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How do the allegations against Miami affect former AD Paul Dee?

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Writers from around the Tribune Co. discuss how the scandal involving Miami’s football program might affect former athletic director Paul Dee, who was chairman of the NCAA infractions committee which imposed sanctions on USC. Weigh in with a comment of your own.

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times

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What should Paul Dee have known and when should he have known it?

The irony is not lost on USC fans. Dee was chairman of the NCAA infractions committee that sent the Trojans to Probation Island. The crux of the NCAA’s argument was that USC should have known about violations involving Reggie Bush. ‘High profile athletes demand high profile compliance,’ Dee said.

Well, well. Dee was athletic director at Miami from 1993 to 2008. It was reported this week by Yahoo! that high-profile Miami athletes, from 2002 to 2010, were receiving lavish gifts from a shady booster now serving jail time for his role in a $930-million Ponzi scheme.

Dee wasn’t the AD at Miami while he was sitting in judgement of USC, but these revelations are another huge blow to the NCAA’s credibility. It exposes the hypocrisy and potential for conflict of interest when an organization tries to regulate itself.

We don’t know what Dee knew while he was AD at Miami, but he told USC it should have known about Reggie Bush? Dee’s time in intercollegiate athletics was already up, but the mess he leaves behind is everyone’s mess.

Matt Murschel, Orlando Sentinel

The sad fact of the Miami fiasco is that the one person who should share most of the blame for the situation won’t even be affected by its outcome.

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Paul Dee, who was Miami athletic director from 1993 to 2008, should have known what was going on under his watch. It was right there in black and white but all Dee was seeing was green. The money donated to the school by booster Nevin Shapiro was hard to pass up. However, the benefits came with a price and unfortunately, the school and its football and basketball programs are feeling those affects.

Dee had no excuse. He was the former Chairman of the NCAA Committee on Infractions. He knew exactly what would happen, because he witnessed it. If it was one or two players, you might give him a pass for not knowing, but 72 players and seven coaches implicated -- ignorance is no excuse.

Steve Svekis, South Florida Sun Sentinel

Paul Dee’s reputation takes the biggest hit of anyone’s if even a third of the Nevin Shapiro allegations are true.

While with the Committee of Infractions chairman for the NCAA last summer, Dee mounted his high (Trojan?) horse when handing down severe penalties to USC for its handling of star players Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo. He said, ‘high-profile players demand high-profile compliance.’

Meanwhile, Miami apparently suffered two separate bouts with a lack of institutional control while Dee was athletic director there from 1993-2008. In 1995, UM was involved with the disastrous Pell Grant scandal. And now, an in-depth story alleges Dee’s final six years in Coral Gables allowed for a cash-tossing termite booster to penetrate the football team right underneath his nose.

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Brian Hamilton, Chicago Tribune

Paul Dee is old, retired and almost undoubtedly rich, so the cluster bomb of sordid Yahoo! Sports revelations about Miami football won’t directly cause him harm. Some cronies, somewhere, will cut Paul Dee checks for some bogus work. He won’t struggle to pay the cable bill.

But Dee’s hubris and shamelessness has nuked any remaining particles of confidence in college administrators. As infractions committee chair, he tsk-tsk’d USC and Memphis when his own department was an utter disgrace. Bare hypocrisy like that undermines anyone who actually has good ideas for reform, creating cynicism that bogs down momentum.

Paul Dee is an arrogant, dopey blowhard. There are more where he came from. College athletics seems utterly incapable of proving otherwise.

RELATED:

Chris Dufresne: Miami’s brewing NCAA scandal could tower over USC case

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Paul Dee, who handed down USC sanctions, cited in Miami scandal

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