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My favorite comment is everyone is making a lot of money except the players. 

"I didn't help athletes cheat. I help them customize edutional opportunities" is a classic too.

http://www.pressherald.com/201...-the-games-continue/

i genuinely believe there are certain teams in certain sports that are protected at all costs. They generate too much revenue for the NCAA. The joke has always been you know Notre Dame broke the rules when Ball State gets busted. The message to ND is, we're in your neighborhood. Cool it. 

** The dream is free. Work ethic sold separately. **

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Great story.  So true in so many ways.  The amazing part is how nobody seems even bothered by the stuff now--everyone is just numb to the stuff going on at Baylor and UNC goes on like there is nothing that changes their reputation as an academic school even when they have people who "customize educational opportunities."  Just another sign of the times we live in now.

The NCAA is controlled by college presidents.

College presidents are controlled by big donors, alumni, and fans.

Donors, alumni, and fans don't give a rats behind about anything but winning.  

Athletes don't matter to anybody, except insofar as they contribute to winning.  

The NCAA is just giving the people who count what the want.  

I hate the fact that colleges even recruit players that are obvious troubled young men.  They knew Aaron Hernandez was an issue before he even got to college.  If your good enough there is some big name school that doesn't care what your moral fiber is made up of or that your nothing but a thug who can run fast, throw a football or slam dunk a basketball.  When the schools show no moral fiber (hookers hired for prospects, sham classes and covering up of serious crimes), how can they hold their players to any kind of moral code?

Everyone knows that it starts with the parents.  But when you entrust your student athlete to a school, shouldnt they pick up where you as a parent left off?

 

Watched a Netflix documentary about the NCAA and it's founding(can't recall the name)--the picture painted is not too far removed from an organized crime documentary in all honesty...  I can't recall all the former college players involved, but there is a class action lawsuit still pending I believe, in which NCAA and EA Sports are defendants.  They thought it was acceptable to digitally re-create these players in there NCAA days, include them in their games that sells MILLIONS of copies, and split the profits amongst themselves without any cut to former players?  Beyond the pale in sooooo many ways!

 

MTH posted:

The NCAA is controlled by college presidents.

College presidents are controlled by big donors, alumni, and fans.

MTH.  Agree, and don't forget about media.  ESPN and others are a major contributing revenue factor to college presidents following the money.

 

DALEX posted:

Watched a Netflix documentary about the NCAA and it's founding(can't recall the name)--the picture painted is not too far removed from an organized crime documentary in all honesty...   

Dalex, Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll look into that Netlix crime documentary about the NCAA.    I suspect it is narrated by Keith Morrison.  He has that great investigative voice for that kind of stuff.

BTW...If you are a big Keith Morrison fan, his voice is available for download on the Waze GPS App.  It is too freaking funny.

DALEX posted:

Watched a Netflix documentary about the NCAA and it's founding(can't recall the name)--the picture painted is not too far removed from an organized crime documentary in all honesty...  I can't recall all the former college players involved, but there is a class action lawsuit still pending I believe, in which NCAA and EA Sports are defendants.  They thought it was acceptable to digitally re-create these players in there NCAA days, include them in their games that sells MILLIONS of copies, and split the profits amongst themselves without any cut to former players?  Beyond the pale in sooooo many ways!

 

it was the kid from UCLA basketball I believe, Ed O'Bannon maybe?? I think that is it.

Problem is there is no other organization at this time that governs athletics. Who would hold the schools accountable?  Who would penalize them?  The NCAA has given some schools the so called death penalty in the past.

The vast majority of NCAA revenue comes from March Madness which is going on right now.  The NCAA is non profit and actually does give most of the revenue back to the colleges.

Once again, I'm not a big fan of the NCAA.  i don't like some of their rules and don't like the way they rule on certain things.  At times I do question if they really have the student athletes best interests in mind.

I also think that some people overlook all the good that they do and only see certain circumstances.  Like most things there is both good and bad. To me the worst thing about the NCAA is how powerful they have become.  I think that power has created an organization that shows very little interest in truly helping all student athletes.  Too strict, no exceptions to their laws, no matter what the situation is.

Some of the rules that seem unfair, are actually needed.  They just don't pertain in every case.  Many rules are in place because of football and basketball, but other sports have the same rules.  The NCAA needs to be powerful, they don't need to be as powerful as they are. I really wish there were a more humane side to the NCAA.

Rick Allen is a partner of ours.  He is an outstanding person with a ton of expertise.  He is a former compliance officer at two major universities in power DI conferences.  He also contributes here at the HSBBW.  He probably has more experience and knowledge of the NCAA than most all of us put together.  I would be very interested in his views on this subject, if he chose to share them.

