When you're indicted for orchestrating an enormously elaborate web of lies and deceit, and the Feds seize all your money and you can't afford the sort of lawyers it will take to extract you from that enormously elaborate web of lies and deceit, and the only thing you're good at is enormously elaborate webs of lies and deceit, what do you do?
You announce the writing of a jailhouse memoir alleging major violations in the Miami football program.
That's the plan of former Miami Beach bigwig and UM booster Nevin Shapiro, currently sitting in a New Jersey jail for running an $880 million Ponzi scheme wrapped in a grocery business.
Shapiro has said he was close with Jon Beason, Devin Hester, Antrel Rolle, Randy Phillips, Robert Marve, Kyle Wright and others when they played at UM, plus former UM assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Clint Hurtt, now at Louisville.
"This will be a tell-all book from a fan and booster perspective,'' said Shapiro, who did not attend UM.
But why write a book that will hurt UM?
"I want to make the average fan aware of what really exists under that uniform,'' he said. "They might be great players, but they're certainly not great people. I'm speaking of no less than 100 former players.''
Shapiro, 41, is angry because "once the players became pros, they turned their back on me. It made me feel like a used friend.''
He was motivated by "heartbreak and disappointment on behalf of the university, which I considered to be an extended part of my family.'' He said the heartbreak was caused by "former players mostly'' and "some administrative staff and coaches. I've always had the utmost respect for Donna Shalala, Kirby Hocutt and Paul Dee.''
Know who else aren't "great people?" Ponzi schemers. UM's website says Shapiro donated $150,000 to the school's athletic program; prosecutors allege it was stolen from innocent investors.
That doesn't mean that Shapiro couldn't have witnessed any NCAA violations. It's college football, after all, and violations are like STD's: every football team has a few.
But he's not entirely credible, either, and the news that football players aren't always nice or that money can't buy friends isn't at all shocking to anyone but Nevin Shapiro. And it shouldn't be -- he is, after all, a "used friend" who tried to use sports stars himself to increase his social standing, only have the aforementioned 'Canes move on, Shaq deny they were ever really friends, Randy Shannon ignore his phone calls, and Dwyane Wade issue a statement saying he was just a guy with a boat and he never even knew him like that.
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And so far, even the NCAA isn't exactly rushing to carve their initials in a tree.
"When reasonably reliable information has been obtained indicating intentional violations may have occurred, the enforcement staff will undertake a review of the information in order to determine the credibility," NCAA spokesperson Stacey Osburn.
Shapiro's manuscript, The Real U: 2001 to 2010 Inside the Eye of the Hurricane, needs only a publisher, he says, and all will be revealed. Law dictates Shapiro can't keep any proceeds for himself, but he can use the book to pay off some of the $80 million he owes his victims.
