Call me Washington, Dirty is More of a Nickname.

USC is clearly the biggest power in the Pac-12.  They have the most tradition and history. Until Phil Knight went into the shoe business, they had the most money as well.  USC also runs afoul of the rules from time to time, but there are a lot of people with lots of money and no morals who want to be around that program.  Plus they have a certain moral ambivalence to ethics. Things are going to happen.  But there is another program in the Pac-12 that is just flat out dirty.  And no it isn’t Arizona St., I mean they are sometimes dirty but it comes from stupidity and incompetence and not a willingness to do anything to win.

The dirty program is, THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON…

This program has a long and proud history of cheating.  A couple of places to start, Google Billy Joe Hobart and the book Scoreboard, Baby, just to get a taste of what Husky Football is all about.  I recall Spokane Spokesman Review sports columnist, John Blanchette often discussing the win at any cost mentality of the Washington boosters.  And nothing has driven them more crazy than to see Oregon explode while they’ve been trapped in their own shell of idiocy and incompetence.  I could retrace the incompetence of the Barbara Hedges, Rick Neuheisel, Keith Gilbertson, Tyrone Willingham era but this is a blog not a book.

But now they’ve found a guy in Steve Sarkisian, (who coached at USC under Pete Carroll, hmmm) who seems willing to do what it takes.  And man is the money flowing.  Yesterday, they just paid $500,000 for a defensive line coach/recruiter.  If the boosters are willing to do that imagine what they’d give to players.  Funny how with Sark, players committed to other schools make these last minute changes.  Hmmm…

And this doesn’t extend to football alone.  Look at the hoops program.  Romar seems to be willing to do what it takes as well.  Washington stopped playing Gonzaga in large part because Gonzaga turned in former Washington assistant and current Seattle University coach Cameron Dollar because Dollar was caught offering “special benefits” to a Gonzaga commit in order to get him to Washington.  Not to mention there is the special story of Ute recruit CJ Wilcox making such a surprise 11th hour decision not to come to the Utah but instead, Washington.  Rumor has it, it was so surprising, Wilcox’s parents were shocked.  Hmmm… Smoke meet Fire.

So now that the spending free for all is on at Washington, we should probably start the clock on waiting for a Washington scandal.

Or as the Washington boosters will put it, the L.A. schools are out to get them.