Good For You, John Bond and MSU!

MeridianDog · Nov 5, 2010

Anytime you grow tired of reading this epistle, go to the last sentence.Last fall, John Bond found himself in a tough position. He has been a solid supporter of the MSU program for years, with access to coaches, Athletic Directors and the administration. As much as MSU has Cigar guys and bag men, I’m certain Bond knew them, too. If there was ever a guy who could get behind the scenes access to those who control the MSU Football program, it was John BondThe way all of this fell into place reeks of truthfulness.Mr. SEC had this to say:“Former Mississippi State quarterback John Bond has publicly stated that another former MSU player — Kenny Rogers — contacted him in December and claimed that he was representing Newton’s family. He told Bond that other schools had already offered $200,000 to land Newton, but the player and his family would accept $180,000 to attend MSU… due to the player’s connection to Dan Mullen.”So what did Bond do? He was approached by a former MSU player – Kenny Rogers. Kenny was a guy he knew. He was guy Bond would have been on talking terms with. Bond would have known for a fact that Kenny was a guy who represented high school players trying to place themselves with big time college football programs. Kenny would have had credibility with Bond, sort of like a lawyer who you know for a fact can get you out of a speeding ticket, or a DUI, or appointed to the Highway Commission’s long term planning board so that you have influence on what locations that highway will pass. Kenny had credibility, whatever that means, in any situation where a quality high school or JC football player was concerned. There was one problem though. Bond probably didn’t care all that much for the recruitment involvement Rogers was proposing he take part in.Evidently, Rogers told Bond that he “Represented Cam Newton” Bond would have accepted that on face value. Rogers represents this kind of marketable player all the time. There would have been no reason at all for Bond to question such a claim from Rogers. Rogers now had the bait in Bond’s mouth. He only needed to set the hook. I can dream up the key statements of the December, 2009 phone call, or (more likely) face to face visit between the two men:“John, you know that Cam and Coach Mullen have a history together. This guy (Rogers probably would have called him a kid in violation of SPS policy) likes Mullen a lot and really wants to go to State and play for the Bulldogs, but there is a problem. He wants $200,000 to sign.” (Rogers pauses to let that smelly piece of the deal mellow out a little) “I bet you know that there are other schools that want him badly. I already have interest coming out of Oklahoma, Auburn and maybe Alabama for him and in spite of all of that, he still wants to come to play for the Dogs! Can you act as a go between to make this happen?”Now Bond is in a really bad position. What does he do? There are two scenarios here:Scenario #1 – He has done this before. Has he? I want to believe ‘no’, but the truth is I have no idea. If this is the case, then he is only concerned with three options (1) Is Cam worth $200,000? For those who have bought players, the answer just about must be yes. I’ll come back to this. (2) Can he find $200,000? = if he knows the cigar smokers, then the answer is almost always yes. (3) Is this worth getting MSU into trouble with the NCAA? Everyone here knows the SEC’s history with turning each other (opponent SEC members) in for recruiting violations. It may not be what the PAC 10, or Conference USA or other conferences in the NCAA do, but it certainly is what we (the SEC) do. The subject of turning in other SEC schools comes up on every SEC fan posting board twenty times (gross under-exaggeration) a year. Before posting boards, it was covered in bar conversations, gas station pumps, business offices, Lions Club lunches, Civitans after dinner BS sessions, and in the dens, kitchens and living rooms of cigar smokers and wanna-be cigar smokers. Every guy (there are hundreds of them) who ever paid a player any money thought he was smarter than the other supporters and could get away with it. Evidence? No one ever knowledgably runs a stop sign when there is a cop behind him, but they always get caught when they run one that way.If Bond has paid players money in the past, he either couldn’t find $200,000 (I doubt that, since evidently there was a one-time offer of a “10% off Special Deal” for MSU only of $180,000!), or he thought he’d get caught (maybe?), or MSU said “No” (a probable-possibility). I do know that there are many honest competitors in Football, in spite of what we like to tell each other. I really like the “One Time Offer of $180,000” part of the story. It indicates that even cigar smokers and agents have at least 10% of a heart.Scenario #2 - Let’s look at the other scenario. If Bond has never done this (middle man for money transfer) before (I hope this is the case, but truthfully I do not know):At this point he has one or more of three options (1) Is this the kind of thing I need to get involved in? He could have quickly said “NO” and forgot the whole thing. This didn’t happen because someone turned Rogers/Cam in, either Bond or MSU or both. (2) He could have said “OK I’ll do it”, made a full pitch to MSU and (surprise, surprise) MSU said “NO” (A possibility – this actually could have happened) (3) He could have said “No” and then turned in Rogers, first to MSU and then to SEC and maybe later to the NCAA. This is what I hope happened, because such action shows class and ethics and honesty on John Bond’s part. These are qualities lacking (totally or at least to some level) in many people who are in the “Hepping-folks-out-bidness”. What have we been told? Evidently John Bond took option number 3 of Scenario #2. He turned Rogers and Cam in. At that point MSU could have gone to Rogers behind John Bond’s back and sealed the deal, but evidently they didn’t. Evidently they said “No” and turned in Rogers to the SEC offices, in full compliance with SEC ethics rules and the agreements all member SEC schools sign when they sign SEC ethics documents, and I bet a hundred dollars every SEC member has signed an ethics statement on recruiting. At this time, we don’t know what the SEC did when MSU turned Rogers and Cam in as having committed a recruiting violation. It looks like they either acted very slowly (an understandable and supportable action), or they did nothing (the worst possible response possible). They could have done something between these two, which is disgusting. Regardless, it looks as though either MSU or Bond or both MSU & Bond) eventually decided to go to the NCAA with their side of the story. Again from Mr. SEC:“Bond contacted State athletic officials and alerted them to the offer. “I have no agenda other than protecting Mississippi State,” he said. “We’ve done what we were supposed to do from the very beginning. Mississippi State has done nothing wrong, and I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s been handed off to the NCAA, and it’s in their hands now. I don’t know what happened at Auburn. I don’t know why he went to Auburn.” This was the best possible move that John Bond and MSU could have made. It is what ethical and honest and Classy Quality people and college athletic programs would do. Perhaps that makes MSU the only Honest-Gomer Pyle Member of the SEC and NCAA, but if that is the case, so be it. I’ll avoid comments on Cam and his family. That was not why I wrote this post.This post is too long. My apologies for that, but regarding Mr. John Bond, Gregg Burns and MSU I say HooRah!

MeridianDog · Nov 5, 2010

Good For You, John Bond and MSU!

MeridianDog

Freshman

MeridianDog

Freshman