NCAA Reports Newest Rules Violators: The NCAA

Over the years, fans have scratched their heads at odd rules and where silly little violations have occurred. West Virginia had to report a violation for their players wearing too MUCH padding at a practice. Joe Paterno reported what ended up being a violation for, while taking his typical walk around campus, watching a player throw the football around outside of his dorm room. Urban Meyer got in trouble for wishing a recruit good luck in his upcoming game! Oh, and don’t forget about the spread to go with your bagels…

Most of those can go overlooked due to the harsh and necessary actions against institutions, dating all the way back to the West Point academic cheating scandal. Recent punishments against North Carolina, Miami, USC, and Penn State have shown all members of the NCAA that they need to shape up their act.

Maybe the school members aren’t the only ones in need of shaping up. Maybe the NCAA as a whole should do so first. Maybe they should practice what they preach.

NCAA President Mark Emmert came out last week that the NCAA improperly collected information in the investigation of Nevin Shapiro and the University of Miami. Shapiro was a former Miami booster who, while in jail convicted of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme, admitted as well to paying impermissible benefits to Miami football and basketball players for over a decade. Some of this money reportedly was used to pay for prostitutes, tattoos, and abortions.

Emmert declared that the enforcement team at the NCAA improperly collected this information from Shapiro’s defense attorney. And they would have gotten away from it, believe it or not, until the attorney’s office called the NCAA to get paid. That’s right, Shapiro’s lawyer was on the NCAA’s payroll!

Now, because it appears that a major chunk of the evidence against Miami might have been obtained improperly, sanctions might not be so severe or possibly even occur at all. Any improperly obtained evidence cannot be used against the University or any individual members involved in the scandal. Sanctions were supposed to be announced this past week, but after news of the attorney on the payroll, things are in a holding pattern until the external investigation of the NCAA’s actions is first completed.

The general public is calling for a quick and swift decision by the NCAA in their own investigation of the matter. After all, immediate action has been their calling card over the past few years.

That immediate action has gotten the NCAA in a bit of trouble already.

When North Carolina called the NCAA in 2011 regarding potential academic fraud by some of its football players, responded quickly with bowl bans. However, barely a year after first being informed of the possible violations, the NCAA concluded that North Carolina did NOT commit any NCAA violations.  Oops.

When the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke at Penn State in November 2011, immediate response was wanted by all. Sandusky was found guilty of 45 counts of sexual abuse on June 22, 2012. The Freeh Report, run independently by Penn State, came out on July 12. On July 23, the NCAA dished out the harshest penalties ever imposed on a member school.  Less than seven months after allegations came to light, and not only had the courts charged the perpetrator, but the governing body of college athletics had punished the school as well. Beyond that, the NCAA gave no due process opportunity to Penn State.

Now, after more time had passed by, the NCAA is being sued by the state of Pennsylvania for not following their own bylaws, skipping the standard infractions process in their punishment of Penn State. Oops.

But, when they’re under their own investigation, the NCAA now decides to take their time in figuring this out? A bit hypocritical there, isn’t it?

We hear in sports all the time that the best defense is a good offense. Drexel University sports management professor Ellen Staurowsky raised the question over the past summer: “If the NCAA is coming out and charging this hard (against Penn State), what might they be trying to deflect attention away from?” Well, maybe this is exactly it. The NCAA stays tax-exempt because they represent all of these schools and are providing support for higher education. If they are found to have their own integrity issues, that status as well as maybe their existence as a whole could be in serious jeopardy.

Back to the Shapiro case…the NCAA said that they practically NEEDED to obtain this information in less-than-honorable ways because they lack the power to subpoena. College basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who in my mind is the most honest sports analyst out there who has a brain and actually uses it properly, has been very insightful in this whole situation. He tweeted on Sunday: “NCAA crying over lack of subpoena power is lame. It isn’t that NCAA lacks subpoena power, rather that NCAA believes it should have it.”  Boom.

The NCAA is not law enforcement. They cannot require you to do ANYTHING, and the fact that they think they do just shows where the corruption in college athletics truly is at this point. 

Maybe they should have subpoena power though? I mean, it’s obvious that they do not know a thing on their own! When announcing the sanctions on Penn State, Emmert said that the sanctions were levied “not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of education.” Well maybe if he just did some basic research, he would have known that Penn State ranks in the top five annually in football graduation rates. A starting lineman is currently an undergraduate INSTRUCTOR for a college trigonometry class. Can you teach trig, Mr. Emmert? Don’t tell me the focus isn’t on education.

  

Further to the point, they think that they can change FEDERAL LAW by not allowing due process. Are you serious? It’s about time that somebody steps up against the tyranny that has festered in the NCAA.

The NCAA deserves to be punished for what they have done. Multiple occurrences already, and who’s to say there aren’t more out there? They have been untruthful, improper, and unethical – exactly what they claim some of their member universities have been.

NCAA investigators were “over the top” during the Reggie Bush case, according to LA Superior Court judges. Secret witnesses were used in the Albert Means case of football infractions at Alabama. An NCAA investigator leaked information about a case against a UCLA hoops player (at least he was fired…).

It’s happened MANY TIMES before. So why do we think that they haven’t been unethical in other instances? Who makes sure the “police” does their job? Where are the checks and balances?

NCAA deserves the death penalty. Get rid of it. Does it sound like a governing body looking out for the best interests of higher education? They cannot properly police their constituents. They cannot even properly police themselves! Therefore, it does not deserve to exist.

Now I know that won’t happen. But we need to at least fix the organization of power within the NCAA. This isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. And President King Emmert needs to be overthrown.

As for me, I’m calling for Jay Bilas as the next NCAA President.