- So I guess it’s not always worth it for a college basketball coach to bring in a high-profile “one-and-done” star player. These are guys like Carmelo Anthony, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, etc., who are in college for a year and then off to the NBA as lottery picks. The only reason they’re in college at all is because of an NBA rule mandating that players must be 19 years old to join the league. Players like Anthony, Love, Beasley and others come in as an immediate B.M.O.C. (big man on campus), lead their team to a high-profile, usually successful season and then keep right on going. In the case of Anthony back in 2002, their school (Syracuse in that case) wins an NCAA title. In cases like that of now-former USC basketball player O.J. Mayo, the story doesn’t end nearly as happily. Not only did Mayo fail to live up to expectations and fail to lead the Trojans out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament, he also spent his college career allegedly receiving thousands of dollars in cash, clothes and other benefits in apparent violation of NCAA rules, a former Mayo associate told ESPN's “Outside the Lines.” Louis Johnson, who was a part of Mayo's crew until recently, claims that Mayo accepted around $30,000 in cash and gifts during the past four years from Rodney Guillory, a 43-year-old Los Angeles event promoter. But the cash was just the tip of the iceberg, with Mayo also accepting a flat-screen television for his dorm room, cell phone service, a hotel room, clothes, meals and airline tickets for his friends and a relative, according to Johnson, others with knowledge of the gifts and store receipts. This isn't something that just flared up once Mayo reached college, either. His high school career was marked by moving from school to school under the guidance of shady “mentors” who were looking to pimp both Mayo and his skills. During his high school career in Ohio and West Virginia, Guillory was receiving monthly payments from the Northern California sports agency Bill Duffy Associates and Johnson said BDA provided Guillory with around $200,000 before Mayo arrived at USC, money that Guillory used most mostly to support his own lifestyle but also gave a portion of it to Mayo. Johnson alleges that in exchange for the payments and gifts, Mayo entered into a verbal agreement to allow BDA represent him when he turned pro. If true, the actions represent not only a violation of NCAA rules, but also a misdemeanor in California, where it’s illegal for sports agents and their representatives to provide cash or gifts to student-athletes. Johnson also alleges that after Duffy's company quit funding Guillory last year, Guillory gave Mayo the flat-screen television, a hotel room and meals -- and paid for it with a credit card that belongs to a nonprofit organization called “The National Organization of Sickle Cell Prevention and Awareness Foundation.” The organization has never been registered as a charitable trust with the California Attorney General's Office. Mary E. Brown, president and CEO of the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of California, said she had never heard of the foundation for which Guillory charged purchases through. Oops. Assuming Johnson is able to provide the authorities with all of the necessary paperwork and data to back up his claims, this is going to get very messy for anyone who was involved at all. That means Mayo, the USC basketball program, Guillory, Bill Duffy Associates and others. It was funny to see Mayo issue a written statement purportedly in defense of Guillory, a statement that read in part: “Rodney has been a positive influence on me as well as a strong African-American male presence in my life. Recently, my mother had the opportunity to spend time with Rodney as well, and has shared her appreciation for the way he has always treated me like I was family when I was so far away from home. I have nothing but respect for Rodney.” Nice try, O.J. Not that anyone is buying it, but nice effort anyhow….
- Do you still need proof that you should listen to me when I rip or praise new shows, major TV networks? Look no further than three shows that debuted just this season that I ripped from Day One and are now being canceled after just one weak season on the air. First up is Aliens in America, the lame, pathetic new comedy from my least-favorite network, the CW. Aliens has been mercifully axed because a whole lot of viewers quickly realized what I saw from the start, that a show with a bad premise, lackluster writing and mediocre acting wasn’t a good way to waste half an hour. Next we have two shows from Fox that didn’t pan out, which was a total surprise….unless you listened to my thoughts on these shows. If you did that, you saw their cancellation coming from a mile away. The revelation that network had sacked Back to You was a slam-dunk the instant it made the decision to have a sitcom with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton in the first place. Sorry guys, but Frasier sucked infinitely and aside from his supporting role on Cheers, Grammer has contributed nothing of worth to television - well, other than his hottie daughter Spencer, one of the stars of ABC Family’s Greek. The attempted comedy of Grammer and Heaton as news anchors and comedic foils fell flat in a hurry, but the show isn't alone in its quick axing by ABC. Sources have also confirmed to TVGuide.com that New Amsterdam has been euthanized as well, which makes it one of the more abject failures of the season. It didn’t even get a full season in before going the way of the dodo bird. So as always, TV networks, I am here to help you and I strongly encourage you to consult me on new series before you waste your time and money promoting, producing and sustaining them. You can see that my track record is stellar and I am more than willing to lend a helping hand to you…..
