Kelvin Sampson Is Still Kelvin Sampson

While most of the sports world is focused on Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee right now, there's another scandal that broke late on Tuesday that I've turned all my attention to. I wrote about it at FanHouse last night, but I'm enjoying the story so much that I want to write about it again here.

Sure, the Illini are having their worst basketball season that I can remember in a long time, but with every dark cloud comes a silver lining, and I've seen the lining.

Public enemy #1 in Champaign, the man who stole Eric Gordon, is in a whole heap a trouble.

Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson and his staff violated telephone recruiting restrictions imposed because of his previous violations at Oklahoma, then lied about it to the school and NCAA investigators, the NCAA said Wednesday.

The NCAA has listed five major violations against Sampson, saying he gave "false or misleading information" to investigators. The university released the NCAA's report on Wednesday morning.

Major violations of NCAA rules can carry punishments including postseason ineligibility. Indiana already had self-reported violations under Sampson in October, but the new discovery could put the Hoosiers' season, and Sampson's career, under a cloud of uncertainty.

Awesome.

I heard he also had Brian McNamee inject him with HGH.

As for what Sampson and his assistant coach Jeff Meyer are in trouble for, here's a quick list of allegations included in the NCAA's letter to Indiana.

-That Sampson, assistant coach Jeff Meyer and former assistant Rob Senderoff failed to comply with sanctions imposed on Sampson for impermissible recruiting calls he made while he was the head coach at Oklahoma. Sampson was under such sanctions when he was hired to coach the Hoosiers in May 2006.

Sampson and Senderoff are alleged to have jointly participated in telephone calls at a time when Sampson was prohibited from being present or taking part when staff members made recruiting calls. Senderoff and Meyer are alleged to have made about 100 calls that exceeded the sanction limits.

Senderoff resigned his position Oct. 30.

-That Senderoff and Meyer placed "at least 25 telephone calls" to nine potential recruits that exceeded NCAA limits even if no sanctions had been in place.

-That Sampson "acted contrary to the NCAA principles of ethical conduct when he knowingly violated recruiting restrictions imposed by the NCAA Committee on Infractions."

-That Sampson and Meyer engaged in an impermissible recruiting contact during a two-day sports camp held at Assembly Hall last June 30 and July 1, and that Meyer provided the potential recruit with an impermissible benefit -- at least one T-shirt and drawstring backpack.

Admittedly, I don't know all that much about recruiting and the rules that govern it, all I know is which players are being brought in. I also know that you can't buy the recruit a car, or buy his momma a house, or get his daddy a tractor (Thank you, Blue Chips).

What I do know about recruiting violations is that they're awesome when they're committed by a coach and a school you hate, and they get busted for it.

Now the school has 90 days to respond to the violations before the NCAA decides to bring down it's iron fist. (No doubt that fist is full of cash. Cash and justice.) So it's unlikely that the Hoosiers (who are currently 20-3) will be punished this season.

There's still a chance the school may ban itself from postseason play this year in hopes that the NCAA will be more lenient in their decision, but I'm not sure how "major" these violations are, so I don't know if Indiana would go that far.

All I know is that odds are the school is going to lose some scholarships, and may face postseason bans in the next few years.

And I can't wipe this smile off of my face.

Foul Balls

Mark Buehrle's Truck Is Quite Large - Rich over at Home Run Derby sent this to me yesterday, but it was too late for me to include it in my post, and I didn't want to just link to it in High Five so I saved it for today.

It seems that Mark has himself a new truck.

This titan is ten feet tall and weighs more than six tons. You need something akin to a commercial drivers license to thunder this monster on a road.

The Southpaw added four-wheel drive and some hydraulics that lower the bed to the ground. He didn’t say how much it exactly cost him, only divulging that it was in the six-

When he first saw it, he was stunned by it too …

“Oh shit, that thing’s a lot bigger than I expected.”

Of course, as a self respecting Simpsons fan, you all know what this post calls for.

Blackhawks To Play Outdoors - As I was getting ready to leave for work yesterday, I heard something on the radio that excited me greatly. I was listening to ESPN 1000's Mac, Jurko, and Harry when one of the hosts, Harry Teinowitz, dropped a bombshell.

According to what Harry was being told, it seems that within the next year or two the Blackhawks may be playing an outdoor game against the Detroit Red Wings at Soldier Field.

Now this morning, the Sun-Times was reporting the same thing.

A Chicago Park District panel recommends that a new contract to manage Soldier Field go to SMG, which made a pitch of hosting an outdoor Blackhawks hockey game at the lakefront stadium....

"I don't want to get into where we're at in negotiations in terms of time frame, but there will be a game at Soldier Field. It's just a matter of when,'' said SMG senior vice president Michael Evans.

But Blackhawks president John McDonough said discussions about Soldier Field have "been informal on a what-if basis,'' adding, "I have friends at all of the venues: Wrigley, U.S. Cellular. I think they'd all like to take a run at it."

The final decision on whether to stage an outdoor game in Chicago is up to the NHL, said McDonough. Earlier this year, some 71,000 hockey fans watched the Buffalo Sabres play in an outdoor football stadium in Buffalo.

Let me just say that this needs to happen. When the Buffalo Sabres played the Pittsburgh Penguins outdoors at Ralph Wilson Stadium in the snow, it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. I would love to go to Soldier Field, or wherever, to watch the Blackhawks and the Red Wings play an outdoor game.