[Vision2020] Living in Fear of the N.C.A.A.

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
 Reprints<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/opinion/nocera-living-in-fear-of-the-ncaa.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212&pagewanted=print#>

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January 23, 2012
Living in Fear of the N.C.A.A. By JOE
NOCERA<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/columns/josephnocera/?inline=nyt-per>

It was early in the evening of Jan. 13 when Ryan
Boatright<http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/boatright_ryan00.html>,
the freshman basketball player at the University of Connecticut, learned
that he was being suspended from the team for the second
time<http://www.ctpost.com/uconn/article/Boatright-heartbroken-by-news-of-his-NCAA-review-2529613.php>this
season. Earlier that day, he had flown into South Bend, Ind., with his
teammates for a game against Notre Dame. The 19-year-old point guard was
excited because some 400 people from his hometown, Aurora, Ill., were
coming to see him play.

When his coach, Jim Calhoun, broke the news that the N.C.A.A. was still
investigating him, Boatright collapsed in Calhoun’s arms. In tears, he
called his mother, Tanesha, who began weeping uncontrollably. As I
chronicled on Saturday<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/opinion/nocera-guilty-until-proved-innocent.html>,
it was her acceptance of plane tickets a year or so ago that had caused his
first suspension. The N.C.A.A. had ruled the tickets an “improper benefit,”
and had ordered him to sit out six games and pay a $100-per-month fine to
repay the tickets. What more, she wondered, could the N.C.A.A. want?

A lot, it turned out. Tanesha is a single mother raising four children on a
small salary. The N.C.A.A. investigators viewed her circumstances as a
cause for suspicion, not sympathy. For instance, she owns a car. Where did
she get the money to pay for it, they asked? How did she pay for her home?
And so on.

Concluding that she had no choice but to cooperate — otherwise, her son
would surely pay a severe price — Tanesha turned over her bank statements,
as the N.C.A.A. demanded. Four N.C.A.A. investigators pored through her
financial records and conducted interrogations in Aurora, seeking
“evidence” that she was getting money from “improper” sources. (Tanesha
declined to comment.)

When the investigators saw a series of cash deposits in her bank account,
they demanded to know the source of the money. She told them: Friends had
given her money so that she and her children could have a joyful Christmas.
The investigators said they didn’t believe her; they felt sure that she
must have gotten the money from an unscrupulous sports agent or some other
party outlawed by the N.C.A.A.

Meanwhile, her son remains in limbo, unable to play the game he loves, his
reputation unfairly besmirched, while he awaits the N.C.A.A.’s latest
ruling. I keep hearing it might happen soon, but, so far, nothing. People
associated with Connecticut basketball, including Calhoun, are said to be
furious at the N.C.A.A.’s treatment of Ryan Boatright. But the university
is as fearful of the N.C.A.A. as Tanesha. It has yet to say a single word
publicly on his behalf.

When I asked the N.C.A.A. about the Boatright case, the response I received
was deeply disingenuous. Refusing to discuss the actions of its
investigators, it essentially said that Connecticut, not the N.C.A.A.,
declared Boatright ineligible. That is technically true. Schools declare
athletes ineligible because if they don’t, the N.C.A.A. will deprive them
of scholarships, force them to forfeit games and prevent them from playing
in postseason games. Most astonishing, an N.C.A.A. spokeswoman told me that
the organization does not have the legal authority to compel cooperation
from parents. Again, technically true: Its real weapon — the threat of
destroying their sons’ careers — is far more potent than any mere subpoena.

Over the past three weeks, as I’ve written a series of
columns<http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=joe+nocera+N.C.A.A.&d=&o=&v=&c=&n=10&dp=0&daterange=past90days&bylquery=Joe%20Nocera&sort=newest>about
the abuses of the N.C.A.A., one question keeps reverberating in my
head: How can this be happening in America?

How can children be punished for the deeds of their parents — deeds that
aren’t even wrong in any basic legal sense? How can the N.C.A.A. blithely
wreck careers without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it
act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won’t anybody
stand up to these outrageous violations of American values and American
justice?

The columns have also prompted e-mails, mostly from parents of college
athletes, with their own examples of N.C.A.A. injustices. The women’s
basketball player at Harvard who came to the United States from Britain and
isn’t allowed to play because she struggled when she first got to the U.S.
and had to repeat a year of high school. The team manager — yes, team
manager! — who was forced out of his role because he knew a high school
player that his school was recruiting. The A students forced off the court
because the N.C.A.A. does not include their high school A.P. courses among
its “approved” coursework. The coach whose career was ended when the
N.C.A.A. accused him of “unethical conduct” without giving him a chance to
defend himself.

“The N.C.A.A. is like the Gestapo,” wrote one parent in an e-mail. “It’s
out there, we all fear it, and it is all-powerful and follows its own rules
and makes them up as they go along. Who are they protecting? The same thing
the Gestapo protected: themselves.”

Ben Strauss contributed reporting from Aurora, Ill.

  [image: DCSIMG]


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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