The word of the day is "Schadenfreude."
"Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others," says Merriam-Webster.
That aptly describes the feelings at USC, where Trojans fans surely are grinning ear-to-ear over revelations of myriad alleged NCAA rules violations at Miami, most of which occurred under the watch of former athletic director Paul Dee.
Yes, the same Paul Dee who was the Committee on Infractions chairman in the USC case. Yes, the same Paul Dee who said, "high-profile athletes demand high-profile compliance."
Or, in the case of Miami under his watch -- 1993-2008 -- what appears to be the worst compliance IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
Know what Dee told the Palm Beach Post about the allegations of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro, who is presently chilling in jail for his part in a $930-million Ponzi scheme?
Dee told the Post, "We didn't have any suspicion that he was doing anything like this. He didn't do anything to cause concern."
Let that sink in for a second.
Or how about this from Dee? Here he waxed sell-righteously -- and inaccurately -- over the USC case: “This case strikes at the heart of the principles of amateurism.” ("Inaccurate" because booster pay-for-play strikes at the heart of amateurism, not agents trying to lure players AWAY from amateurism).
Or this from Dee's Infractions Committee report on USC? “The general campus environment surrounding the violations troubled the committee. At least at the time of the football violations, there was relatively little effective monitoring of, among others, football locker rooms and sidelines, and there existed a general postgame locker room environment that made compliance efforts difficult.”
You want questionable monitoring? Shapiro, whose activities were supposedly unknown to Dee, once picked a fight with Miami's ... wait for this ... director of compliance!
In the press box. During a football game.
From the Yahoo! Sports report:
Shapiro, intoxicated, said he confronted Miami’s head of compliance, David Reed. According to a witness to the event, an incensed Shapiro was stalking through the Orange Bowl press box at halftime when he spotted Reed.
In a rage, Shapiro began cursing at the compliance director, calling him a “sissy” and other derogatory names, while attempting to draw him into a fight. In Shapiro’s mind, Reed was part of the problem in a slumping Miami program, largely for what Shapiro thought was too much oversight on relationships between players and boosters. And in Shapiro’s mind, that was worth fighting picking a fistfight with the head of compliance in a crowded press box.
That. Is. Rich.
The good news, USC fans, is you are not alone in your outrage. My guess is Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel does a fine job summarizing your thoughts here. This image is particularly well-wrought.
Dee, Miami's AD during most of the period covering Shapiro's allegations, is retired and no longer under NCAA jurisdiction. Still, it seems only fair he should spend a day at USC's Heritage Hall wearing a sandwich board with the word "Hypocrite."
And if you need more, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports adds his thoughts.
It's one thing to ignore Shapiro. It's an insult to our intelligence for any high-ranking Miami administrator to say they had no idea what he was all about.
"Karma," said one individual affected by that USC decision, "is a b----."
Read the entire Yahoo! Sports story here.
Schadenfreude isn't a good thing. In fact, too much of it imperils your soul. Or, to employ more moderate terms, makes you no fun to be around.
But, at least for today -- OK, for a week or so -- Dee-light in the Dee-liciousness of it.