting a pass on this whole thing, the entire investigation and penalties handed down have taken place at Baylor, Mizzou, Georgia, St. Bonavanture, and now Bradley (player suspensions) so have they (the NCAA) not had enough time to act?. Funny how Oklahoma with its popular coach who has strong ties to his old buddies over at the NCAA has been untouched over all this time, and now even the national writers have caught on to this travesty of justice. (see below)

DOES THIS SEEM FAIR?
http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9153113

[bu fan 9]

It is all about how much money your team makes the NCAA.If your team makes the NCAA a lot of money you can do anything you want that is just the way it is.

[collegehoopjunkie]

It is all about how much money your team makes the NCAA.If your team makes the NCAA a lot of money you can do anything you want that is just the way it is.

Seems so.
As many severe violations that were rumored & that they ultimately did find when they
looked into Kentucky back a few years ago, it took cash falling out of an envelop at the
post office before the NCAA was embarrassed into looking into the situation instead of looking the other way.
In the end, most of the crooks got off pretty light and Eddie Sutton simply moved on the Oklahoma State.
Same true so far at Ohio State, where cash and friendly/sexual favors were thrown at recruits,
and they have yet to receive any significant penalty.
Add Mizzou, New Mexico, Duke, Arizona State, Michigan, Colorado, UNLV as schools where cash, sex, and academic
fraud were all used to get and reward their recruits, none of whom have had even one player or coach ever restricted from a game!!
(and don't count Ricky Clemons - who should never have been qualified to play at Mizzou in the first place)

[user1]

Here is another case for the
"Does this seem fair" file.

The head coach at Oklahoma is Kelvin Sampson, thought by many to be as clean and untouchable in regards to ethics as any coach in America.

But here is the truth:

--The Oklahoma program has made over 550 impermissable phone calls to recruits since 2000, and possibly many more even before that.

--The NCAA knew about these phone calls as far back as 2001-2002 and yet they did not even begin to officially look into the situation until May of 2004.

--Oklahoma has played the old "Marathon Oil" team yearly in exhibitions (the team is now known as "Athletes First") and funneled money via such loophole to the AAU teams & players, with almost all the players on those AAU teams being the same ones that were called by the coaching staff illegally, showing an even stronger link to illegal recruiting, not just calling to wish the kid happy birthday. Now the NCAA disallows these games against amateur teams (any wonder?)

--The founder and coach of the Athletes First AAU team is a well known, long time Oklahoma booster, and several of those players have ended up at OU.

--One of the most recently hired Oklahoma assistants also was in trouble at his prior job, as Ray Lopes was fired as head coach at Fresno State in part for making over 400 impermissable phone calls there!!

--Even all the local (instate Oklahoma) press is owned and run by OU alums, so the media has pretty much swept the whole issue under the rug and ignores it.

--The present Oklahoma head coach, Kelvin Sampson, is a former president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and well respected in NCAA circles, so is seemingly being left alone by those in power, even though over 200 of the impermissable phone calls are tied directly to Sampson, and he himself made them!!

--Here we are, more than 4 years into this whole thing, and everyone involved is in agreement that this amount of violations cause this issue to fall into the "Major Violations" category (plus the coverup), and yet there has been no action and no player or coach has yet missed or been penalized even one game!!

--In the same time interval that Oklahoma is apparently getting a pass on this whole thing, the entire investigation and penalties handed down have taken place at Baylor, Mizzou, Georgia, St. Bonavanture, and now Bradley (player suspensions) so have they (the NCAA) not had enough time to act?. Funny how Oklahoma with its popular coach who has strong ties to his old buddies over at the NCAA has been untouched over all this time, and now even the national writers have caught on to this travesty of justice. (see below)

DOES THIS SEEM FAIR?
http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9153113

Finally a little mention of Sampson and all the hundreds of NCAA violations that he has
committed, and even admitted to although he claims still claims it isn't cheating because everyone
else is doing it!
This story did appear in the PJ State today, but isn't in the online edition.
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=BKC-TRAMEL-01-18-06

[chitownBUB]

Another one for the "does this seem fair" file.

University of Kentucky guard Rajon Rondo
is seen tooling around campus driving a 2006 Yukon Denail, a car
worth $60,000!
But there's no need to worry that maybe anything suspicious is going on, because the univeristy has assured us the car
actually belongs to Rondo's good friend, NBA player and UK alum Derek Anderson,
who bought the car and let's Rajon use it all he wants!!

Gee-- I am sure glad it wasn't a few extra bucks from a summer employer, so it's nice to know it's just the free
use of a luxury car owned by an alumnus of UK.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/basketball/13723546.htm

[BradleyBrave]

Another one for the "does this seem fair" file.

