Kelvin Sampson: Case Closed

You remember Kelvin Sampson, right?

The guy that was forced out left Oklahoma after making illegal phone calls to recruits?

The guy that was given a five year show cause order (aka the college coaches death penalty) for committing the same violations at Indiana?

Ring a bell?

For all the college basketball fans out there, don't fret if it doesn't, because he will not be relevant until at least 2013.

Earlier today, Sampson, who is currently an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks, had his appeal of the five year show cause order rejected by the NCAA infractions committee. According to an NCAA spokeswoman, this means that the case in now closed.

While I doubt that Sampson's career in the collegiate ranks is completely over (remember, Todd Bozeman, who had an eight year show cause order levied against him for vilations at Cal, is now the head coach at Morgan State), I don't see a big-time program hiring Sampson for a very long time.

So why would Sampson want to get this ruling overturned? He has to know that his transgressions have left him the coaching equivalent of Mark Sanford.

As Eamonn Brennan tells us, it is because the life of a head coach in college is much easier than making the rounds as an NBA assistant:

In college basketball, coaches are king. They're like little mini-dictators lording over their own worlds. They have immense power and influence, both within the locker room and out. Contrast that to an NBA coach, whose job is constantly in jeopardy and who is one highly-paid insubordinate player away from the bread line.

Seriously though, college coaches can get away with doing pretty much anything that they want too, so long as they are not caught holding the proverbial "envelope full of hundreds". It is why guys like John Calipari and Jim Calhoun, who both had their programs accused of major violations in the past three months, not only still have jobs, but are two of the best in the profession.