KC Confidential

The Syracuse child molestation situation is just the tip of the college athletics moeny-go-round…

When I was a little kid, all I knew about college football was that people like Fred McMurray drove to the games in really old cars with racoon tails, in really old black and white movies.

The fans yelled super silly cheers and it wasn’t about whether the teams won or lost but how they played the game.

That was then…

Today it’s every man, woman and child for his or herself. The Almighty Buck is the King of Kings and who cares how the game is played – just win, baby!

We’ll likely never truly get to the bottom of the Penn State child abuse scandal. The school isn’t making its records public and the NCAA will have plenty of wrists it can slap without taking everyone involved in the coverup to the public woodshed.

If everybody involved at Penn State were outted, they might have to retool the entire school hierarchy.

Now let’s take a look at the Syracuse situation where head coach Jim Boeheim bogusly defended longtime assistant Bernie Fine two weeks ago after two men accused Fine of abusing them. Here’s what Boeheim said right after the men came forth with their stories:

"This is alleged to have occurred … what? Twenty years ago? Am I in the right neighborhood? It might be 26 years ago? So, we are supposed to what? Stop the presses 26 years later? For a false allegation? For what I absolutely believe is a false allegation? I know he’s lying about me seeing him in his hotel room. That’s a lie. If he’s going to tell one lie, I’m sure there’s a few more of them.”

Now after one accuser produced an incriminating recording of a phone conversation with Fine’s wife confirming the abuse, Fine was fired and Boeheim has been forced to change his tune.

“The allegations that have come forth today are disturbing and deeply troubling," Boeheim now says. "I am personally very shocked because I have never witnessed any of the activities that have been alleged. I believe the university took the appropriate step tonight. What is most important is that this matter be fully investigated and that anyone with information be supported to come forward so that the truth can be found. I deeply regret any statements I made that might have inhibited that from occurring or been insensitive to victims of abuse."

Therein lies the problem…

Instead of merely covering it up like ousted Penn State coach Joe Paterno undoubtedly did, Boeheim used his bully pulpit to discredit Fine’s accusers, effectively discouraging other victimes from coming forward lest they receive the same treatment. Had that phone recording not surfaced, Boeheim would still be blaming and abusing the victims.

What Boeheim should have done is say something like, "This is a grave matter that needed to be looked into, even though I’ve known and respected Bernie Fine for many years."

That’s it.

What Boeheim did instead was – like seedy lawyers in rape cases – try to shift the blame to the victim.

And that’s totally bogus.

"Is it possible that Boeheim will be able to continue to coach the team?" the Washington Post now asks. "Should he be allowed to continue to coach the team? Or should he, like Paterno, be fired?"

"Victim advocates give Coach Jim Boeheim’s apology a mixed review," reads a headline on syracuse.com.

"The Rev. Robert M. Hoatson, a Catholic priest who is president of Road to Recovery Inc., a non-profit that supports victims of sexual abuse (said) Boeheim’s earlier statements were ‘completely inappropriate and out of line. Now he’s backtracking on his story…’ Once again it proves when people begin to attack victims it comes back to haunt them."

Syracuse station WSYR TV reports, "The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) issued a statement calling on Syracuse University to discipline head men’s coach Jim Boeheim the day after his longtime assistant Bernie Fine was fired as a result of allegations that he molested young boys."

SNAP’s statement:

"We’re glad that Bernie Fine has been fired but it’s crucial that Syracuse University officials discipline Jim Boeheim for his extraordinarily hurtful recent comments attacking abuse victims. Boeheim’s apology will do little or nothing to ‘undo’ the harm he’s caused. Nor will it deter others from making similarly callous comments in the future. If the university really wants to move forward, and create a safe climate for abuse victims, it must take decisive action against Boeheim."

Clearly the old jalopies and racoon tails are things of the past, but among us doesn’t think big time college athletics is about one thing and one thing only; M-o-n-e-y.