University of Kentucky guard Rajon Rondo
is seen tooling around campus driving a 2006 Yukon Denail, a car
worth $60,000!
But there's no need to worry that maybe anything suspicious is going on, because the univeristy has assured us the car
actually belongs to Rondo's good friend, NBA player and UK alum Derek Anderson,
who bought the car and let's Rajon use it all he wants!!

Gee-- I am sure glad it wasn't a few extra bucks from a summer employer, so it's nice to know it's just the free
use of a luxury car owned by an alumnus of UK.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/basketball/13723546.htm

How on Earth is that legal by NCAA standards? Oh wait, it's Kentucky. My bad.

Wait, didn't Kentucky almost get the basketball death penalty a while back? You'd think they'd be against stuff like this. Oh well, whatever it takes to win, right?

[tornado]

Ah--one of my favorite topics, as I lived in Louisville back then and we never cared much for UK,
but the lip service was indeed given to UK getting the "death penalty" but only after over $1K fell out of a package headed to a recruit and was reported by the post office.
I think Kentucky would have literally gotten off scott free save for the overwhelming condemning evidence and the cries of "foul" from Denny Crum.

BUT--as you recall, all the important players in the scenario actually did get off pretty easy.

UK-got a couple years of limits and penalties, but were soon back in the final four with new coach Rick Pitino.

Eddie Sutton moved on and gets to coach another national power Oklahoma State.

Chris Mills, the recruit who was being sent the cash bribe, ended up going to Arizona (transferring after 1st yr at UK) and landed in the NBA, so he got his millions anyway.

And even some of the bit players who were caught in the scandal because their tests scores were so obviously phoney or the result of cheating (Eric Manuel and Sean Sutton the coach's son who was suspected of giving correct test answers to Manuel) still all moved on essentially unscathed and finished their careers elsewhere.

So in the end what was talked about as a tough penalty didn't amount to much more than a murderer losing his drivers license for 6 months. Now, if it had happened at Bradley, and one of the kids was employed by Star Transport...... :roll:

[user1]

Hey- I'm going to hop onto this "does this seem fair" thread.

Has anyone seen the last couple Duke games on TV?
Of course all of Duke's games are on TV so it's hard to miss them.

You probably saw the game where Duke just barely beat Boston College, aided by a "no-call" right at the end of the game when a BC shooter was clobbered but the refs called nothing, allowing Duke to win.
Then against Florida State, a team Duke should have blown out, it took a totally groundless technical call on one of the FSU players for Duke to pull the game out.
The call was so bad, that the ACC suspended the entire crew, an almost unprecedented move.

http://www.oxfordpress.com/sports/content/shared/sports/stories/FBC_DUKE_0210_COX.html

"Duke's disparity in free-throw attempts, 80-23 in two triumphs by a combined three points, sent the fire even higher"

But in the end, it all seems to boil down to how often Duke gets every close call, and every break in the book.
It's almost as if the NCAA and all the powers involved have some reason to keep helping Duke win.
I for one would like to see Duke get an unbiased officiating crew in the NCAA tourney and get hammered by a 16-seed!

[patrick_o'brian]

Hey- I'm going to hop onto this "does this seem fair" thread.

Has anyone seen the last couple Duke games on TV?
Of course all of Duke's games are on TV so it's hard to miss them.

You probably saw the game where Duke just barely beat Boston College, aided by a "no-call" right at the end of the game when a BC shooter was clobbered but the refs called nothing, allowing Duke to win.
Then against Florida State, a team Duke should have blown out, it took a totally groundless technical call on one of the FSU players for Duke to pull the game out.
The call was so bad, that the ACC suspended the entire crew, an almost unprecedented move.

http://www.oxfordpress.com/sports/content/shared/sports/stories/FBC_DUKE_0210_COX.html

"Duke's disparity in free-throw attempts, 80-23 in two triumphs by a combined three points, sent the fire even higher"

But in the end, it all seems to boil down to how often Duke gets every close call, and every break in the book.
It's almost as if the NCAA and all the powers involved have some reason to keep helping Duke win.
I for one would like to see Duke get an unbiased officiating crew in the NCAA tourney and get hammered by a 16-seed! Sorry user1 Duke will not get hammered by a 16 seed. That's just crazy.

[tornado]

Yet another example for the "Does this seem fair" file.

St. John's gets caught and "convicted" by the NCAA of actually paying one of their players. I'm not talking about a little extra cash from a summer job, this is actual handouts of substantial dollar amounts from one of the coaches right to one of the players.