 

That's part of being a college student IMO.  Just like how students don't see a dime from their senior projects that end up making money, and why kids like Zuckerberg and Gates dropped out of college, to keep that money for themselves.  However, the NCAA using a current or former players name for profit is wrong.  Those senior projects/inventions that make money don't have their inventors names on them, so they shouldn't be marketing a player's name either.  

Until there is another option, we are stuck with the system that is in place. Fortunately for baseball players, there is a minor league established to help develop players who insist on playing professionally vs the sham of being an amatuer athlete at a university. For football players they have no minor leagus system. They must stay in college even when they arent really college students in order to continue playing footbal just for the opportunity to play professionally. 

 

A lot of problems could be solved with some honesty and some legal adjustments. The college presidents have to admit D1 football and basketball are businesses. Make the players paid employees of the college. One of the perks of a college employee is free tuition. Now there's the option of an education if the athlete wants to pursue it.

But as long as college presidents of major sports programs want to insist every player is a scholar-athlete nothing will change. The system works great for the power programs. They don't want change.

fenwaysouth posted:
MTH posted:

The NCAA is controlled by college presidents.

College presidents are controlled by big donors, alumni, and fans.

MTH.  Agree, and don't forget about media.  ESPN and others are a major contributing revenue factor to college presidents following the money.

 

DALEX posted:

Watched a Netflix documentary about the NCAA and it's founding(can't recall the name)--the picture painted is not too far removed from an organized crime documentary in all honesty...   

Dalex, Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll look into that Netlix crime documentary about the NCAA.    I suspect it is narrated by Keith Morrison.  He has that great investigative voice for that kind of stuff.

BTW...If you are a big Keith Morrison fan, his voice is available for download on the Waze GPS App.  It is too freaking funny.

Is Waze working again?  Guess it's been 6 or more months since an update seemed to kill it, and every time I checked back still wasn't working.  I'm gonna have to check that out and download Morrison voice!!

 

The only true student athletes in the NCAA are in Division 3. They work just as hard as the kids in D 1&2 but get no perks. There are no free shoes, free clothes, stipends, 24/7 catering, special dorms, free books, free tutors, personal trainers, etc. My son has a couple friends who are D 1 in softball and soccer.  The softball player was handed her softball schedule and then told to fit classes in around it. Oh, and not more than 12 hours in the spring, enough to meet the minimum hours needed. She is going to college to get an education, she's there to play softball which is what the softball coach told her.

You want to put the academics back in college sports. There are some simple steps to take.

  • Like D 3, once enrolled the clock starts ticking, the student has four years of eligibility. There is no redshirting in D3. Maybe apply the same thing to D 1&2 and see what happens.
  • A team is granted X number of scholarships over 4 years and if a players transfers or leaves early for what ever reason, you loose the scholarship until they would have graduated. For instance, in basketball you get 12 scholarships. You bring in 4 freshman and two leave for the pros after one year, now you only have 10 scholarships for the next three years. This would put and end to one-and-dones. Coaches would be a lot more careful on who they recruit and the character of students.
  • Limit coaching compensation. The pros put a salary cap on teams; have the NCAA put a cap on coaches salaries.
  • Limit the days of competition. For instance, it used to be in the B1G basketball was played on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Today, the only days B1G doesn't play is Monday and Friday. Put the student-athletes butts back in the classroom.
  • Up the APR to a minimum of 90 graduation in 4 years, and count transfers and early departures.
  • Moved the minimum GPA from 2.0 to 2.5. I know the min. to play as a freshman is 2.3. And with the GPA about 40 percent of football players and 60 percent of basketball players two years ago would not have been eligible as freshman.

I know none of these will ever be looked at because NCAA D1 is big business now and no longer about students. Just look at Butler. When they got to the final four, the following year their applications went from about 4,000 to close to 20,000.

 

 

Living right in the heart of Big Ten country and being around athletes and coaches, I've seen it all: crimes being covered up, hookers hired, grades fixed, football players driving around in $50,000 vehicles etc etc.... But that has all been in football & basketball programs

I wonder:  does the same sort of thing happen in D1 Baseball?

A friend of mine who was a starting guard for Purdue Basketball in the late 90's/early 00's told me that 90% of the roster was on steroids that were given and/or sold to players by the school trainers.  That it was common knowledge that a majority of Big Ten Basketball & Football players were on steroids and nobody cared as long as money was being made.  And that actual studying for classes was strictly optional.  

He went to his classes and ended up being successful in the business world.  Many others did not.  It was NBA or literally bust for them, and not many made the NBA.  Ultimately those poor decisions are the sole responsibility of the individual athlete, but the environment at the school they made money for sure didn't help.

SInce PGSTAFF invited me to comment on this thread, I should take the opportunity to do so, although if I wanted to take the time, my comments might cover 3 or 4 pages.  Here are a few thoughts in no particular order.