KU‘s former, now-ousted athletic director came in, immediately extorted millions of dollars from longtime KU football and basketball ticketholders, then dropped more than a million bucks in legal fees squashing tiny Lawrence T-shirt maker Joe College. Something about shirts like "Muck Fizzou" costing KU money by infinging on its trademark.

Missouri bails out of a century-old rivalry for a fist full of dollars. Schools like KU and MU routinely use clout to minimize news coverage of things like bar fights involving student athletes and other embarrassing indescretions. And how in the world did MU coach Gary Pinkle get his DUI charges wrapped up with a bow in a single week?

Like that ever happens in the real world.

It’s blatantly evident that the money behind these school’s sports teams has resulted in clout and influence for athletics officials that surpasses that of the school’s leaders. It’s time to call a halt to that.

Which will never happen because the enforcers at the NCAA enjoy cashing their fat paychecks too.

For example, in the NCAA’s 2009 tax filing, then head Myles Brandon took down a $1.765 million paycheck, with the next 14 staffers making between $640,107 and $261,559.

Those are some pretty big bucks in a Midwestern burg like Indy.

By the way, the NCAA’s total revenue that year was $740, 910, 957.

Should college athletics revenues go into state educational funds benefiting the many and not the few? Probably. Will that ever happen? Doubtful.

Should Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim be fired for doing the completely wrong-headed thing when his now obviously guilty assistant was accused? Probably. Will it happen?

Again, doubtful.

So you hung with the fam, got hammered and did the zombie thing…

More power to ya, but now you’re feeling a bit blue cause you missed out on those 46-inch Westinghouse LCD TVs at Target and didn’t even make it to Oak Park Mall for Midnight Madness, The Thanksgiving Edition.

Dude, that’s tough. But fortunately I did your dirty work for you and am here to tell the tale.

Wine, women, song – debauchery beyond belief – none were in evidence when I embarked with 14 year-old daughters Liza and Savannah for the Target store on Metcalf near Johnson Drive. We arrived at 11:54 p.m. Thanksgiving night to see a sea of people – hundreds – flooding and snaking around Target’s massive parking lot.

Make no mistake; what was about to go down was huge but – fortunately for all concerned – civilized.

Target security and a pair of Mission cop cars and cops stood at the ready. A single entrance to the far south of the building front was the sole entry point.

Have fun guys," said the door dude on allowing the first batch of 30 Black Friday losers into the store. "Don’t run, you’ll be alright."

Then a rather large black woman tried to schmooze her way in sans the six hour line wait.

"I just need to go to the service desk," she told security.

Fat chance.

"You’re going to need to go to the end of the line, ma’am," he shot back.

Next thing I knew, said security dude was on my ass for standing nearby and taking notes. No nasty media stories wanted, I guess. In case something ugly went down.

"We’re not allowing anybody to wait up here," he said sternly. So I crossed the street and stood on a parking island.

The first wave of shoppers cheered as they were let in and out of the cold. Allowing batches of 30 in at roughly one minute intervals, the line was over in 30 minutes flat. It also helped insure that there were no hand-to-hand combat or pepper spraying incidents.

Meanwhile the first batch of shoppers began to trickle out of the store with their Westinghouse big screens and gaming chairs overflowing their carts. Some loaded with as many as three to four LCD telelvisions.

That’s when I learned that the Occupy Wall Street crowd had inflitrated a nearby Wal Mart near 75th and I-35.

"They started their sale at 10 p.m.," Shawnee resident John Smalley told me. "And everybody got their stuff and was in line when a group of about 20 of the Occupy Kansas City people formed in the clothing section and started chanting."

No harm, no foul, Smalley said.

About that time – around 12:15 a.m. a big ass black dude and his posse lumbered out of Target announcing, "All the good shit’s gone, y’all. All the good shit’s gone."

Comforting.

That’s when I noticed that the obnoxious Target security dude playing big shot out front was decked out in a regular Target clothes uniform along with a lime green nylon vest that read, "Assets Protection."

No kidding. Assets Protection is what they call the department store dicks at Target.

After finally entering and getting ready to leave, I noticed that the cart my daughters were stuck with would have to go through a checkout line far more daunting than the line to get inside earlier.

