NCAA Rules: Retreat Demonstrates Why NCAA Rules Are So Complex
by Glenn Logan on Aug 6, 2011 10:03 AM EDT
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PrintThe NCAA presidential retreat this coming week demonstrates, to a large degree, why the NCAA Bylaws are so Byzantine and complex. Look at who is responsible for making them, and look at who is being asked for their input -- college presidents. Why? From the NCAA website:
Sitting university presidents, not athletics directors and coaches, ultimately run the NCAA through its governing system.
College presidents are important, but it doesn't take a doctoral degree to understand that having academics make rules for athletics is a recipe for disaster. I am not necessarily questioning the motives of the college presidents here (although I do think that those motives surely can be questioned), but rather I am suggesting that they are the wrong ones to be making the rules, at least in the absence of meaningful input from athletics departments.
Academics is always in conflict with athletics, starting in high school, continuing through college and reaching adulthood. Jocks get the girls, smart kids get ridiculed and socially ostracized. It is credulous to think that the hurts of youth suddenly disappear at adulthood, regardless of the person's intellect or academic achievement.
Filtered through the lens of the typical academic experience with athletics from youth to adulthood, it is easy to see why the NCAA rules seem tougher on athletes than the rules for the general student population, both academically and otherwise.
If the NCAA really wants to change for the better, they need to change the people making the rules. Instead of mainly college presidents, people with some skin in the game, like athletics directors and coaches, should be major participants in rule-making. Sure, these people have input now, but only filtered through university presidents.
So when you think about the NCAA and how crazy some of the rules are, just take a look at who's making them. Hat tip: @JayBilas.
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Hmmmm...
Sounds like another situation that is already a total disaster…(yeah, the USA) I always thought if you wanted to know how to do something, go to those who have done it not those who can’t do it but can teach you how to try… the wrong people have too much advice to give and unfortunately it adversely affects many others down the line…
University committees
are a disaster waiting to happen. A well-executed university committee trying to design a horse will end up with a camel. It’s all a result of seeking consensus and compromise.
Unfortunately true.
And it’s not just true of university committees.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Due to the recent NFL lockout
and the corresponding signed 10 year CBA contract, my mind starting wandering toward implications in collegiate athletics.
What if we had an NCAA governing body with checks and balances? What if we had 2 seperate committees with one based on college presidents and the other based on coaches and/or AD’s? They would have to meet, discuss and come to terms on what is fair and good for everyone.
Let’s face it. The college presidents are NEVER going to give up total control of the NCAA governing body. But they aren’t knowledgeable when its comes to the pettiness of some of the rules and the day to day problems and issues that athletic departments face.
But on the flip side, there is no way that coaches/AD’s could govern themselves. It would turn into the Wild West where lawlessness would reign sumpreme.
So my suggestion is to make them meet in the middle. Have representatives on both committees voted in by their peers and have them meet once or twice a year with clear cut guidelines and agendas made to better college athletics instead of dragging it down time and time again with greed and selfishness.
So… give me your honest opinion. Does this idea have any merit?
I don't think the presidents should give up control at all.
All I am advocating is for some athletics people to have a direct voice in the rulemaking, not for the presidents to surrender control. These people are reasonable, surely. Let them hear the problems that their rules create from those who they affect, directly and unfiltered.
This doesn’t seem to be a lot to ask.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
This is spot on
And you know what else? This approach should be applied to other areas in life:
Who knows more about the economy and financial system than the investment banks? Let’s put them in charge of financial regulation!
And who knows more about what works best in prison, some fancy-smancy egghead legislator or a criminal with actual real life experience?
But seriously, this is a ridiculous idea. ADs and coaches are the ones who have to operate within the rules that are set. Does anyone seriously believe that if they were in charge of setting NCAA regulations that they would not either get rid of, or seriously weaken to the point of irrelevance, every single rule that makes it harder for them to do their jobs?
Trying to couch this as an academic versus athletic debate is a red herring. Regulations have to be in place. The issue affects all NCAA member institutions and the presidents – as the leaders of those institutions – are the logical people to set those regulations. There can be advantages and improvements made by involving the ADs and coaches, but only in an “expert witness” capacity – they should not be allowed to set the rules by which they themselves have to abide.
