Chansky's Notebook: Larry Brown Does It Again

Thank you, Larry Brown, for showing us what academic fraud really is.

Some people are waiting for me to blast my old friend Larry Brown after his third NCAA probation was announced Tuesday. And I won’t disappoint them. Larry Brown has now coached three major college basketball programs and will have left all of them on probation when he soon departs SMU, like he did UCLA and Kansas.

Of course, Brown denied he intentionally broke rules with those puppy dog eyes, but he is guilty again for the same lack of oversight he demonstrated at UCLA and KU. Both of those schools got in trouble for impermissible benefits to current players, and this time at SMU it was for a player who cheated to get into school as a freshman. Star Mustang Keith Frazier was encouraged to take an on-line correspondence course to gain admission and then a former assistant coach wound up taking the course for him. When Frazier told Brown he never took the course, Brown did not report it. And the NCAA caught Brown in an apparent lie during its interview. There was other stuff, but that’s about the gist of it.

SMU got the stiff penalty that many ABCers hope Carolina Basketball will get this spring, but the SMU case showed there is no comparison between the two. UNC was never accused of cheating in anything, just the debatable charge of academic advisors steering the athletes to crip courses that exist at every school. So Brown unwittingly took one for his alma mater which did not do anything of its kind and Roy Williams’ basketball team will likely get off with very minor sanctions.

Why does trouble follow the 74-year-old Brown wherever he goes, and does not stay for very long? Well, three reasons. One, is he is very passionate about the kids he recruits and coaches and tries to protect them if they get caught breaking any rules. Two, Brown thinks most of the NCAA rules that keep coaches from helping kids are patently absurd. And, three, after coaching nine ABA and NBA franchises over the last 45 years, Brown probably has about 50 million dollars in the bank and, frankly my dear, doesn’t give a damn what the NCAA thinks.

Oh, he will be remorseful after the fact. But, like at UCLA and Kansas, he either doesn’t know or care about the NCAA rules and when he breaks them or finds out someone else did, Brown just shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “It is what it is.” He almost coached at Carolina once, after Roy turned down the job the first time. All those who wanted him here, including me, were convinced he never would have cheated at his old school because he would not have needed to and Dean Smith was still around to make sure he didn’t. But, you know what, he probably would have at UNC because, with L.B. it’s in his D.N.A.

Chansky’s Notebook: Larry Brown Does It Again

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