- It may not result in further sanctions by the NFL against the team America loves to hate, the New England Cheat-riots, but it’s still nice to know that the submission of tape by former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh showing the team’s cheating ways won't go all for naught. One tape among the eight Walsh turned over to the NFL under the terms of his agreement with the league “contains shots of Miami's offensive coaches signaling Miami's offensive players, followed by a shot from the end zone camera of Miami's offensive play, followed by a shot of Miami's offensive coaches signaling Miami's offensive players for the next play, then edited to be followed by a shot of the subsequent Miami offensive play,” Walsh’s attorney explained late last week. “And that pattern repeats throughout the entire tape, with occasional cuts to the scoreboard.” The issue of filming offensive signals hasn’t been a big issue because for a while now, a team’s offensive coaches have been able to communicate signals to their quarterback through an in-helmet radio, this alleviating much of the need for hand signals on the offensive side of the ball. In large part because of the Cheat-riots’ tactics, the same capability will now be given to one defensive player for each team beginning this season. The NFL doesn’t seem eager of likely to push this issue much further or to impose additional sanctions on the Cheat-riots and their coach, but Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. warned the NFL not to rush to judgment late last week, suggesting the league is premature in trying to put the Spygate saga to rest. “I think it is very unfortunate that the NFL has already started its 'nothing new' spin before watching the tapes or finding out what Matt Walsh has to say,” Specter said. “Let's see where the evidence leads.” Walsh, employed by the Patriots from 1997 to 2003, met with league officials Tuesday in New York. After that session, he traveled to Washington and sit down with Specter and his staff. I’ve never fully understood the importance of a congressman getting involved in this mess, what with Congress having issues like the war in Iraq, the faltering economy, balancing the budget, etc. on their minds, but Specter has consistently complained about the lack of cooperation from the NFL as his staff has attempted to delve into the matter. “I got three pages of people who refused to talk to me,” he whined. You may not want to let it go, A., but the rest of us are tired of this mess and unless Walsh or someone else can produc the magic bullet that will prove the Cheat-riots taped the St. Louis Rams final walk-through practice before the 2002 Super Bowl, this is a dead issue and any joy to be taken in knowing that the cheating was more inclusive than originally thought is minimal and marginal at best.
- Who’s ready for another “Album to Avoid”? I know I am, and that’s not just because I’m the one writing this. America is ready for it too, and I have a great recommendation for you this week on which album you’ll want to run screaming from if you happen to encounter it on the street. It’s none other than America’s least favorite, most waifish, effeminate, crooning karaoke contestant, Clay Aiken. Unfortunately for Aiken and for the rest of us, he never learned to live out the words of his own music, most specifically the song Invisible from…one of his crappy albums, I have no idea which one. But if he had simply become invisible, we wouldn’t have the problem of how to deal with the musical nuclear waste that is his new album On My Way Here. I don’t know where “here” is, but I can only hope and pray that here for Aiken is not anywhere near me. Because if it is, I might be in danger of being subjected to God-awful songs like As Long As We’re Here, a whining, crooning ballad that reinforces Aiken’s status as the male version (but still less masculine than) Celine Dion. Another über-bad track is Real Me, a song whose weakness and feeble quality only reinforce Aiken’s status as the ultimate girlie boy. He also makes the mistake of cloning Invisible and attempting to repackage it as Falling. It comes across as standard pop music garbage, which just shows another dimension of Aiken’s crappiness. All told, this is one of the more regrettable and abysmal albums of this or any other year in recent memory. It’s every bit as bad as you expect it to be and then some, so buy it only if you are looking to send it down to Guantanamo Bay for the interrogators there to use as a new means to torture terrorism suspects….
- What’s worse than being s stage mom or dad? Being a stage dad on a hack karaoke show like American Karaoke, that’s what. Know that I have no idea who these two idiots are that I’m about to write about, other than knowing through stories I hear on various mediums that one is a current contestant on AK and the other a-hole is his father. Someone named David Archuleta is apparently the contestant on the show (NFL defensive back Adam Archuleta, now him I know) and as this season gets ready to come to a merciful conclusion, he is apparently still in the running for honors as the show’s top karaoke-er. That seems to be bad news for those associated with the show (as if being in any way associated with that train wreck of a show isn't enough problems for any one person), because Jeff Archuleta has gone gung-ho in trying to micromanage his son’s career. He’s acting like he’s the manager for an artist who actually matters and who doesn’t totally suck, telling his son what to do, what to sing, etc. The latest flare-up came last week when David Archuleta was to butcher, er, sing the classic song Stand By Me. Faux hip-hopper Sean Kingston ripped the song off for his cover tune Beautiful Girls last year and Papa Archuleta pressured his son to include lines from Kingston’s version in his own performance. Right, because a glorified, talentless karaoke loser like your son won't have a hard enough time with a given song as is, why not complicate things a little more, idiot….but I digress. The loser producers of the show vehemently told David not to listen to his old man, but of course htat’s just what he did. Now AK will have to pay royalties to Kingston for using his über-crappy music on its even crappier broadcast, a giant pile of crap when all lumped together. So Papa Archuleta has been banned from the AK set, something I’m sure he’s not happy about but that any sane person would be thrilled with. Actually, sane people with even moderately decent taste in music would never be caught dead anywhere near American Karaoke, so the ban would be unnecessary, but you get my point….yup, that AK really, really, really, really sucks….really.
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