The NCAA and a sucker bet

Sporting News, The, June 23, 2003 by Matt Hayes

They can't think we're this naive. The NCAA can't shovel it and expect us to swallow and smile and give new chief Myles Brand a big, loud hurrah for his staunch stance or all that is wrong with college sports. The hypocrisy is hideous.

Washington coach Rick Neuheisel was fired last week, less than a week after acknowledging that he took part in an NCAA men's basketball tournament pool with some friends. Brand, the man best known for bringing down Bob Knight at Indiana, hovered above it all, practically forcing the Huskies into a sanctimonious firing by saying if he were the president of Washington, he'd "take personnel action." Meanwhile, on its own side of town, the NCAA's house is in disrepair.

The issue isn't whether Neuheisel was right or wrong. The issue is the NCAA's longstanding habit of sticking its nose in when it feels like it and conveniently forgetting its abhorrent policies that go unchallenged year after year.

Bet with friends--nut a bookie, not Vegas--on Maryland winning the NCAA Tournament, and it's Armageddon. Beat your wife, sexually harass your secretary, have a "relationship" with a student, or get a DUI, and the NCAA doesn't sniff. But that's only the beginning.

How can Brand and the NCAA legitimately spout a holier-than-thou attitude on gambling when academic fraud is the most glaring ghost in the closet? Gambling undermines sports programs; academic fraud destroys universities. Joe Freshman sweats out the SAT, thinking it will take 1,100 or so to get into State U. Yet NCAA rules allow football players to score 400 on the SAT and gain freshman eligibility, as long as they have a 3.55 grade-point average in 14 core high school classes. Here's a little news for Mr. Brand: If an athlete scores 400 on the SAT, he likely has the intellect of a blowfish and can't earn a 3.55 unless someone is cheating.

The NCAA allows athletes with subpar SATs into universities for one reason: They're cheap labor. The sport's governing body soothes its soul with the nonsensical notion that scholarships and special tutors and extending deadlines for classwork and the use of elite training facilities makes up for exploiting athletes it knows won't graduate. A majority of the football and men's basketball scholarships--more than 50 percent in the latest figures released by the NCAA--are essentially meaningless because the athletes don't graduate.

Don't believe the garbage that graduation rates for athletes are just under the rate of the student body. You want to compare apples and apples? Show me graduation numbers for students on full academic scholarship. I'm guessing those are in the 90th percentile. So why, as the watchdog for the institutions of higher learning, would the NCAA wink at academic fraud and continue to pump money into something when the return is less than 50 percent? Because the monetary return is 1,000 percent.

The Bowl Championship Series conferences grossed more than $500 million in 2001, and the NCAA recently sold television rights to the men's basketball tournament for a record $6 billion. That's right, billion. The demand is so high for those television rights because office pools and gambling have become as much a part of the sport as the playoff itself, fueling the--one moment while we adhere to NCAA trademark territory--March Madness.

I'm not saying what Neuheisel did was right. But if the NCAA is guiding the ship with a moral compass, there needs to be continuity, Just last month, Brand said the NCAA has no business butting into the ACC's raid of the Big East, which could eliminate five schools from the BCS race (read: loot). Two more bowl games were certified tins offseason, even though the postseason is saturated with bowl games in half-full stadiums.

Academic fraud, cheap labor, vacillating virtue. And Rick Neuheisel gets nailed for betting with friends.

Stop the charade.

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SPEED READ

* Julius Jones is returning to Notre Dame. Can he fit in with returning 1,000-yard rusher Ryan Grant? Coach Tyrone Willingham made a similar situation work in 2001 at Stanford with Brian Allen ant Kerry Carter, Bottom line: No one is happier than Irish quarterback Carlyle Holiday, who must only steer clear of trouble to win games.

INSIDE DISH

The lawsuit filed by the five Big East schools not invited to join the ACC has no teeth and won't affect the proposed expansion. Want proof? Lew Perkins, who as athletic director at Connecticut was a staunch proponent of the suit trying to keep Miami, Boston College and Syracuse in the Big East, has left UConn and its burgeoning sports program for the same position at Kansas. The Jayhawks are major players simply because of their affiliation with the Big 12. But if the Big East were to stay together because of the suit, UConn would be a more attractive job, especially with a new $90 million football stadium opening this fall and the state of the team with underrated coach Randy Edsell. Perkins isn't leaving for a better job; he's leaving because the Big East is teetering and the lawsuit is no factor.... Coach Mark Richt owes one to Georgia's compliance office, which convinced the NCAA that its rule on monetary compensation was unclear, and therefore it had to exonerate the nine Bulldogs players who were suspended for selling their SEC championship rings. Richt says the players--including four starters--will face "internal discipline" but won't miss games.... The offseason troubles aren't over for Florida State, even after former QB Adrian McPherson's gambling trial ended with a hung jury (5-to-1 for guilty of gambling on college games). NCAA gambling chief Bill Saum gets his turn now and wants to talk to McPherson and FSU officials to find out who knew what and when.... LB Dan Conner of Wallingford, Pa., one of the nation's top 20 players on the SPORTING NEWS-Rivals100.com watch list, says he has narrowed his recruitment to three schools: Penn State, Michigan and Notre Dame.