OK, maybe they won’t call it the Calipari Rule. And maybe they won’t look at number of years they have to stay in school yet. We talked about this ad nauseum last year. We have hashed it out until it is nothing but a burnt out husk this year. we all pretty much agreed that the NBA was not going to do anything about it, and we didn’t think that the NCAA had the temerity to try and legislate what kids were thinking, but get ready folks, it may be on it’s way.
The NCAA’s DI Leadership Council is in the process of trying to adopt a “makeover” of Men’s Basketball recruiting rules as soon as 2012 with the target of removing the AAU from the recruiting process. How can this be done? How do we get kids to not play AAU ball or not get involved with AAU personnel? Well the Council wants to shift the mindset of the student athlete into more of a “student” mode.
Board Chair Judy Genshaft, who is the president of the University of South
Florida, stated the following:
“In many instances, recruiting is
influenced by youth team coaches, sports agents, shoe company
representatives
and others,” Genshaft said. “In my opinion, these parties
don’t always have the
prospect’s best interests in mind.”
As if we didn’t already know this. And it seems that the committee’s actions are not lost on our friend and Compliance Guru John Infante either. Seems as though he sees this as a step in the completely wrong direction and it has him contemplating what he actually does for a living. In this excerpt from the article I linked, John explains .
"Everyone in compliance has bad days. There are the run of the mill bad days,when a waiver falls through or you deal with a difficult coach orstudent-athlete. Then there are the real bad days, the ones that make youquestion how long you want to stay in this business.So far I’ve had fewsoul-crushing days. But one in particular sticks out. Really more of adepressing hour and a half. It was during the 2010 NAAC Convention at a sessiontitled “Assessing the Climate and Hot Topics within Men’s Basketball.” GeneMarsh might have given the keynote, but this was highlight of the two days. Asuperstar panel that included Julie Cromer, then Director of Academic andMembership Affairs; LuAnn Humphrey, head of the Basketball Focus Group; PittHead Coach Jamie Dixon; Long Beach State Head Coach Dan Monson; and PittAthletics Director Steve Pederson."
We looked recently at what the NCAA has done in other areas of sport, including Div I Football. And we have discussed the realities of it all. And it would seem as though that sooner or later the NCAA had to take a step back and take a good hard look at itself and what it’s mission is. Most of us who were looking at it closely thought that the NCAA would come to it’s senses, realize that it is in uncharted territory, and try to use a less cumbersome approach to recruiting and athletics/academia. Possibly even try to get the schools to tailor programs and offer degrees in more athletics related coursework. However at this point, I am beginning to think that is now more of a pipe dream than ever. It seems the NCAA is going to do what it does best, and take the complete opposite approach and stand up for what it deems is morally right and true to its nature and mission. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Either by arrogance, ignorance, or just plain stupidity, the NCAA may very well do in amateur athletics altogether. Or at least make them so unpalatable no one wants to be involved.
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