And I wonder if anyone attacking the presidents as being Academic Egghead Out of Touch Ivory Tower Liberal Elitists has bothered to determine if any of them – you know – might have played some sports when they were in college or high school?
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
A little over the top.. don't you think JLev?
Having the party effected by the rules help make SOME of the rules is a good idea. I think it should be tempered with balance from both parties though.
Yes, a little over the top, but by design
The point is that if the people who have to follow the rules are placed in charge of them, you will quickly find that anything even remotely difficult is soon done away with. That’s human nature and is not in any way unique to college athletics. The only way to guard against that is to put people in charge who are not directly affected by those rules.
If you look at the list of people who are going to be at this retreat, you’ll see that there are 4 conference commissioners who will be there. So it’s not like the athletic side is absent.
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
I think ...
… My point was that right now, there is no direct input from anyone directly involved in athletics. That’s a problem, in my book.
Who do we hire to be Secretary of the Treasury? Certainly not pure scientists. And even if some college presidents may have played sports at some level, I’m willing to bet that amounts to a tiny minority.
In the end, I think there needs to be less academic influence, and more sports influence, in the rules. I see no reason why that should be a bad idea. And I don’t agree that there isn’t an academic vs athletics issue. Have you not noticed the ongoing attack by representatives of the faculty against the athletics department, demanding more and more money?
I’m sorry, but human nature is what it is.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
I think your references to the academic side are a red herring
What exactly is it about a person making a career in academia that automatically disqualifies them from being able to make effective rules regarding athletics? Because they don’t have direct experience in running an athletic program? I think that’s overstating the difficulty of doing so, and beyond that it smacks of a mindset typical of athletes where the only people qualified to speak about sports are the ones who played it.
I have no problem with a limited role for ADs or other athletics personnel – but only to give opinions about the consequences of rulings and actions. To draw an analogy, when Congress considers regulatory legislation, they will often have expert witnesses to give testimony about the subject, but those witnesses don’t have any role in the law making process, they are just there to give learned testimony. That’s the role best suited for ADs et al.
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
I don't recall ...
… suggesting that anyone making a career in academia is automatically disqualified from anything, nor that they could not make effective rules.
What I was suggesting is that having only academics do it is a recipe for disaster, just as it would be to have all athletics people do it. The reason is due to the inherent conflict between the two, and there is an inherent conflict.
It was not my intention to suggest that nobody in academia is qualified to make rules, or participate in the process. It was also not my intention, and I don’t think I did, to accuse every person in academia of incompetence.
What I am suggesting is that:
- Considering college presidents as a group, many of them have come up through academia, which is relatively hostile to athletics, and that influence does not disappear when they reach the top of the food chain. That’s my opinion, anyway, right or wrong;
- Anytime a group of highly intelligent people make rules without a moderating influence, the rules are likely to be complex. All you have to do is examine “legalese” created by the legal profession, or at the legislative language in Congress created by a relatively insular group of legal bureaucrats to see how smart people isolated by groupthink can complicate something to near uselessness.
I don’t agree that the role best suited for athletics people is to “give evidence.” I think that without the moderating influence of direct experience having an actual voice in NCAA legislation, it is always doomed to hyper-complexity. It is easy for someone who doesn’t have to live by the rules to make them onerous and painful for those who do. In fact, making them onerous and painful is in the interests of those in the group who value academics far more than athletics. I don’t mean to paint with too broad a brush, but I am convinced that thinking exists in larger numbers than most people would like to believe.
As with anything, a lack of balance produces bad rules. What we have here is governance by philosopher-kings, and what we see is excess theory and not enough practicality in the results. Add to that the complicating factor of the tension between academics and athletics, and bad legislation is an almost guaranteed result.
Again, I claim no particular knowledge here, other than some disturbing conversations, and perhaps I shouldn’t let those conversations inform my thinking, but they do. My own life experience had me caught between athletics and academics, and even though being a “geek athlete” and winding up on the outside of both groups is an awkward and unlikely place to spend one’s life in school, that’s where I more or less wound up.
In the end, though, this is simply my opinion, and what you and I are having is a simple difference thereof :-).
