Interested to see what happens when some poor family member tries to identify a bagman as a source of payment. I have a feeling this is going to hurt the wrong people more than the right people. Not that it is cool to take a large cash payment unreported, as that is still breaking the law, but I have concerns about the effectiveness of this as it relates to what we hope for.
Who are the wrong people and who are the right people to get hurt in this? To my mind, anyone that has been taking illicit payments, not reporting the income, cheating the system, and talking about "I will always bleed Orange and Green, but I gotta take care of my family" is a problem. Even more so, anyone steering a kid to make decisions about their future based on what is best at the moment for some adult and not the best long-term interests of the individual student-athlete deserves to pay a price.
Institutionalized cheating and corruption does not have innocent participants, no matter the socioeconomic background they may come from. Obviously, it's easy to understand the temptation and the difficulty these kids come from, but the families and others around them need to stop being excused for considering their son or nephew or cousin or player as a winning lottery ticket.
What I hope for, is that South Florida's elite HS athletes will stop making the most important decisions of their lives based on a quick up front payment that really doesn't benefit them, rather than choosing a school for how it will develop and market their talents and for how it will prepare them for adulthood. Cleaning up the sleazy bag game and system of corrupt HS coaches and runners in SoFla, or even just exposing it to the light of day, can only help.
Even if that means that a few poor moms and dads who sold their child's future for a bag of cash have to pay a price.
I'm sorry, but I'm not crying for Benedict Arnold.
