THOUGHTS ON NCAA RULES ENFORCEMENT The NCAA is a big club. Its member colleges and universities get to set the rules of the club. Competitive sports need a central administrative body to manage competition. Enter the NCAA – or NFL or FIBA. Once you have competition rules, then you need referees and umpires to enforce them evenhandedly. Conduct off the field can also tilt the playing field. Consider performance-enhancing drugs. What makes the NCAA different from other sports organizations is that the athletes compete only because they are enrolled students at member schools – and that pulls in rules regarding academic eligibility and academic fraud as well as scholarship limits to equalize competition among the better and less well funded schools. With no rules limiting money paid to athletes, schools with major programs might find well-heeled boosters to pay big money to get a recruit to sign with their school. Even with rules prohibiting payments, some boosters are willing to cheat to get there. (See the Alabama Infractions case involving the recruitment of Albert Means.) With no rules setting a floor on academic eligibility to compete, some schools might be willing to “adjust” their academic standards to assure that athletes not ready for college work nonetheless are admitted and get to compete. Indeed, it is claimed that the “true” story of Notre Dame’s George Gipp is that he did not attend class, did not make the grades, liked bars and pool halls more than classes, and needed booster help to be re-admitted after dismissal from school. NCAA club members want to be fair to each other, and to treat each other in a principled way. They also want to assure serous punishment for major violations that bring competitive advantage. A question long percolating was brought to a head in what recently happened in the University of Miami infractions investigation involving Nevin Shapiro and the employment of his lawyer to ask questions for the NCAA in a bankruptcy proceeding. Just what is it that NCAA club members want from the enforcement/infractions process? Police investigations are clearly adversarial. Police use subpoenas to get documents. They place wires on individuals and send them to extract confessions from suspects. They pay informers to infiltrate groups to get information. They lie during interviews. Aggressive law enforcement results in more arrests and more convictions. In the current scheme of things, NCAA enforcement staff are expected to act cooperatively with a member school under investigation. They do not use informers or wires. They have no subpoena power. They are not permitted to lie. Should these tactics be over the line in NCAA enforcement? Should it be over the line to use the lawyer of the chief accuser of a member school to get evidence against the school? Or to get witness cooperation on a promise to describe that cooperation to a sentencing judge? Is it wrong to base allegations, even in part, on information provided by a felon? By someone with motive to lie? By someone with a grudge against a school or coach? Are we willing to let schools and individuals skate because we don’t like the investigative techniques, even if the information is corroborated to demonstrate reliability? A conversation among club members is long overdue. Just what are we willing to tolerate to get at the facts and catch rules violators? Just what are we willing to forego with less aggressive investigative methods?

TEXT MESSAGES AND THE NCAA:   THE PERFECT IS ENEMY TO THE GOOD

When a team isn’t winning, the most popular quarterback on the team is the back-up sitting on the bench.  Whatever the NCAA does, observers always see a different, more popular, option on the bench.  The latest example is the controversy over whether recruiting phone calls and text messages should be deregulated.

The NCAA ban on text messages had been widely and repeatedly criticized.  Examples:

·         On April 27, 2007 Ivan Maisel (ESPN.com) described the ban as “Score One for the Luddites,” saying that “most coaches” were dismayed at the 2007 action to ban text messages and that the American Football Coaches Association tried to get the NCAA to wait and hear from the coaches before implementing the ban. 

·         Others opposed to limits included Andy Staples (SI.com 7/20/2011); Rob Dauster (Inside College Basketball 6/15/2012); and Wade Neely (Clarksville Sports 6/1/6/2012).

The recent move to eliminate the ban and permit unlimited text messages (and also phone calls to recruits) after their sophomore year, is also widely criticized.  Examples:

·         College football coaches, including George O’Leary and Jumbo Fisher, opposed the new rule while collectively those in the Big Ten asked for a delay.

·         Others opposed to unlimited text messages and phone calls included Mitch Sherman (Recruiting Nation 1/22/2013); Mike Bianchi (Orlando Sentinel 2/7/2013); and Drew Sharp (Detroit Free Press 2/10/2013).

So, who’s right and who’s wrong?  Actually, both sides, and neither.  No solution is perfect.  Whatever policy the NCAA implements will have negative consequences.   My own view is that elimination is a very good idea.  But, whatever policy is in place, the more popular option continues to be the one on the bench.

Mondey, Michael Jordan, and Subdividing NCAA Division I

I like having money.  I’d like having more money.  I don’t want anyone telling me I can’t spend my money.   Or dictating how I should spend it.  Michael Jordan can build a $40 million home.   I can’t afford to own a house like Michael’s, and I don’t expect him to live as I do.  If I can’t keep up, then I don’t belong in his neighborhood.

There is a lesson in this for the world of college athletics and the NCAA.  Some college programs have a history of investing in the infrastructure of their athletics programs.  They may have earned their way there, as did Michael Jordan.  Or they may have had advantages from the start that eased the way, as do those with inherited wealth.   Nonetheless they spend to build and maintain their programs, with the result that their conferences have the programs fans want to watch, the media clout, and the big revenues.   It seems un-American (or at least un-Potuto) to deny them the advantages they have earned.  (In saying this, by the way, I don’t by any means defend the excesses in spending or the differences between athletic funding and funding of the greater campus.)

Certainly athletic competition requires a requisite number of teams with some level of competitive balance among them.  Is that number 64?  Or 80?   We need to decide.  But then those programs need to be able to chart their own course and decide on their rules.   In other words, we need further subdivision of NCAA Division I.  The Michael Jordans of college athletics can’t continue to be thwarted by those schools that don’t have the money to keep up with the Jordans.   Even within this smaller group there will be variances, with some still trying to contain the better endowed Jordans or operating in the red to keep up with them.  But at least the neightborhood won’t run the range from my house to Michael’s.