Redemption: Bozeman back in the Dance with Morgan State

Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman is back in the NCAA tournament after a 13-year absence after he was dismissed at California for NCAA violations. "I wanted to show I could do it again and I could do it right and it really was an aberration," he says. "It was a decision I made that was costly, and I use it with my children, with my players. There are consequences for your actions, and you have to think carefully before you do things.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Todd Bozeman still aches. Once one of college basketball's most promising young coaches, then an admitted cheat, he has spent more than a decade in recovery. Three years ago, he found work again at Morgan State. Today, in his first NCAA tournament game since 1996, Bozeman and the Bears will try to engineer a first-round upset of No. 2-seeded Oklahoma. "To me," he says, "it begins and ends with the fact that I'm coaching. All the other stuff is gravy."

The sins of his past were egregious, however. Bozeman, then at California, doled out cash to a coveted recruit even as the school and the NCAA were finishing up an earlier case involving secondary violations by the program. Perhaps justly, his healing can never be complete. Bozeman was exiled by the NCAA for eight years and untouchable — all but unhirable —- for awhile after that. His father remained his staunchest ally, preaching patience, assuring his son that everyone makes mistakes and new opportunities inevitably arrive. But less than four months before one finally did at Morgan State, Ira Bozeman was diagnosed with lung cancer. A month later, he died at 67.

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Totally Unbelievable! Morgan State and Coach Todd Bozeman articles are dominating the newspapers and Internet today---from USA Today, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Baltimore Sun....147 articles... Coach Bozeman and Morgan State is hot, hot, hot!!! GO BEARS!!!