Because, going in was a breeze – just wave and walk. Getting out, on the other hand, entailed the full blown checkout experience, multiplied by the hundreds of people ahead of us.

To my surprise, Target kicked ass and it went super fast. Kinda like the lines at Forever 21 at Oak Park.

In fact, we got in and out so fast, I let my daughters con me into driving to Oak Park Mall.

That’s right, it was 1:30 a.m. when we turned into Oak Park’s jam packed parking lot. Uh, oh. This could get ugly.

Little did I realize, I would soon learn that Oak Park Mall’s Midnight Madness Sale was bogus.

No Dillard’s. No J.C. Penny. No Nordstrom. No Barnes & Nobel. No Victoria’s Secret. No Pink. No Hallmark. No Limited. No Food Court. No Forever 21. And-on-and-on-and-on. No most of the stores that usually are open. Roaming the mall, darkened by mostly closed stores was a ghostly experience.

The bottom line being Oak Park lured shoppers like my daughters to a (more than half empty mall.

"We got a call from corporate a couple days before Thanksgiving telling us we had to work because most of the stores here would be open," says a Delia’s staffer. "Maybe if they’d advertised it better more stores would have stayed open and more people would have come."

We’ll see how well Oak Park does next year after crying wolf this year…

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter…

Greed is good – within reason. Face it, it’s the American Way. Without avarice – and its partner-in-crime marketing – we’d still be chiseling football scores onto cave walls. Flabby dudes would be stuck wearing loincloths at the beach instead of Speedos. And McRib would be the part of the Saber Tooth Tiger everyone threw away.

Which brings us to the Midnight Madness inflicted on KC consumers Thanksgiving night.

The mall and store openings born to a marraige of hype and tripe, greed versus need. Think about it. From a retailing standpoint, what’s the difference between dragging folks out of bed for a 6 a.m. sale the Friday after Thanksgiving and convincing them to bail on their families six hours earlier in the middle of the holiday?

For what?  To do battle over a handful of cheap ass LCD television "doorbusters"?

Allow me to address the subject.

From a standpoint of sales, people are gonna spend what they’re gonna spend.  So tradition busting likely yields very little, if anything, to retailer’s bottom lines. The flip side of which is for many locals – workers and shoppers – it was a dagger in the back of one of Amerca’s greatest holidays.

Instead of hanging at home chowing on Big Bird, watching football, catching a holiday movie, the Plaza Lights or even reflecting on the concept of being thankful, thousands of locals passed their holiday afternoon and evening shivering in ridiculously long lines at area parking lots.

Take soon-to-graduate K-State student Joel Grogan…

Grogan was one of the first into the Mission Target when it opened at midnight and the first to make it out alive with a $298,  46-inch Westinghouse LCD TV in tow.

"I saved $251," Grogan says. "I got here  at 6 p.m."

And with a fat, chocked-full-of-ads Thanksgiving Day newspaper to celebrate, the Kansas City Star couldn’t wait to suck up to advertisers today with a front-page headline shouting, "Buyers Plunge Into Season."

On and on it went, rehashing widely reported details like that 152 million people nationwide were expected to shop on Black Friday, up 10 percent from last year. While kissing up advertisers like to Zona Rosa by assigning a reporter – presumeably Joyce Smith whose byline adorned the story – to shadow a woman who won a three-hour, $1,000 gift card gift card shopping spree that had to be completed that night.

Blow-by-tedious blow, Smith documented the woman’s shop-a-thon in no less that 10 painfully-long, individually headlined graphs. As if she was documenting the 12 Labors of Hercules. At 12:20 a.m. the chick got the gift card. "I’m shaking," she said. She hit the Gap at 12:35 a.m. Tried to go to Dillard’s at 1:25 a.m. but it was closed.

From Ann Taylor to Victoria’s Secret, Dick’s and Old Navy – no advertiser went un-jerked.

Mercifully, the gift card money (and Smith’s ink) ran out at 2:43 a.m. Maybe they’ll show a clip of it at halftime during Sunday night’s Chiefs game.

