NCA A is on LSU’s trail, and it’s bleak for Wade
’Tis written in the Bible that the truth shall set you free. In the case of LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade, who once directed the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga program, the truth just might free Wade of ever again coaching at the college level, especially the Bayou Bengals.
Believe the documents obtained Wednesday by ESPN regarding the NCAA enforcement staff’s investigation of the Tigers under Wade, and it’s impossible to see him keeping his job.
According to those documents, Wade reportedly “arranged for, offered and/ or provided impermissible payments, including cash payments, to at least 11 men’s basketball prospective student-athletes, their family members, individuals associated with the prospects and/ or nonscholastic coaches in exchange for the prospects’ enrollment at LSU.”
Beyond that, according to ESPN, NCAA vice president of enforcement Jonathan Duncan wrote in a letter dated July 15: “Some of
(Wade’s) underlying actions gave rise to this case and his tactics during the investigation have delayed resolution dramatically. He is employed in a leadership position at LSU, yet the institution has been unable to secure his full cooperation and is accountable for his behavior.”
In other words, Wade is not only likely to be fired should these allegations prove true, but he will almost assuredly receive a “show cause” penalty of at least 10 years, if not a lifetime ban, which means his college coaching days are likely over.
Yet as serious as this is for Tigers hoops, of greater concern to LSU fans everywhere could be what ESPN also reported regarding potential football violations, including charges that LSU booster John Paul Funes paid the father of former Tigers offensive lineman Vadal Alexander — a four-year starter at the school — $180,000 over a five-year period.
Funes admitted in 2019 that those payments came from more than half a million dollars he embezzled from a Baton Rouge hospital. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reported those payments were for what the NCAA termed “a no-show job.”
Though LSU football coach Ed Orgeron was not the boss of the Bayou Bengals until midway through the 2016 season, that charge alone could damage the program coming off a national championship season, because the NCAA currently wants to lump it in with the basketball charges and have the whole mess adjudicated by the Independent Accountability Resolution Process, which was created to handle the NCAA’s most complex cases.
A former Southeastern Conference coach once told me the only direction the athletic director at his school ever gave him regarding recruiting was as follows: “Don’t do anything that brings the NCAA around our football program.”
Wednesday’s news means Wade has clearly done that. Or as Duncan also noted in his letter to the school: “The potential football allegations share certain patterns with the basketball investigation, including booster involvement in NCAA violations. The behaviors related to football also could inform on general institutional allegations, such as potential failure to monitor, and applicable aggravating or mitigating factors.”
“Failure to monitor” are the last three words any athletic department wishes to hear. Under such a whitehot spotlight, you wonder if Wade can last the week, much less another season.
As I’ve written before, nothing in my 37 years at this newspaper has surprised me more than Wade being caught on tape by the FBI telling street agent Christian Dawkins that he’d made a “(blankety-blank) strong-ass offer” to Javonte Smart, who ended up signing with the Tigers.
He had always seemed so different at UTC during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons. Bright bordering on brilliant. Consumed by the smallest of details, almost nerd-like. He also looked young enough to still be in high school at Nashville’s Franklin Road Academy, where his mother was the headmaster.
Yet if these charges are proven true — and no one I’ve spoken to who knows the 37-year-old Wade well disputes them — he fooled us all.
During last spring’s HBO documentary “The Scheme,” Dawkins said Wade’s behavior “basically just said (blank) you to the NCAA and the university he worked for … and he still got to keep his job and make millions of dollars. Will Wade is definitely a (blanking) gangster for what he did.”
Truth is, once caught, most (blanking) gangsters look a whole lot more like (blanking) idiots, Will Wade included.