Sampson Departs

Presumably, Kelvin Sampson's skills as a college basketball coach are somewhat more refined than his ethics. Yesterday Sampson accepted a handsome $750,000 buyout of his contract and resigned as head coach at the University of Indiana for N.C.A.A. recruitment violations. According to a report, "Sampson and his staff had violated telephone recruiting restrictions that were imposed because of previous violations Sampson committed while at Oklahoma, then lied about it to the university and N.C.A.A. investigators." The hope is that the young men formerly under Sampson's tutelage were able to distinguish basketball instruction from their former coach's ethically challenged model of conduct.