The story continues with perfunctory – dry as a bone – tales of what went down at other Star advertiser’s malls. The Legends, Independence Center and Oak Park.

For example, the lots were full by 10 p.m. at Legends and many of its stores offered discounts. Imagine that.

Some chick named Avondale (that a girl’s name?) hit Independence Center around 2:30 a.m. looking for some jewelry bargains and and another said that Wal Mart was crowded. Riveting.

And my pal Kevin Collison (that was you, wasn’t it, dude?) hopped out of bed Friday and rolled out to Oak Park Mall at 9 a.m. to let readers know it was busy "with most shoppers carrying shopping bags." I’ll bet most of em had shoes on too, but Kevin left that part out.

Collison did serve as the voice of reason in Smith’s story, even though his two-liner got stuck at the back of the bus where few may have seen it. In a quote by some chick from Paola who didn’t make it out the night before because she said it was "ridculous" and "I wanted to be with our family."

Way to risk pissing off the advertisers, big guy.

In a universe where few holds go unbarred, it’s hard to come up with the words to express what passes for the gratitude of the KC Confidential family to our readers…

Especially given the vast majority of you have the decency, good sense and good taste to steer clear of the hardscrabble world that is the comments section.  You’re a silent majority of sorts, albeit a very important one.

Is it halfway safe to assume that the 99 percent-plus of you who never comment are ardent admirers and true  believers in the words set forth by the scribe-otherwise-known-as Craig Glazer? Or that your fondest desire would be to hug it out with me while professing that I can do no wrong?

Not likely.

Or that so awed are you by brainiacs Brandon Leftridge, Kelly Urich, Larry Hovick, Tony, Brian McTavish, Matt Donnelly, The Mermaid and Jack Poessiger that you dare not lift your voices? Even in praise.

OK, well, maybe.

More than likely though, it’s simply because you’re halfway normal and choose to take or leave our lunatic  ramblings and move on with your lives after being entertained and/or enlightened or enraged.

Hey, who wants to get called out in public for a fight anyway?

All of that said, let the word go forth that we do very much appreciate your patronage. This is far more a crime of passion than a get-rich-quick scheme, therefore your readership matters to us greatly.

So on behalf of all of us (and the punching bags that have gone before), a very sincere thanks. For your interest, your patience, your understanding, your misunderstanding, your anger, you-name-it.

As for your part in this prickly equation, remember, no duty is more urgent than that of your return.

Here we go again…

With the seemingly obvious going unsaid. But the death of embattled former Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences head Karen Pletz would appear to be a suicide. The 64-year-old one-time civic leader was found dead in a Fort Lauderdale residence. Ft. Lauderdale police say no foul play was involved and that they are waiting to hear from the medical examiner.

Those full results, however, are not expected to be available for two to three months, says Broward County chief medical examiner Darin Trelka. Trelka declined to say whether Pletz left a note or address the issue of whether it appears to be a suicide.

However, one or both of the above would appear to be the case given that police say there was no apparent foul play and the medical examiner’s office is not making any efforts to expedite the examination.

This much is clear; Pletz was up to her eyelashes in civil and criminal court tribulations that at the least would result in years of expensive litigation and likely some serious slam time. There’s little doubt, based on the preliminary findings of a grand jury, the FBI and the hospital that Pletz had engaged in a series of embezzlement schemes that included ripping off the university, money laundering and tax fraud.

To the tune of bilking the university out of more than $1.5 million alone.

Money that was used in part on extravagances and to visit her parents in Ft. Lauderdale where she was found dead shotly after midnight this morning. Gone were her Lexus automobile and condo. Her bank assets were frozen – all seized as forfeitures. That after she was forced out of the university two years ago next month.

"Mrs. Pletz made a terrible error in judgment and no doubt will suffer for it," commented Kenneth D. Duff the retired Director of Physical Facilities on a local last month. "However, I must wish her my best wishes and want her to know that I for one do appreciate all of the good things that she did for the University of Health Sciences."