Do No Evil, See No Evil, and Hear No Evil
This chapter shifts the focus from the players to the coaches. After the basketball scandal broke in January of 1951, colleges, with the aid of many writers, were quick to label the players' misdeeds “criminal” and to attribute them to players' lack of moral values and flawed characters. Yet the blame for the pervasive corruption in college athletics did not rest on the shoulders of the athletes alone. The chapter argues that the college coaches, administrations, and other such authorities were also in part responsible for the gambling issue, although unlike the players, they were largely able to escape the taint of scandal. Thus, this chapter argues that how basketball coaches made their choice to ignore game fixing reveals the essential role their passive complicity played in the size and shape of the scandals.