“No outsiders allowed” is a tough policy to work with.
It didn’t work out too well for the “He-Man Woman Haters Club” in “The Little Rascals” and it is slowly beginning to fail for the NCAA as well.
Is this the NCAA’s fault?
No, not even close, but this policy has to be the toughest to defend when governing a billion-dollar college football industry.
The talk of the summer in college football centered around agents contacting student-athletes and offering them incentives to enter an agreement before the student-athlete finishes his or her eligibility.
Let’s go through the process in an extremely short and oversimplified manner:
1) A student-athlete is contacted by an agent.
2) The aforementioned athlete or the athlete’s family accepts gifts or enters into an agreement with the agent.
3) An NCAA investigation begins and a punishment is reached.
Any student-athlete that commits this violation loses his or her eligibility, said NCAA Director of Agent, Gambling and Amateurism Activities Rachel Newman Baker in an interview on NCAA.org.
This is obviously what should happen, but then the agent is left with little to be afraid of, and he or she has no reason to be.
You can remove the records, take away the awards and possibly hurt the athlete’s feelings (of course it depends on the arrogance level), and yet the agents seem to be left untouched.
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, even sending young-looking assistants to campus are options agents can use to get in touch with young adults who, like the rest of us, are concerned about their future after college.
The NCAA needs to go ‘Momma Grizzly’ on these guys (first and last Sarah Palin reference).
The punishment, while warranted for the student-athlete, is focused on the wrong violator.
It’s time to punish the agents.
If receiving gifts is against the rules then it should be against the rules to give them.
Here’s the catch:
Bowl games are allowed to give out up to $500 in gifts to participants.
Most of these gifts include watches, hats and other equipment that has no reason to cause alarm.
It just seems weird that such a strict organization would allow this exchange but launch an investigation when a student-athlete takes some advice from a former professional, as former Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant did.
There has to be a give at some point.
It will never be OK for a student-athlete to accept money from an agent, but is a dinner out of line?
And will these agents ever feel the same punishments that these programs face?
It’s open ended, it’s confusing and it’s frustrating.
Baker said dialogue is going to be very important for an issue ‘which for a long time had been sort of the elephant in the room,’ according to NCAA.org.
Dialogue is only the beginning of an issue that also needs to be looked at by the professional leagues.
Hopefully the necessary changes will be made in the near future.
It took plenty of thought and concession for Spanky to change the format of the ‘He-Man Woman Haters Club,’ and it will be the same way for the NCAA.
Reach the columnist at nathan.meacham@asu.edu
