JACKI LYDEN, Host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Time now for sports.
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LYDEN: Hi, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN: All the horror. What happened to the sis-boom-ba of college sports?
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LYDEN: I don't know. I never got to actually take up those pom-poms. But, you know, Terrelle Pryor has had his problems for a long time - the star quarterback. Now, he's already running drills for the NFL. I mean, are they looking the other way?
GOLDMAN: Now, the con side to this is that it's hypocritical of the NFL to impose this penalty, ostensibly taking the moral high ground when, critics say, the NFL is part of the problem in colleges because it just sits back and benefits from a free minor league system, which is college football.
LYDEN: You know, everyone thought that was such a scandal. And then along came the news about Miami. Is this the worst potential scandal that the NCAA's ever seen?
GOLDMAN: But, Jacki, let's not forget what happened Southern Methodist University in Texas in the late 1980s. That was huge. Players were getting paid. It was proved that the payments were approved by the school. And SMU got the toughest punishment the NCAA can hand down - the so-called death penalty. It shut down the sport for a couple of years at SMU. And the long term ramifications were huge and cost the school dearly for decades.
LYDEN: And, Tom, if I were an NCAA official, maybe I'd want to take a vacation this week. Georgetown's basketball team goes to China, goodwill game, next thing we know front page pictures, players coming to blows with the Chinese team.
GOLDMAN: That was ugly.
LYDEN: Maybe one of them made a joke about the U.S. credit rating.
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GOLDMAN: In the meantime, you know, people were figuring who's to blame here? But it sounds like even from Chinese fans that this Chinese team has gotten into trouble before. You know, they've gotten into fights, and that they may have been the instigators here.
LYDEN: Next time, they can try ping-pong diplomacy.
GOLDMAN: Ping-pong diplomacy. It worked once. But I don't know. Ping-pong, if you haven't heard, Jacki, it can get pretty physical these days, too.
LYDEN: Thanks for sharing, Tom.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.