Yahoo! Sports digs up UConn’s dirt
Despite having the national championship tournament down to the sweet 16, the college sports world has been negatively impacted this week by a Yahoo! Sports report detailing major recruiting violations by the University of Connecticut.
After a six-month investigation by Yahoo! Sports, Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel reported that UConn’s recruitment of former guard Nate Miles grossly violated the NCAA’s rules. According to the report, Miles and professional sports agent and former UConn student manager Josh Nochimson were involved in an illegal relationship.
Nochimson reportedly provided lodging, transportation, meals and representation to Miles and despite UConn being aware of the situation and took no action. Connecticut’s basketball staff was involved in discussions with Nochimson throughout Miles’ recruitment and exchanged 1,565 text messages and phone calls with the agent.
Yahoo! obtained call and text records from UConn Assistant Coach Tom Moore involving both Miles and Nochimson. While Yahoo! did expose a potential NCAA rules violation, and if the report is entirely accurate, UConn needs to clean up its act. However, with sports agents becoming more involved in athletes’ lives, all institutions need to make sure they are not engaging in similar acts. Recruiting violations are serious. The age and inexperience of the athletes and confusing nature of the period they are at in their lives is not something for agents and institutions to tamper with. While the NCAA has contacted UConn about the report, the NCAA needs to send a message to all of its institutions and get more involved to make sure these violations are reduced and eventually eliminated.
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