Ham, eggs and an order of NCAA on the side

Anybody who's seen Rick Majerus knows the Utah basketball coach loves to eat.

Make that really eat. Without prompting, Majerus will sing the praises of Crown Burger or The Cinegrill, and he gets close to tears reminiscing about the eggs at Bill and Nada's, the 24-hour greasy-spoon in downtown Salt Lake City that shut its doors four years ago.

Heck, Majerus' autobiography is titled "My Life on a Napkin."

So it seems strange the NCAA would be surprised to learn Majerus eats out a lot. And more surprising still that it slapped Utah with three years' probation -- largely because Majerus isn't any better at keeping track of his meals than he is at counting calories.

For that, the NCAA Committee on Infractions took away three basketball scholarships over the next three years but let the Utes continue to play in postseaon tournaments, bowl games and on TV. And it didn't touch Majerus. So nobody is denying the sanctions could have been worse.

Maybe guilty as charged

But here's what Majerus was guilty of: eating. More specifically, eating about 20 "impermissible" meals with his ballplayers in the past 14 years.

You can safely wager Majerus never met a meal he would consider "impermissible." But here are two of the ones the NCAA did:

During Keith Van Horn's freshman year, his mother called Majerus and asked him to break the news to her son that Van Horn's father had a fatal heart attack. The coach wound up taking Van Horn to Bill and Nada's and stayed with him until Van Horn's flight the next morning.

A few years later, another Utah player was trying to decide when to serve his Mormon mission. Majerus picked up the kid and a pizza, and the two of them sat on a park bench, talking and eating.

To be fair, that's not all Majerus was charged with. It turns out he sometimes exceeded the 20-hour per week practice rule, watched three prospects play pickup games while on official visits, made sure two other players had groceries before their financial aid started and bought his team tickets, popcorn and soda for the movie "Remember The Titans."

The other side of the plate

Majerus' side of the story is that the meals averaged $10 each, some of the infractions aren't infractions any more, and even King Solomon couldn't split the difference between right and wrong if he was using with the NCAA's convoluted rulebook.

But Majerus cares only about the bottom line -- that he didn't try to cheat.

"I don't think we gained a competitive advantage because 'I had that hamburger with Majerus.' Or in recruiting, somebody would say 'Hey, if I become a Ute I'll be able to go to Crown Burger with Majerus,"' he said.

Off the record, the NCAA agrees. The higher-ups would be thrilled to have 300 other Division I coaches like Majerus. He graduates kids (85 percent), never cheats and does more charity work than Liz Taylor. He's in his fourth decade as a model college basketball citizen.

But on the record, this is what the NCAA said: "This case is not about pizza and cookies. It's about a laissez faire attitude about compliance. There was a dysfunctional relationship between the head coach and the compliance director."

That's how infractions committee chair Tom Yeager framed it. Read between the lines and what he's really saying is everybody has to live by the same rules, good guys and bad. Majerus is definitely a good guy, but he kept bad records, even after Utah's compliance officer warned him about it.

Whether three scholarships will get Majerus' attention is anyone's guess. His contrary streak is a mile wide. He's the son of a union lifer from Milwaukee who dragged him along on open-housing marches. Majerus still pays dues to Brewery Workers, Local 9.

He sounded contrite enough since the sentence was handed down. But you have to wonder how long it will last, and what the NCAA version of double-secret probation will be the next time he gets called on the carpet.

Anybody who's been following big-time college sports knows now the way to a recruit's heart isn't through his stomach, but through the showroom of a car dealership.

That's where Ohio State tailback Maurice Clarett stopped on his way to practice in April. According to a police report Clarett filed, the vehicle was broken into and two built-in television monitors and stereo equipment worth $5,000 were stolen, along with $800 in cash, $300 in clothing and 300 compact discs.

The good news?

NCAA investigators will be so busy asking about the french fries wedged between the seats that they'll almost certainly forget to ask Clarett how he got the car in the first place.

Jim Litke is the national sports columnist for The Associated Press.