Scandalous College Coaches
Kelvin Sampson
Sampson may be on the hot seat at Indiana over alleged illegal phone calls to recruits. But when it comes to scandals, he's a lightweight. Meet 20 coaches who make Sampson seem like a regular Miss Manners.
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Scandalous College Coaches
20. Larry Eustachy
Unless some of Sampson's troublesome calls were to 900 numbers, there's no way he can match Eustachy for scandal. The Iowa State coach resigned after photos surfaced of him drinking and kissing Missouri co-eds after a road game.
Scandalous College Coaches
19. N. Richardson
Plenty of coach-school divorces end badly. This one ended up in court. Richardson claimed he was mistreated by Arkansas and its fans because he was black, daring the Razorbacks to fire him. They did. Richardson promptly sued.
Scandalous College Coaches
18. Bob Huggins
Which was Huggins' most damaging scandal: The zero-percent graduation rate, the two-year probation for lack of institutional control, or the video of him staggering during a DUI arrest? In 2005, Cincinnati picked all of the above, forcing Huggins out.
Scandalous College Coaches
17. Rollie Massimino
Not even Sampson's cell phone bill could match the amount Massimino was set to be paid under the table by UNLV. A secret fund paid three years of a $3.1 million deal to Massamino, who followed career scandal-ist Jerry Tarkanian in style.
Scandalous College Coaches
16. Bob Knight
Knight may have never broken an NCAA rule at Indiana, but his all-too-frequent confrontations with players, administrators, coaches and students led to a "zero tolerance" policy. The General didn't survive the 2000 offseason.
Scandalous College Coaches
15. Mike Jarvis
Scandals, suspension and a cratering record cost Jarvis his job in December of 2003, making the malcontent coach the first Big East skipper to be fired during the season. Later allegations of player payment by his staff landed St. John's on probation.
Scandalous College Coaches
14. Lefty Driesell
Driesell's famously ebullient personality couldn't stem the public outcry at Maryland following Len Bias' cocaine overdose death. Claims of academic impropriety, lack of control and attempts to hinder the Bias investigation forced Driesell out.
Scandalous College Coaches
13. Jim Valvano
Illegal shoe and ticket sales by players and a point-shaving scandal marred the final years of Valvano's Cinderella-touched tenure at N.C. State. Though cleared by the NCAA, the Wolfpack forced him out and put themselves on probation.
Scandalous College Coaches
12. Jim O'Brien
Sampson isn't even the Big Ten's biggest scandal of the decade. In 2004, Ohio State fired O'Brien amid allegations he paid $6,000 to a recruit. The resulting investigation eventually forced Ohio State to vacate its 1999 Final Four.
Scandalous College Coaches
11. Jerry Tarkanian
Not featuring Tarkanian here would be like listing great mimes and excluding Marcel Marceau. Each of the three schools Tark coached landed on probation, while two of his UNLV players were photographed with a sports fixer.
Scandalous College Coaches
10. Steve Fisher
Sometimes, it's what a coach doesn't do that leads to trouble. Booster Ed Martin handed out nearly $600,000 to players during Fisher's tenure at Michigan. It cost him his job and NCAA sanctions for allowing Martin access to the team.
Scandalous College Coaches
9. Jim Harrick
He was college basketball's scandalous hat trick artist. Harrick was fired by UCLA, accused of academic impropriety at Rhode Island and resigned at Georgia after allegations of academic cheating and payment came to light.
Scandalous College Coaches
8. Clem Haskins
Clem Haskins built Minnesota into a power, but the MVP might've been an administrator, who confessed to writing more than 400 papers for players. Haskins was effectively banned from coaching for seven years.
Scandalous College Coaches
7. Nat Holman
Like college basketball itself, Holman barely survived the 1951 betting scandals. Several of his CCNY players were arrested, and Holman, though cleared by the school, was suspended two years for "conduct unbecoming a teacher."
Scandalous College Coaches
6. Tic Price
As in politics, little is more damaging than a sex scandal. And none cost more than Price's, who resigned after admitting to a relationship with a 23-year-old Memphis student and paying her $17,000.
Scandalous College Coaches
5. Eddie Sutton
He's taken three teams to the Final Four, but this ex-Kentucky coach is best remembered as a cautionary tale as to why you shouldn't send cash through the mail, when a package mailed by an assistant to a recruit popped open, spilling $1,000.
Scandalous College Coaches
4. Todd Bozeman
He was the youngest coach ever to lead his team to the Sweet 16 in 1994, but Bozeman aged quickly thereafter. After paying $30,000 to the family of a Cal recruit, the NCAA effectively banned Bozeman from coaching for eight years.
Scandalous College Coaches
3. Norm Ellenberger
It takes a miler to get from NCAA violations to criminal convictions, so give Ellenberger credit. The NCAA concluded the New Mexico coach falsified academic reports and paid players; the state of New Mexico convicted him on 21 counts of fraud.
Scandalous College Coaches
2. Kevin Mackey
It was lights, camera, humiliation, live on the local news. The Cleveland State coach, called the "King of Cleveland" by the local media, was arrested after leaving a crack house with a prostitute, all captured on camera.
Scandalous College Coaches
1. Dave Bliss
Baylor's Bliss compounded the sin of paying tuition and the tragedy of Carlton Dotson's murder by teammate Patrick Dennehy by trying to force coaches and players to claim Dotson was a drug dealer to conceal the money's source.
