In a summer that has already included the dismissal of the scarlet vest, and the sanctioning of the only professional football team currently in Los Angeles, we have now been treated to the story of mini-Madoff super-booster Nevin Shapiro, currently serving a score of hard-time for his own $930 million ponzi scheme. It involves many famous former ‘Canes, 73 players overall, including Vince Wilfork, Devin Hester, Kellen Winslow II, Andre Johnson, Jonathan Vilma, and many, many others. In addition to providing players with things every college kid dreams of; free food, booze, and sex, Shapiro then turned around and closed them on joining his Axcess Sports agency. Not bad.

It turns out that even when ESPN purportedly does something right, in this case the excellent “30 for 30″ documentary series, documenting the incredible run by “The U” in the 1980s and into the early 2000′s, there was still one more chapter to be written. One by a emotionally wounded 5’5″ inmate, who hopefully has enough cigarettes and phone time to keep him an anal virgin.

An incredible report by Charles Robinson of Yahoo! sports lays out the dets and the best reason to go to the U to play football:

Shapiro said he violated NCAA rules with the knowledge or direct participation of at least six coaches – Clint Hurtt, Jeff Stoutland and Aubrey Hill on the football staff, and Frank Haith, Jake Morton and Jorge Fernandez on the basketball staff. Multiple sources told Yahoo! Sports Shapiro also violated NCAA rules with football assistant Joe Pannunzio, although the booster refused to answer any questions about that relationship. Shapiro also named assistant football equipment manager Sean Allen as someone who engaged in rulebreaking, and equipment managers Ralph Nogueras and Joey Corey as witnesses to some of his impropriety.

God, when I visited colleges all we did was take some crappy tour of the dorms, while overzealous parents asked about the cafeteria and classes being offered:

Visits to strip clubs and night clubs were the most consistent staple of Shapiro’s relationship with players, dating back to 2002 and running nearly up to his incarceration in April of 2010. One of Shapiro’s bodyguards said his security detail had a consistent routine in place that it repeated several times a week: travel to a nightclub or strip club prior to Shapiro; make the club security aware that the booster would be arriving with a large group; secure Shapiro’s VIP area; and be on hand to whisk the booster and his contingent of players past any lines and into the privacy of their own area, where Shapiro would often spend thousands of dollars per night on bottles of liquor and champagne.

Say what? Duplicity from the coaches? I hope somebody alerted Coach Tressel before he leaves Browns practice.

Frankly, Tressel looked the other way on a couple cars and some tattoos and got a trophy; while Shapiro ran up enormous bar/hooker tabs and didn’t get squat. Basically, Buckeyes come cheaper, and get more bang for your buck. Nice going, Shapiro!

The University of Miami, come for the weather, stay for the freebies and hookers.

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