Strange Doings at Duquesne

So, one of my goals this year in the blog is to check our opponent's newspaper coverage more leading up to the games to get a better idea what might expect.   Today, while watching some football, I aimlessly surfed over to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is the home paper of the Duquesne Dukes, our next opponent.

What I found there is a story about a minor NCAA infraction with a potentially insulting level of misleading information coming from official parties.  This information comes from a Duquesne basketball blog on the PPG, written by Colin Dunlap.

It starts with a text from the current coach to a team manager to send 15 shoes and some other equipment to a junior college in Florida.  It is against NCAA rules to do this.

The Coach of the JUCO in Florida has a Facebook post about their program to adopt a company in Afghanistan.  In other words, the shoes were to be sent to this company of soldiers.  Dusquesne is sticking to this story as well.

The Coach has some very specific requests, including specific shoe sizes that were needed.  Of course, they could know the shoe sizes of the people in this company. The other equipment (shorts and shirts) is also similarly specific.  Again, you might now that.

So, the manager gathers the shoes and some of the equipment, and ships it to Florida.  Here's where the Coach quits acting like this was all for the benefit of soldiers in Afghanistan.

He starts by telling the manger to pay the $358 shipping out of his own pocket.  Which he does.  So, the manager gets about the business of getting reimbursed.  He worked his way through the coaching staff but could not get reimbursed, and eventually presented the issue to the school's compliance director.

So, you have to ask yourself...if the shoes really were to support troops, than why wouldn't the school pay for the shipping directly, and why wouldn't they reimburse the student manager?

Some meetings were held.  The coaches became aware that he had talked to NCAA Compliance, and coach wrote the manager a personal check and he was told to stay away from the basketball program.

The JUCO coach in Florida was called.  He responded angrily and said that he didn't need the shoes because they were adidas and his team wears Nike.

The blogger at the PPG says that a photo on the coach's Facebook shows otherwise, and his team is wearing Adidas.

I'm sure that in the scheme of NCAA infractions, this is not much.  However, using the good name of troops in a war zone is something that the popular culture tells me is incredibly offensive.  Where is Bill O'Reilly when you need him?