The NCAA: Don't Take It Personal, It's Just Business

Lot of finger pointing going on right now, is there not? When you get two of the things that a lot of people in the world love most together, there are going to be problems, it is just the nature of things. And when you talk about combining money and college athletics, you get all of the good and bad in the world rolled up into one.

The world as we know it for collegiate athletics is about to change. Is it going to be a good change or a bad one? That is the uncertainty. But the change is going to occur, of that there is no doubt. And the funny thing is that in the midst of all of this chaos, Kentucky is thriving. Auburn University is paying for a sponsorship of a Kentucky driver in this weekend’s NASCAR race. A Kentucky driver who is indeed an admitted Kentucky fan. So, no decent Kentucky fan is going to let someone paint his car up with Auburn University colors and logos and be seen out there on national TV in it are they? Sure they will. If they pay him enough. But the real question is, at a time when Auburn University and practically every other school in the country is fighting to keep it’s doors open and fend off budget crunches and the like, how can Auburn afford to sponsor a NASCAR driver for a race. That ain’t chump change, you know. The answer is quite simple really, and it is also disturbing. Athletics.

The world stood by and watched as Auburn QB Cam Newton took the SEC and the rest of the NCAA by storm this last year. In the midst of allegations that Cam’s father “Shopped” him around the SEC in hopes of a sweet deal, Cam was playing like a madman and lighting up every defense he came upon, much to the delight of his Head Coach Gene Chizik and the throngs of Auburn fans all over the world. No proof has be offered up concerning any payments made from Auburn to Cam’s father, however his church, which was about to go into receivership shortly beforehand, received a huge donation which saved them shortly after Cam signed with Auburn. Coincidence? That one is for you to call, not me. And the NCAA says it thoroughly investigated the matter, found evidence of it occurring elsewhere, but not at Auburn. So Mississippi State ends up on the hot seat for a brief time, and Auburn goes on to the National Championship. That National Championship provides Auburn with even more money to spend, and Michael Waltrip’s race team is the beneficiary. Now I am a big Michael Waltrip fan, and I know for a fact that the sponsorship deal is clean, although I myself couldn’t put that Auburn logo on my dog’s blanket, much less my car.

So we see that collegiate athletics is big time business, and I understand that completely. And when players start trading jersey’s for tattoos, and coaches conveniently wait to report such activity until it can no longer do permanent damage to their program, I think to myself, has the whole thing become too big to tame? And has the idea of collegiate athletics been lost in the quagmire which is the business side of it all? I mean after all, which is the bigger sin, players not being suspended until the next season in games which their team can probably win without them, or players getting paid for the use of their likenesses in video games that line the NCAA’s coffers?

You see the NCAA has an “image” or maybe a better word is “perception” problem. They talk a good game, and if a reporter hands them an NCAA violation case all wrapped up in a bow for Christmas, they might even do something about what they find. But they are using a broadsword when a stiletto is needed. Why does it matter how many times a coach calls a kid? Why does it matter what a coach sees on the Internet? Why does it matter when a coach and a kid talk? The NCAA has to stop trying to act like a kid’s parents, and start acting like they truly care about the kid’s welfare. The TV deals, and the sponsorship agreements, and the overall salaciousness with which the NCAA does things is clearly no longer a viable answer.

The University of Tennessee is possibly facing a “failure to maintain institutional control” over their programs, for everything from girls in orange hot pants with posters, to Head Coaches who don’t know what their own house looks like. They care more about “bump” violations than about making sure the kids are protected from the predators who are out there trying to line their own pockets with money as they ride a kid’s “gravy train” to whatever professional league he happens to join. My submission to you folks is that the “lack of institutional control” is within the NCAA itself. The NCAA cannot serve two masters. They cannot serve both the student-athletes they were formed to protect, and the schools they now represent in much the same aspect as a union or professional sports league. The NBA and NFL, and MLB have more control over what happens right now in collegiate athletics than the NCAA does.

My point earlier about Kentucky thriving in the midst of all this chaos is such. Coach John Calipari has adapted to the “World According To The Dollar”. He sees these young men as what they are, young professionals on the cusp of realizing their dreams. And those dreams have a price tag. And until the rest of the world of collegiate athletics comes around to either his way of thinking (which they slowly are), or changes the rules to put amateurism back at the forefront of the purpose of the NCAA, most other schools are going to languish in this nightmare that the NCAA has created for themselves. I was taken to task by some before the season started months ago for saying that the NCAA had become a defacto NBADL, in spite of the fact that the NBA already has a developmental league. The big difference in the two is that no one cares what happens in the NBADL. Everyone cares what happens in the NCAA, because it is big business. So don’t be surprised when the NBAPA makes a change to a “two and done” rule. And don’t be surprised when John Calipari gets blamed for the new rule too. After all, It’s just business.

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