The allegations surrounding Cam Newton and those associated with him have exposed the NCAA’s biggest problem: The rules have far too many shades of gray.
The NCAA is now considering some “emergency legislation” to try and prevent a similar future incident.
A sporting governing body should be able to enforce rules with swift justice.
Therefore, the NCAA needs more than emergency legislation — it needs a total overhaul.
College sports — via the NCAA — is purported to be amateur competition. Anyone who thinks college athletes — despite NCAA rules and regulations — are just regular students are fooling themselves.
So the NCAA needs to become more stringent on some regulations while loosening/eliminating many others.
They should really outline a set of black-and-white rules in which the suspensions and penalties are swift. The NCAA can take up to 12 months to investigate and is not armed with the same authority lawyers have — i.e. the power to subpoena and for discovery.
They can solve that problem right off by giving someone a week to comply with their request, and if they are unable to, the suspension/penalty begins immediately.
We’re sure the cooperation level would be very high should an athlete in trouble know a suspension loomed large if witnesses did not cooperate quickly and fully. I know if it were me, I’d be doing whatever I could to make sure they were cooperating.
But the same would apply for the accuser — if a school makes a claim and can’t back it up, not only does the accused walk free but the accuser would get hit with a penalty.
Now a lot of these rules would become unnecessary if the NCAA would give up the ruse that the major sports (football and basketball) are of true amateur status.
While booster clubs can help support some athletic teams’ existence — especially now in a tough economy that has schools cutting budgets — they are also a place where monies are funneled to athletes.
The NCAA faces an impossible task, so their approach should be geared to making any infraction a swift and severe punishment to deter anyone from even thinking of breaking the rules.
Unfortunately, that may be too much to hope for.
