Auburn hires Pearl for 2.2M per year
 

Auburn hires Pearl within months of the end of his 3-year sanction for lying about illegal recruiting practices. So a coach who has been confirmed to have been unethical now gets to make a couple of million a year working with college student-athletes.
Furthermore, I doubt that an official who was found to be unethical by the NCAA would ever get a second chance.
Just another reason to root against the SEC.

He served his sentence and paid his price, I have no problem with the hire. It was unethical to lie to an NCAA investigator, but I'm not getting bent out of shape over someone violating some of the inane and idiotic NCAA rules on too many text messages or other silliness.

Actually the lie was about him inviting a player to a barbecue that the player did not attend and Pearl apparently lied that he gave the invite.

Peace

In the end the moral is. LYING PAYS!!!! At least with athletics. Doesn't surprise me because in my experience with athletics for some 15+ years I have to say that a good percentage of folks involved have very questionable ethics, morals and standards.

In case you weren't aware, the level of "cheating" that occurs in the SEC (and many other conferences, for that matter) ranges from "illegal barbecues" to paying families in excess of $200,000 to attend a particular school.

Kentucky leads the SEC in basketball cheating, while Auburn is trying to overtake Alabama for the lead in football cheating...............

Unfortunately, it's a normal part of the "human condition" - the same reason these guys break NCAA rules is the same reason why people lie on their income taxes this time of year.

Any proof of those accusations?

I thought not...you sound like a typical fan.

Actually, that is totally incorrect. Three recruits and their parents attended a barbecue at Pearl's house after a football game. They had driven to Knoxville on their own for an "unofficial visit" and under NCAA rules, the university is not allowed to provide them anything on that trip. The NCAA investigation was led by Joyce Thompson.

One can argue the morality of Pearl's actions, his three-year departure and his new job at Auburn. But the facts are not in question. He had the recruits to his house for a barbecue, a photo was taken that was later sent to the NCAA and he lied about it when confronted with the photo.

This is what happened, according to the NCAA transcripts as reported by Yahoo Sports:

The postgame cookout occurred back at Pearl's house. And sometime during it, a picture was snapped of Pearl, recruit Aaron Craft, who currently plays for Ohio State, and the wife of a Volunteer assistant coach, posing inside his house with a painting hanging on a wall in the background.

"Do you have any recollection of that incident or maybe where this picture was maybe taken from and …," Thompson said.
"OK," Thompson said. "Any place on campus but you don't know?"

Pearl said no. He denied there was a cookout. His assistants had already done so, too, and he denied he told his staff to deny it. He denied that he told the recruits and their parents to lie. He ridiculously denied recognizing the wife of his own assistant coach in the picture.

He denied, perhaps even more laughably, that he couldn't recognize the inside of his own house in the photo.

"Is that in your home any place?" Pearl was asked.

"No," he said.

He denied everything, even if it was true.

Well it is not totally incorrect. The issue was he lied to the NCAA more than anything. I was just repeating the part of who was at the barbecue from a report I read and heard on the radio. The details I do not claim to know beyond that fact.

He's a scumbag. So are the folks who paid the Michigan players in the early 90s.

Maybe the NCAA wouldn't give a guy a second chance, but the NBA didn't hesitate in doing just that.

Don Vaden, a former NBA referee and the league's current coordinator of officials, has replaced Bernie Fryer as director of officials, league sources said Friday.
Vaden was among eight (8) referees charged with tax evasion in 1998 for downgrading first-grade plane tickets and not reporting the refunded money. He was found guilty and served six months' of home confinement and two years of probation.
This was a crime of judgment and this is a high-profile appointment where perception matters. Simply put, the NBA has named a proven tax cheat to head up its group of supposedly impartial referees

The whole thing sounds totally unbelievable. And yet, sadly, it's also totally believable at the same time.

This is 2.5 year-old news. Do you have a point?

Just that refs have been given second chances; I thought that was fairly obvious.

Obvious if you somehow see the situations as being equivalent.

Does Vaden make $2.2 million too?

Actually I don't see them as being 'equivalent'; I consider what Vaden did much worse.

Pearl never was arrested and convicted of a crime; Vaden was.

I have no idea what Vaden is paid, and don't care.

You may, but the NBA didn't, obviously -- they took back quite a few officials in the same position.