NCAA - You're not the boss of me

Factual Questions
1

Why is it that colleges and universities have deeded so much power to this organization? I mean, they allow the NCAA to apply the “death penalty” for severe infractions of the NCAA’s rules…why? I personally wouldn’t care if boosters and alumni bought cars and condos for star athletes. I wouldn’t care if the coaches gave Joe Linebacker $10 for each good hit and $50 for each sack.

Sometimes the NCAA dictates that the school muct reduce its scholarships by X as punishment for some trivial (NCAA) rule infraction.

Sometimes the NCAA dictates “no TV coverage” or “no bowl appearances.”

It seems to me that the NCAA isn’t punishing the school, but the students. Oftentimes, the students that were the recipients of the largesse are already gone, so the current “good” athletes get unfairly punished.

What’s to prevent several schools, or even some conferences from saying, “Piss off, NCAA. We’ll negotiate our own TV/bowl/endorsement/marketing contracts, pay our players whatever we want (thereby insuring that they’ll get the cream of the athletic crop), and go it on our own.”?

I understand that there are schools that already have done something like this (Notre Dame? TV contract?). I think more schools should.

The NCAA’s rules were originally designed to level the field and prevent cheating, I guess. I say, who cares? If a kid is a great jump shooter/hits .400/runs a 4-flat 40, but still can’t read USA Today, why not give him a chance? It may be his or her only shot.

I think the NCAA has become too Draconian. Time to do away with them.

2

I think this topic might be headed for Great Debates.

3

The NCAA’s Death Penalty is their version of an atomic bomb. They have only dropped it once, on SMU. What gets me is that it wasn’t much of a deterrent. Since it was first used, many schools have matched or exceeded the violations that SMU was guilty of, and have not been punished as drastically. Their system invites rules violations because it can mean so much money for a school to field a winning football or basketball team.

4

Right, Adam

It also invites violations because of its inherent stupidity. For example, a coach pays a “student-athlete’s” cab fare to his tutor’s office.

Violation.

Stupid.

5

All of the arguments in the OP presupposes that the athlete is headed towards a lurcative pro career.

o you know what a miniscule amount of collegiate athletes ever do this?

Why gear the system for such a small percentage of the players? Conversely, why change a system that has made it somewhat fair for schools, so a Virginia Tech can play in a national title game, and a Cincinnatti basketball proogram can rise to the top in a few years?

Yer pal,
Satan

6

No, I don’t presuppose that, Satan.

If you look again, you’ll see that I used an example where the kid wouldn’t’ve had a chance to complete college, but due to his athletic skills, at least he’d have a showcase to demonstrate his skills.

And, yes, I know that the percentage of kids that go on to the pros is small, but at least that kid would have a chance to earn big instead of flipping burgers.

Another thing, Satan. Do you know how even more miniscule the chances are of someone getting into the pros without college? (Other than maybe baseball, that is.) Pretty damn small.

VA Tech and Cincinnati would have the same opportunities under my proposal. If their teams do well, they go to the bowls or the final four.

And I didn’t say anything about gearing it to a small number of players. Instead, I’d gear it to all players in the sense that I’d let the athletes get paid for their efforts. They bring in millions…they deserve their share.

Back to the OP… Just what good does the NCAA do? Not much, I think.

Let the colleges regulate themselves.

7

> Let the colleges regulate themselves.

Umm - correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t that exactly what they’re doing? I jumped to the NCAA website (www.ncaa.org), and in its “About the NCAA” section it says:

“The National Collegiate Athletic Association is the organization through which the nation’s colleges and universities speak and act on athletics matters at the national level. It is a voluntary association of more than 1,200 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals devoted to the sound administration of intercollegiate athletics.”

8

After posting the above quote from www.ncaa.org, I realized it wasn’t very clear - sorry about that. In the “membership” page the website makes it clearer that a member must be an accredited college or university maintaining at least four intercollegiate sports programs.

9

In a sense, I guess they are. But isn’t the NCAA the “negotiating authority” for post-season appearances, etc? And aren’t the colleges bound by the NCAA’s rules? I mean, what can the NCAA do that, say, a college conference couldn’t do, while still maintaining more autonomy?

I think that colleges are members of the NCAA because that “allows” them to compete with other NCAA schools.

I’d gladly be proven wrong here. I just don’t see the overriding value of the NCAA. I’m guessing that there are some large costs included in running the NCAA. What makes them worth it?

10

(I tried your link, WillGolf. It didn’t work, darn it. Instead, I looked up their home page myself. :slight_smile: )

I emailed them and, quite simply, asked them how the NCAA justifies its existence as an organization. (In a few moren words, respectfully submitted.)

I’ll let you know if they respond.

11

Moren? I’m the moron. I meant “more.”

12

“What makes them worth it ?”

Well if the colleges thought the way you did it appears they can simply drop out anytime they want to. It must be worth it to them.

If some small group decides to set up their own conference with their own rules, or lack thereof, eventually they may start gathering more teams. At some point the new conference has the same problems as the NCAA.

