Buckner heads a firm based in Pompano Beach. He published the 2004 book Athletics Investigation Handbook: A Guide for Institutions and Involved Parties During the NCAA Enforcement Process and said he assisted the NCAA with its investigation into prep schools in 2006-07. For him, offering his expertise to university compliance offices only seemed natural. After all, they can only do so much.
A school's athletic department isn't likely to catch everything. Mayo, in fact, was reviewed carefully by USC, the Pac-10 and the NCAA before he played his lone season at USC.
The NCAA Eligibility Center processes 65,000 student-athletes a year, according to an spokesman. Though they might find academic red flags, identifying legal woes (especially for a juvenile) and suspect financial matters is a lot tougher.
A Division I university has time and resources for only so much. A typical school might welcome 200 new student-athletes on campus each fall. The colleges ensure each academically qualifies, but most don't do thorough background checks on every recruit. That's part of the reason Maryland offered a basketball scholarship to Tyree Evans last month without knowing the extent of his criminal history. (After much scrutiny and the revelation of five criminal charges, Evans withdrew his application last week.) In cases like Evans', all you might need is a computer, Internet access and about 10 minutes to pull up court records.
In Mayo's case, his circle of suspect characters had been noted in media reports for a couple of years. Buckner said if the information and allegations that have been reported prove to be true, the circumstances surrounding Mayo's missteps could have been discovered long before ESPN cameras played gotcha journalism and long before Mayo had even put on a USC jersey.
"Our services will provide the USCs of the world a resource where we can go out and do the legwork, the proper due diligence of these blue-chip, high-profile prospects," Buckner said. "That way, the prospect and his or her family are cleared of any type of rumors or innuendo out there, the school is protected, and if there's anything that comes up later on, they can say, `Hey, we did everything within our power to make sure we complied with NCAA rules.'"
It's too early to tell whether schools will take advantage of this new service, but Buckner said he plans on blanketing the remaining Division I universities with information next week.
To me, it's another unfortunate sign of the times.
To Buckner, it's just smart business.
rick.maese@baltsun.com