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
As to the conference commissioners ...
… by my count, there are 8 athletics people there total, and 40 something presidents. I just think that’s laughably one-sided.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how it looks. As I said, I’m not advocating for athletics people to make the rules, just to have an unfiltered direct voice in the process in numbers sufficient to be meaningful, maybe 30% or so.
That does not seem unreasonable.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
I agree with your position, JL.
It’s all about who you ultimately want wagging the tail, University presidents who have responsibility for how college athletics fit into the context of the total university or a bunch of coaches/ADs who can’t even be trusted to abide by a few rules over the number and timing of phone calls. Whatever your feelings as to the complexity of the NCAA bylaws – they’re nothing compared to the Federal Penal Code or the Federal Register that regulates people’s lives and how business is conducted in this country.
Just in cas I wasn't clear.
I was not advocating in any way for athletics department people to run the NCAA. Let’s just get that straight.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Really?
I like to visit ASOB because of the thoughtful, adult (mostly) conversation about all things UK sports. It really is a bright spot on a web that often seems increasingly boorish. But I have to say, I found this entry laughably simplistic and not what I would expect of ASOB. Let me see if I have the argument: college and university presidents are pencil-necked geeks who wield a sword of revenge over athletes through the rules of the NCAA to avenge the supposed slights of their youths. Furthermore, those college and university presidents are thus bound to err in that rule-making because a.) they are ignorance of what athletics is all about, and/or b) they are blinded by their celibacy. Is that about right? And of course, the fact that college sports takes place by and for colleges is supervenient to that discussion. Look, I know NCAA rules are arcane and often simply dumb, and it may be because the people writing them are highly educated in very narrow fields which often leads to turgid (at least) writing but this entry that lays the blame on childhood slights is just weak, in my opinion. Come on now, really?
I had much the same reaction
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
Glenn is usually very cerebral.
So I would take this article as a little tongue in cheek summertime fun.
And I guess nobody has an opinion on what I posted? Oh well.. life goes on.
Actually, I am quite serious.
I think there is a problem here that people are invested in denying, and I think the utter lack of athletics input is a large heaping helping of it.
I am also convinced that, as a matter of life experience, academics who have lived through the university system often reach a kind of “groupthink” negative opinion about athletics. I had more than one professor in college express just this kind of sentiment, and even though it may not approach a majority, I do think it influences outcomes, and influences rulemaking.
How is it that the athletics department has absolutely no say whatever in rulemaking? How does that work? How has that been allowed to work for so many years? Under what rationale is it possible to conclude that is a good idea?
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
And I totally agree with you, Glenn.
There needs to be a happy medium between what the presidents establish as rules and what is practical in the world of AD’s/coaches.
There are probably some who think that way
But that’s a long way from concluding that those people, or that mindset, are responsible for the state of the NCAA. This sounds a lot like Bulverism to me.
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
What is actually missing, though ...
… is a desire that this should be so. I don’t desire to be right. In fact, I’d very much like to be proven wrong.
On the other hand, I have yet to receive an explanation of why it is a good thing for university presidents to have the only say in the rulemaking process, rules which do not directly affect them at all. Upon what experience, other than that of others, do these fine people draw? For me, rules without meaningful input from those affected are likely to wind up flawed, and from what I see, input from those effected is too diluted to be valuable, even given the most noble of intentions.
If that’s Bulversim, it wouldn’t be the first fallacy I’ve pulled out of the hat. It’s the first one I’ve had to look up in a while, though. :-)
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
I think I provided a good reason why the college presidents should be making the rules
I can’t think of very many areas in life in which organizations that must obey regulations are also involved in setting them. Government for one, but then – at least in America – there is balance by other people being able to remove the rule makers from that position via elections.
Students don’t get to set classroom rules, businesses don’t get to set economic policy or regulation, companies that must deal with waste do not set the environmental rules, etc. To me, this issue falls under the same category.
I see your point about providing balance and the desire to consider the real world consequences of rules, which is why I suggested testimony as a way for the athletic side to be heard. That puts Athletics in the same positions as students, businesses, companies, etc above – the ability to influence policy by presenting their own views directly to the ones setting regulations. That seems a perfectly appropriate way for them to be involved.