The player, Abe Keita, received (at least) $300 per month, which if it was carried out for a full four years at the school, would have been well over $12,000, but the actual total amount wasn't revealed.
The kid also got $2400 to help with tuition when he was not eligible for his scholarship funds, and he also got the rental of an apartment at a reduced rate.

Remember, all of this also comes right on the tail end of numerous serious violations that were already uncovered during the Mike Jarvis era at St. Johns, which included sexual assault charges against the coach, rape charges against numerous players, and lots of academic fraud, and drug use.

This situation seriously deserved consideration of the death penalty or a very, very severe penalty,
but then St. Johns is in the Big East!!

Guess what was St. Johns' penalty.

--2 years of probation
--loss of one scholarship
--little slap on the wrist...
:roll:
http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/ny-spstorm124738959may12,0,3940378.story?coll=ny-basketball-headlines


Actually, I also ran across this followup to the Ricky Clemons cheating scandal...
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3813488

[tornado]

And yet even another kid who came from a questionable "prep school" that was being investigated by the NCAA has been cleared and is now eligible.

The two big differences between this kid and Xavier Crawford??

First, BTMA was not really even being looked at in the same way as "Genesis One" prep school, which was actually on NCAA's bad-list.

Second, the kid went to a BCS school, and is now granted eligibilty just in time for the season to begin.
Arkansas opens tonight against NAIA Xavier of New Orleans (who didn't even play at all last season because their campus was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.)

The kid scored 32ppg, 15rpg, 9 BLOCKS per game last year in prep school!
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2644643
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/ncaa/specials/preview/2006/10/31/bc.bkc.arkansas.washington.ap/

[tornado]

And just in case you needed more proof...

That no matter how minor, and no matter how long ago violations were,
if it is a mid-major, then the NCAA hands down big penalties!
(loss of scholarships and probation through 2009)
http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6060531&nav=0nqx
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/college_basketball/20070208-1509-mcneesestsanctions.html

Anyone wanna predict when the NCAA will ever get involved in checking out all those
extra benefits that Reggie Bush got while playing at USC?

A) in 2009
B) in 2015
C) gimme a break..it ain't gonna happen

[tornado]

OK...does this surprise anyone-- here's even more evidence the mid-majors, especially if they have
marginally successful seasons, get hammered hard even for minor, unintentional violations.

A lower-mid-major (University of Louisiana-Lafayette) is found guilty by the NCAA of 3 violations, but it was made clear that the violations were
NOT INTENTIONAL.

--one is that a basketball player played a few games in 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 after transferring from University of Florida.
He had a total of NINE hours of credits that were from corrspondence courses, and there was no argument that he actually took and completed these courses.
However, the NCAA deemed the courses were not allowable, therefore the player was ineligible. The school had deemed the courses as allowable.

--the 2nd violation was that some football recruits attended "impermissable summer workouts".

--the third violation was just the failure of the program to identify the first two...so in effect it wasn't really a new violation at all.
http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070420/UPDATES02/70420007/1006/SPORTS


So here are the penalties:
--Forfeit all men's basketball games in 2003-2004 AND 2004-2005.
--Forfeiture of Sun Belt Conference Western Division title in 2004 and back-to-back Sun Belt Tournament titles in 2004 and 2005. ULL's participation in the NCAA Tournament - two first-round losses - will also be expunged from the record books and public displays of performance in either tournament such as banners hanging in the Cajundome must be removed.
--men's basketball loses one scholarship for two years.
--Revenues totaling $19,551.47 from participation in the 2004 NCAA Tournament will also be forfeited.
--In football, ULL must reduce its spring workout hours from 20 to 15 for one week in either 2007 or 2008 spring drills.
--the ULL Athletic Department received public reprimand and censure, two years of probation effective Thursday and running through April 18, 2009, and individuals involved with athletics in the admission, financial aid, compliance and registrar's offices and the faculty athletic representative must attend an NCAA compliance seminar prior to the end of the probation.


WOW--
If there's anyone left who doesn't feels the small and mid-major schools get hammered harder, just let me know.
Here were some unintentional and inadvertent violations, and they weren't that serious, but the program gets hit harder than most I have seen with huge major violations!

[tornado]

I just can't leave the "Does this seem fair?"
thread without one more comment about Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson.

Even though the NCAA is now going to crack down on text messaging, look for
May 24, 2007 to be the day that most of the cel-phone systems shut down in America due to overly heavy traffic.

That is the day that officially Kelvin Sampson is allowed to start calling recruits again,
although does anyone actually doubt that he's likely been doing it all along or has had one of his staff dial the # for him?

The nationwide communications grids with be overloaded on that day and it'll propbably be like Y2K was feared to be!