Trying to Understand

That sums up my feeling about the mess with Kelvin Sampson and the Indiana University basketball program. All told, I'm struggling to understand.

How is it that a coach that got caught making recruiting phone calls to high school recruits from his previous head coaching job at Oklahoma still is hired by Indiana, when Indiana knew all about the infractions?

Not only that, Indiana willingly accepted NCAA sanctions to its own program in order to hire the coach. Even though the sanctions were relatively light, it begs the question, why?

Now it comes out that Sampson continued talking to recruits on the phone at Indiana, even though he was clearly prohibited from doing so. If I read the report correctly, something like 10 times. Now 1 or 2 phone conversations could maybe be chalked up to a mistake, but 10?

Finally, the biggest question of all: Why would Kelvin Sampson throw away his coaching career for 10 telephone calls?

Was he the subject of some sort of NCAA witch hunt, where the accusations aren't true? Based on the reports, it sure doesn't appear so. His calls were verified and documented. Did he somehow misunderstand the phone restrictions placed on him by the NCAA? I sure don't see how; even I understood the restrictions, apparently better than he did.

Or did he simply think he could get away with it? How in the world did he think he would pull that off when he had to know he was under a microscope by the NCAA?

The tragedy is that a few phone calls can hardly be characterized as a huge case of cheating. Sampson's only public defense has been to deny he lied to the NCAA, which is the charge that has them more upset than the calls themselves.

But he knew he was under the sanctions and did it anyway. And that I still can't understand.

I feel for Dan Dakich. If he can actually pull off a good end to this disaster by winning the Big 10 and/or going deep into the NCAA tournament, he deserves all the accolades that could be given him. I can't imagine stepping into a more difficult situation. I wish him luck.