Schemmel sinks career in embarrassing display of stupidity

Jeff Schemmel resigned as San Diego State’s athletic director on Thursday amid scandal and I couldn’t help but recall how I figured something of the sort would eventually happen.

Of course, I never figured it would occur because of allegations that he cheated on his wife and submitted expense reports to be reimbursed for the fling.

Stealing from the university during an economic climate where students are building up major debt to attend college is beyond dumb. Being the leader of an athletic department and doing something like that is irreprehensible.

Cheating on your wife shows a major lack of integrity. If you’re willing to cheat on the spouse that has backed your career so faithfully and mothered your children, you’re certainly capable of fudging expense reports.

Personally, I don’t think Schemmel is a bad guy. But like a lot of athletic department officials around this country, he’s not afraid to lie a little. Or lie big.

I’ll never forget the hiring of football coach Chuck Long — now paid $700,000 a year to run campus errands — and how Schemmel said he wouldn’t be making any comments until the process was complete. On the day it became known Long was going to be hired, Schemmel was quoted by a reporter in Oklahoma (Long was the Sooners’ offensive coordinator) and San Diego media members were rightfully irate.

After the press conference to introduce Long, Schemmel told the assembled reporters that he didn’t know the person who approached him in Norman, Okla., was a reporter. Well, a few weeks later, Oklahoma was playing in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and the same reporter who had comments from Schemmel was at San Diego State’s football field attending an Oklahoma practice.

Two reporters, including myself, told the Oklahoma reporter what Schemmel said and the guy shook his head and said that wasn’t true. Said Schemmel approached him and asked him if he was a reporter. Then he gave the reporter the comments that were published.

The message: If Schemmel would lie over an innoncous little thing like that, you just know he’d tell a fib over something big.

Another thing that always sticks about Schemmel is a follow-up meeting I had in his office shortly after he became athletic director at San Diego State in 2005.

I had done an hour-long interview with Schemmel for one of those new-guy-in-town type feature packages that newspapers tend to do whenever a new athletic director, football coach or men’s basketball coach is hired. After the initial interview, I discovered some discrepancies regarding his role in the infamous Minnesota basketball cheating scandal.

So I had some questions for Schemmel to clear up the contradictions over what he told me and what documents and published newspaper stories displayed. After a few questions, Schemmel was clearly dismayed. He leaned forward and admonished me in a very agitated tone of voice. 

When I told him I was trying to double-check facts and get the story accurate, he glared at me like I was totally out-of-line. Later on that day, all I could wonder about was what he had to hide.

The exchange was a good thing for my package of stories. I placed a call to NCAA vice president of enforcement services David Price knowing full well that NCAA enforcement officials seldom return a reporter’s call. Amazingly, Price returned my call to give me comment and began the conversation this way.

“Mike, you must be a very important person because I’m returning your call.”

I was left with the impression that Schemmel had called Price with a heads-up that I might be calling. So I went to get Schemmel’s resume — leaked to me during San Diego State’s athletic director search in the summer of 2005 — and sure enough, Price was listed as one of Schemmel’s references.

Nothing spoke louder about college athletics’ good-ol-boy network than receiving that phone call.

As for Schemmel’s San Diego State tenure, it won’t be remembered for much. The football team still hasn’t won a major-college bowl game and the men’s basketball program still hasn’t won an NCAA tournament game. The women’s basketball program is rolling but it was Mike Bohn who hired Beth Burns, not Schemmel. And the underachieving baseball program under Tony Gwynn needed a once-in-a-generation pitcher (Stephen Strasburg) to finally end that embarrassingly long streak of missing the NCAA baseball tournament.

But Schemmel definitely will be remembered for one thing — the athletic director who was dumb enough to risk his job and cause problems in his own marriage by using university funds to shack up with another married woman. Pretty sorry move for a former lawyer.