I believe it's extremely difficult to have an organization that is supposed to interpret and enforce the rules (voted on by representatives of member schools) for such different levels of competition, from the major Division I sports, to the programs of small private Division III colleges in sports ranging from football and basketball to fencing, rifle, or skiing, for example.

The lure of the money that the NCAA controls is one main reason that some small, private colleges of the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) are transitioning to join NCAA Division II, so they can be reimbursed for some expenses of traveling to and competing in an NCAA championship event (not common in NAIA) to simply being able to display the more widely known NCAA logo on their campus and in their facilities.

The NAIA is an alternative organization for governing college athletics, but they have very little money, so why would members of the NCAA (except for some small private schools) think about switching over?

The NCAA does some good things, like the Division II Championships Festival where 5 or 6 different sports hold their championship in the same city in an Olympic-type atmosphere.  The only publicity that event sees is in the area where it takes place.

The NCAA can't limit coaching compensation as JBOSS suggests in his post (although I like some of his other ideas).  They already tried to do that about 20 or so years ago with the position called the "restricted-earnings coach" for an assistant.  It was struck down in a lawsuit.  The college presidents are the only ones that can restrict a coaches compensation, and even if the presidents banded together to try to do that, I'm sure the lawyers that follow HSBBW would comment regarding "restraint of trade" or whatever the proper legal term is.

Because this is obviously a baseball board, we often see comments about how unfair some of the transfer rules are.  But I believe an even bigger concern exists in the sport of men's ice hockey.  Just like baseball, a hockey athlete has to sit out for a year if they transfer to a Division I program unless they were a "non-recruit" at their first college.  But, in hockey, there are only about 6 D2 hockey programs.  So, the players choice is to either sit out a year at another D1 program or transfer to non-scholarship D3.  

The NCAA should probably have one set of rules for Division I basketball and football, and a different set for all other sports and divisions.  And, as I saw in our local paper, maybe it is time to pay the Division I basketball and football athletes.  

While I've been opposed to that for many years, it was suggested this morning that by paying those athletes, the universities would have less money to pay to the Power 5 basketball and football coaches.  I might agree if I knew that would be the end result, but instead, I'm sure that the money to pay those athletes would be taken from scholarships and support for the other sports programs rather than from those coaches.

Because the NCAA rules are voted on by representatives of the member colleges, they must be the ones to vote in rules more favorable to the athletes.  And, because the NCAA staff members interpret those rules after they are voted in, the staff members should be folks who competed as college athletes and/or worked in a college athletic department, rather than being hired straight out of law school, or from a law firm that has done work for the NCAA.

That's enough for now.  Thanks PGSTAFF for the invitation to comment.

JBoss posted:

The only true student athletes in the NCAA are in Division 3. They work just as hard as the kids in D 1&2 but get no perks. There are no free shoes, free clothes, stipends, 24/7 catering, special dorms, free books, free tutors, personal trainers, etc.

JBoss - I agree with your overall points and suggestions, however there are a few D1 conferences that have rules set in place over and above what the NCAA requires.  These D1 student athletes work their asses off in the classroom.  D1 conferences vary tremendously just like D3 conferences.  Generalizations about 300+ D1 programs and their conferences can be a slippery slope.

Remedy: (1). Grow a pair and lower the boom on UNC that it deserves-two years, no sports. None. Players allowed to transfer and play immediately. Some innocents will be hurt to be sure but drastic times require drastic measures.  (2).  Require each university to have 3 Academic Officers, well paid, that must certify the positive forward movement academically for all athletes monthly, and any athlete not so certified is ineligible for "x" number of competitions.  The AO's would report to the academic officials, not the athletic staff. (3). Provide a reasonable monthly stipend for all athletes that covers food and housing, and let them learn to manage their money. (4) Eliminate athletic dorms/housing and have athletes live among normal students.   (5) Mandatory study halls for athletes with a GPA under 2.5.  (6). Allow athletes to transfer without penalty when the head coach that recruited them departs. (7). Prohibit coaches that break their contracts from recruiting any player recruited at their previous school.  (8). Make all scholarships 4 year deals, providing GPA remains  above 2.00, school rules are kept, team rules are met, and the Academic Officers certify the student athlete  is making reasonable progress towards a  degree.      These are just for starters...      

Now that the money is huge I doubt there will ever be another death penalty. Look what the death penalty did to SMU football. It's not that I'm against the death penalty. I'm looking at the reality of big money college sports and the impact of college presidents.

At least Jerry Tarkanian was honest about the situation. He said he liked transfer students because someone else had already bought them their car.

Last edited by RJM

All the issues with the NCAA are why I love to see kids use the system, instead of getting used by it.  Recently there was a post about a kid who was at a high academic DIII school who decided to stop playing ball to focus on academics.  If you have that perspective going into things then its less likely that you get hurt by the garbage.

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