New KU basketball coach is a convicted felon. Trump should pardon him | Opinion

President Donald Trump should pardon new University of Kansas basketball assistant coach Tony Bland, a convicted felon. Yes, I am serious as a heart attack for those of you wondering.

While he’s at it, Trump should also consider wiping clean the criminal convictions of nine other people caught up with Bland in the FBI’s 2017 probe into illicit payments to amateur basketball players.

If Trump saw fit to offer blanket pardons to most Jan. 6 rioters who tried to overtake the U.S. Capitol, why shouldn’t a bunch of college basketball coaches and shoe consultants who took part in an illegal recruiting scheme received the same clemency?

On Tuesday, Kansas head coach Bill Self confirmed Bland’s hire. In the past, my colleagues and I on The Star Editorial Board have been critical of Self’s plausible deniability approach to a cheating scandal that eventually led to Kansas’ self-imposed suspension of Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend, and other minor penalties levied by an NCAA-affiliated panel.

But I must give Self major props for this latest hire. Kudos to him for giving Bland an opportunity to coach at one of the nation’s preeminent basketball programs. We all deserve chances to atone for our mistakes, and Bland is no exception.

Before his legal problems, Bland was an associate head coach at Southern California from 2013 to 2017. He spent last season as an assistant at Washington. Prior to that, he was a high school coach in California.

In basketball circles, Bland is known as a strong recruiter. He reportedly will replace former Kansas assistant coach Chase Buford, who recently accepted a job with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

Bland was one of 10 people — only one of them was white, according to reports — indicted after the FBI’s 2017 investigation into a pay-for-play scandal in college basketball. He was one of four African American assistant coaches who pleaded guilty to federal charges. He is the only one back in coaching. Their bosses, all white, were never indicted and remain in high-paid head coaching positions, The Associated Press wrote.

Now that college athletes are allowed to make money from their name, image and likeness, Trump should offer pardons to Bland and the other people involved, including former Adidas rep and Kansas bag man T.J. Gassnola and shoe company consultant Merl Code.

The guys I named above weren’t the only ones ensnared by the federal government’s crackdown on the high stakes game of college basketball recruiting, but they have ties to Kansas or Adidas, the sporting giant that sponsors Kansas Athletics.

For his part, Bland reportedly received $4,100 from a financial adviser to steer a college basketball player the adviser’s way for representation. He pleaded guilty to a bribery charge and received two years’ probation. The NCAA essentially banned him from the college sidelines for three years, according to ESPN.

I’ve written before that the real victims in this pay-for-play federal probe were young players such as former Jayhawk players Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa, both of whom were penalized by the NCAA for their handlers’ involvement in the scheme. With that in mind, I’m hesitant to say in good faith that what Bland and the others were accused of were victimless crimes.

But the reality is those folks were just playing by the unwritten rules that governed college basketball at the time. Now that it is legal to pay players for their services, neither Bland or the other nine people involved in this mess should have the stigma of a federal conviction on their records.

If insurrectionists who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election qualify for blanket pardons, wouldn’t it be great if Trump extended the same to a handful of eager but nonviolent basketball coaches and shoe reps?