If the NCAA knew Lamar took money and still let him play at Rhode Island, they are sending mixed messages to the kids. Rich Hartnett, St. Maarten Clippers forward Lamar Odom never played at UNLV, but payments allegedly made to him by a UNLV booster led to Bill Bayno's dismissal. First of all, when you talk about the UNLV situation, any time you are passing out cash to a prospective student-athlete, you are heading for major, major problems. Obviously that is one of the toughest things, and my heart goes out to coaches because it is difficult to monitor everything a booster does. Both boosters and kids know they are not allowed to do these things.
Kids are just as guilty for accepting the cash.
Coaches have to be accountable for what happens in their programs and that's why they made the change there. It is unfortunate for Bill Bayno. I also think it softened things with the NCAA because the school could then say they took action with the coach. There were serious charges alleged there, and any time you do stuff like that you will pay big-time. There is no other way to put a stop to this besides penalizing the institution.