College sports’ final fall from grace only took one week to unfold, and it happened to be this past one.

It began with the release of the video at the center of the Rutgers University basketball scandal, involving the asinine and outrageous actions by head coach Mike Rice and his coaching staff.

In case you were distracted by the Final Four or lost in baseball’s opening week and somehow missed it, practice tape from former Rutgers’ men’s basketball employee Eric Murdock made its way into the possession of ESPN’s investigative journalism program “Outside the Lines.”

Throughout the clip, which displays Rice’s “unorthodox” coaching style, he is seen hurling balls at players, berating them with homophobic slurs, pushing, grabbing, slapping and even kicking students in a compilation that makes for one of the most violent tirades I’ve ever seen from a coach.

After viewing the tape last November, athletic director Tim Pernetti suspended Rice for three games and fined him $50,000. That was the end of the situation. Then last week, the tape aired nationally, causing equally violent uproar from both the Rutgers and national sports communities. It took less than 48 hours for Pernetti to fire Rice and for assistant coach Jimmy Martelli, who was also shown engaging in the offensive acts in the video, to resign. It took less than five days for Pernetti to lose his job, as well.

I have trouble determining the most disturbing part of this story.

Is it that a Rutgers basketball coach called players “fairies” and “faggots” only three years after a gay Rutgers student killed himself because his roommate outed him?

Is it that someone like Pernetti would remain quiet about his coach’s abusiveness in the wake of the Penn State scandal, where all of America should’ve learned it’s better to just do the right thing when you’re in a position of power?

Is it that a college basketball coach can get away with physical and verbal abuse while a player, student or professor would have been fired and probably arrested on the spot for the same actions?

Is it that school president Robert Barchi, entrusted with protecting and caring for his students, somehow didn’t view the video until a week ago?

Is it that Rice was fired by Rutgers “not for cause,” meaning that under contract, he is in line to be paid a little more than $1 million dollars, or 75 percent of his remaining salary? Or does it bother you that he will receive a $100,000 bonus for lasting through the 2012-2013 season?

Despite the damage to so many people’s reputations, the scandal wasn’t bad for everyone. Take Auburn University, for example: While Rice and his coaching staff were brought to justice by what seems to be America’s biweekly, temporary and hyper-national scrutiny (remember when and for how long we hated LeBron James? Tiger Woods? Lance Armstrong? Jerry Sandusky? Michael Vick?), a story by former New York Times and Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts about the school allegedly changing players’ grades fell to the back pages. The school did so to secure eligibility, offering money to potential NFL draft picks so they would return for their senior seasons and violating NCAA recruiting rules under former coach Gene Chizik.

According to the Associated Press, Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs said in a statement Thursday that Auburn is reviewing the report, even though the school has “no reason to believe these allegations are either accurate or credible.”

Of course, paying players and changing grades is nothing new in NCAA football. Numerous journalistic accounts have covered similar violations of NCAA rules, and in some cases — like Miami — football programs have been gutted by sanctions and penalties as a result.

Thankfully, the players still will play, and there are still referees to properly enforce the rules of the game … right?

Well, unless they happen to be playing basketball in the Pac-12, where coordinator of officials Ed Rush has faced accusations of issuing technical-foul bounties on Arizona head coach Sean Miller.

According to several officials in the Pac-12, Rush made comments on two separate occasions asking what he had to do to get them to call a technical foul on or eject Miller.

“What does it take? How about a trip to Cancun or maybe $5,000?” Rush admitted to joking at official conferences.

He no longer holds that position.

Even here at Pitt, we (the fans) are getting snaked by our favorite athletes. In a matter of 24 hours, we lost our best basketball player to the NBA Draft and potentially our best football player to a transfer.

Shoot, the college superstars of the past are even letting me down. With Michigan back in the NCAA championship game, comparisons to the Fab Five are inevitable. Yet the only peep we heard from them this week was when Jalen Rose made a public plea for Chris Webber to join the other four at the championship game, reinforcing the belief that the Fab Five still aren’t on great terms and are so far removed from their dominant college days they can’t even sit together at a game.

Write Isaac at ims7@pitt.edu. Got questions for him to answer? Let him know.