Let me also throw a business term out there, economies of scale. The larger number of colleges can negotiate a much larger combined total TV contract then a number of smaller conferences or bowls. Do you think anyone will give as much money for the second tier bowls (or second tier coference) as for the top 3 or 4 bowls in your new system as compared to the current one. The lower the amount of total TV package then the lower the payout for the bowl participants (and the members of the conference) overall.

13

The NCAA regs promote fairness between schools. Alumni and booster contributions, if allowed, would destroy the level playing field in the space of probably four or five seasons.

Let’s say that the NCAA is abandoned by its member schools. Now, there is no scholarship program in place, no maximum number of free rides that a school can give. If you have a choice to go, for no charge, to either the University of Illinois or Weber State, where are you going to go? An NCAA mandated program keeps the bigger, better known schools from grabbing all the best athletes they can. As the program stands now, they have to pick and choose carefully; the free ride slots are a scarce commodity, not to be used on a whim.

Rysdad, you say you wouldn’t care if the schools paid a player. If schools were allowed to pay their players, those schools with the richest booster/alumni/fans would quickly overwhelm smaller, less affluent schools. I don’t have exact figures for the average earnings of U of I graduates vs. graduates of Weber State, but I’d take odds that U of I would come out ahead. So, now, with no NCAA regulations, U of I is free to put out paid hits on players from opposing schools, pay outrageous sums of money for players to join their team, and even pay Weber State’s players to take dives or not play at all.

There’s a lot more I could post in this discussion, but since it’s still in GQ, I won’t; I’ll keep an eye on it to see if it gets moved to GD, and post more there. Suffice it to say that the NCAA keeps the games it regulates from turning into a case of bigger, richer, more popular schools beating the crap out of smaller schools.

He weathered a firestorm of agony and did not break.
And while Yori raged against his unbending
courage, we took Kyuden Hiruma back.
His loss is great, but so is the gift his suffering brought.
-Yakamo’s Funeral

14

The gist of the OP is that it should be okay to pay pre-professional athletes. If that is what you want, destroying the NCAA isn’t the answer (several have already made good arguments for why that is not the answer).

The answer is: Minor Leauge Football. If pre-pro players aren’t exactly college material but play a fantastic game, then why force them to go to college where university funds that could be directed elsewhere are directed towards them? Send 'em to the minor leauges! If you truly wish to be student-athlete, go to college. If you only want to play ball, play ball. Baseball does it with resounding success. Football needs a minor leauge (and the “World Leauge” doesn’t quite count, since they’re essentially post-college NFL hopefulls).

15

I’ve heard the economies of scale argument before, and it doesn’t wash. The major networks would still cover the college games, regardless of who negotiated the converage, and the colleges would get to retain more of the money. The elite bowls (Sugar, Orange, Rose, Cotton) would still pay more than the Alamo, Sun, Outback and Aloha bowls.

Re: scholarships… A school should be able to offer as many scholarships as it can afford–why not? They have a bigger pool of money for some reason, right? They should be able to apply it as they see fit. If they attract the better athletes, then so be it. Not to mention that more kids would be able to attend college whereas they’re not able to under NCAA rules.

Paying for “hits” and “taking dives” is already illegal, and further discussion of that doesn’t seem worthwhile.

And, guess what? The bigger schools already do win most of the time. They can afford better facilities, better coaches, etc. Nothing would change there. Besides, the NCAA already has Division-1, Division-2, etc, to keep the bigger, richer more popular schools from beating the crap out of smaller schools, and it’s meaningless. Check out any major college’s pre-season basketball matchups. They line up 5 or 6 creampuffs to knock over before starting conference play (where those creampuffs aren’t even included).

And, would I care if the less affluent schools were overwhelmed? Not in the slightest because they already are! The bigger and better schools already get the best players. How many great athletes can you name from Michigan, Alabama, Penn State, and Arizona vs. Mankato State, North Dakota, or Southeastern Mountain Valley A&M (ok, I made that one up).

Schools would still prohibit cheating. I’m just saying that supporting the players more openly would be a good thing. And that could be done perfectly well without NCAA’s fingers in the pie.

While minor leagues might offer some athletes a second chance (World League, CBA, Whatchamacallit Hockey), that doesn’t address the problem of an organization that has become too bloated and self-important for its own good.

16

This should be clear…if you think about its evolution.

Collegiate sports - great idea. Students want to do it, lots of people want to watch. You form a league, compete with other schools. When you form this league, you agree to certain rules. For instance, one of the first rules you agree to is that the University of Illinois will not have a student named Michael Jordan who has a scholarship worth 80 million dollars.

The organization has the powers it has because universities have to work together under controlled conditions in order to participate in conditions they will all consider as being reasonably fair (if they didn’t think it was fair, they could always start their own conferences).

Maybe your question should be: do they abuse this power?

17

While many may think that the ultimate power in the NCAA is exercised by university athletic departments, it is truly held by university presidents. If enough university presidents opted out of the NCAA or demanded changes, then there would be changes. For the time being there isn’t a viable alternative, unless a university wants to compete in the NAIA, which is made up of very small schools.

University presidents were the prime force behind Proposition 42 which raised academic requirements for incoming student-athletes who want to compete for Division I schools.