As the primary overseer of all things related to college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association finds itself in a position of power, not only to regulate, but to mandate. Yet when it comes to defining the student-athlete experience in a helpful and meaningful way, the NCAA often comes up short.
Find a working definition of the label student-athlete and you’ll find a crowd of people voicing its strong’ disagreement with your choice of definition. Sure, on an elementary level there’s no dispute: a student-athlete is a student who also participates in athletics ‘- or is it an athlete who happens to be enrolled at a particular institution? Deciding where to apply the primary emphasis may seem simple enough, but wars have been started over less pressing matters.
Delving deeper into the matter produces no shortage of nuances, each offering more than one position to be taken. What should the standard be for the academic eligibility of a recruit, and who is responsible for determining said eligibility? How much clout should the NCAA have in determining the academic eligibility of currently enrolled student-athletes? What constitutes an inappropriate relationship between a student-athlete and an athletic program? The two sides of the individual, the student and the athlete, are constantly butting heads ‘-‘ there’s a clear need for conflict resolution.
If you look at the NCAAs position with respect to each of these issues, the answers are almost always the same: it depends. In many cases, the details create more confusion than they help alleviate.
Rather than provide clear and concise explanations of what is and is not permissible, the NCAA frequently attempts to drown its member institutions in a sea of red tape. The 2009-10 NCAA Division I Constitution and Bylaws are comprised of more than 400 pages of text; the rules detailed therein have motivated colleges and universities to employ staff whose sole task is to know what the rules are, lest someone unknowingly break one.
One would assume schools taking precautions to ensure rules are followed would manage to avoid violations ‘- and that assumption would be wrong. Schools self-report violations to the NCAA so frequently that news of an individual violation has been relegated to barely newsworthy.
What institution would knowingly break rules with the intention of reporting itself and facing possible punishment afterwards? Yes, in some instances an individual may deliberately ignore rules for one reason or another, only to be caught later on, but unlike baseball sluggers’ claims of accidental steroid use, these widespread institutional claims of unintentional rule breaking don’t ring hollow.
There are legitimate instances of schools pursuing a ‘win at all costs’ approach and willfully ignoring NCAA mandates, including some that sparked major headlines. Southern Methodist University’s slush fund for football players during the 1970s and 1980s comes to mind. And there are cases where the refrain of innocence comes with some skepticism. Two separate John Calipari-led Final Four teams being stripped of their accomplishments raise a red flag. But more often than not, intent is a difficult thing to identify, let alone prove.
Consider the 2007-08 Memphis Tigers basketball team, the second of Calipari’s teams forced to vacate a Final Four season ‘- the first was a University of Massachusetts team featuring Marcus Camby. Calipari recruited current-Chicago Bull Derrick Rose, who was declared eligible based on his SAT score. After playing one season and being drafted by the Bulls, the Educational Testing Service invalidated his score. Without that score, Rose was ineligible to play for Memphis, meaning Memphis’ entire season of results was null and void.
One can argue that Calipari should have viewed Rose’s SAT score with some skepticism after Rose had failed in three separate attempts to achieve a qualifying score on the ACT. Then again, the NCAA Committee on Infractions specifically did not ascribe any blame to Calipari or Memphis for allowing an ineligible player to play. Yet punishment was handed down.
Imagine being John Calipari. Imagine having an outstanding basketball player who wants to play basketball for your school. He’s not a Rhodes scholar, but based on the evidence available, he’s eligible to play, and the school administration has no issue with admitting him. Asking Calipari, or any coach for that matter, to turn away an otherwise ideal candidate absent clear evidence of ineligibility is patently ridiculous.
And this is where the NCAA has fallen woefully short. If the student half of a student-athlete is indeed a legitimate half, then appropriate rules should be in place. But if the rules instituted are so involved as to confuse the people whose job is to make sense of them ‘- or worse yet, punish institutions for violations they could not have been reasonably expected to avoid ‘- then the rules have become their own problem.
NCAA Interim President Jim Isch, or Isch’s replacement ‘- Isch has not been named permanent President ‘- has an opportunity to redefine college athletics. Streamline the rulebook. Rules that are easy to understand are easier to follow. A simplified, straightforward set of rules will drastically diminish the number of schools realizing their infractions after the fact. The NCAA can stop penalizing schools for incidents that could not have been reasonably avoided and focus on the schools that blatantly ignore easily-understood rules.
Keep it simple, Isch. Then, when the NCAA tries to point out the bad guys, they won’t be able to point back.
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