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
I have to ask this then jl.....how do you trust that those people
make decisions that are not biased or ineffective? Nor make them obfuscant to actually developing a long term solution to the problems they are facing?
In all seriousness, their track record over the last 30 years is not very good.
I am now and shall forever be the Cat in The Hat, The Artist Formerly Known As ABC!!!
by Greg Alan Edwards on Aug 8, 2011 7:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Laugahbly simplistic?
Let me see if I have the argument: college and university presidents are pencil-necked geeks who wield a sword of revenge over athletes through the rules of the NCAA to avenge the supposed slights of their youths.
Now this is laughably simplistic, but that’s not what I was saying.
What I am pointing out is that there is a tension between academics and athletics that goes back a long way, and denying it exists is just as simplistic as saying it is the only factor involved, which, by the way, I wasn’t.
The results have to speak for something. There is no argument whatever that the college presidents have done a miserable job at crafting the NCAA bylaws. Everyone knows this, even the NCAA’s defenders, of which I am one.
Nowhere did I say that college presidents were ignorant of anything, but I am convinced that many of them tolerate athletics more than embrace them. The nature of the NCAA rules, and the utter inability of these people to change them despite years of complaints from fans and analysts is just evidence that something is broken, and unfortunately, the only place to point the finger is at the people responsible.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Generally Speaking (A Perilous Practice)
I think you are correct in that academicians lean more toward the the theoretical than the practical, the abstract than the substantive, and thus strive for utopia which fundamentally leads to ever more complex rules and procedures — not at all unlike government. The solution it seems to me is (as suggested by more and more citizens and commentators of the sports world) a separation from the NCAA of those universities who recognize the economic and social power of athletics with a reorganization more along the lines of a professional consortium.
I say that fully accepting Mark Twain’s pithy comment:
"All generalizations are false, including this one."
"Statistics are no substitute for judgment" — Henry Clay (my namesake)
That is so.
And perhaps my brush was a touch too broad. It wasn’t really my intention to impugn every college president, but rather to point out what I consider (and this is just my opinion, of course) to be an elephant in the room.
I know from personal experience that an uncomfortable number of academics (for me, anyway) would rather sports not exist in college, and think it has no place there whatever. Perhaps that experience is misleading, but I don’t think so.
The results speak, and they speak loudly. Perhaps my diagnosis is off-base. If so, I’m open to suggestions as to why so many undeniably intelligent people can allow things to get to this point.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Depends on the discipline
I can only speak for my area (mathematics) but the majority of professors I know do applied work and are fully cognizant of the difference in practical application and theory. It has also been my experience that the caricature of the absent minded professor has about as much truth to it as that of the dumb, blockhead jock who can’t think past the next 5 minutes.
Age is always advancing. And I believe it's up to no good. - Harry Dresden
Elephants in the room
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and totally support Mr. Logan.
What some might just be forgetting is this: NCAA = National Collegiate ATHLETICS Association; not academics association.
There are plenty of very well-educated coaches and former players who could contribute to a far more balanced approach than Mr. Emmert and his cronies are offering. They wish to hide their heads in the sand, pretend everything is perfectly OK in their ivory tower and continue to make deca-millions of dollars from athletics with no input from the sources of that income.
The idea that the athletic consultants would just make wholesale changes to eliminate any rules they don’t like is not worthy of intelligent discussion.
But, for the athletic side of the equation to have to swallow every mandate and rule of an organization that would not exist without them is unfair and untenable.
For that organization to be able to enforce antiquated rules, resist revision and change and pretend they are acting in the best interest of the member institutions is simply wrong and needs to be addressed and rectified.
I’m very happy that this subject is coming to the fore.
I applaud the Jay Bilas’s and Glenn Logan’s for speaking their minds.
For far, far too long, the athletic departments of the member schools have had to endure the “it’s my way or the highway”.
This is not a one-way street.
I’ll be very interested to see where this road leads.
We all know where we would like the road to lead to for UKBB!
The problem I see in both sides of this
discussion is that neither the academics nor the athletics staffs are disinterested parties. If, as many seem to believe, the academics would downplay athletics and siphon off the sports dollars for more research and funding tenured positions and, as an equal number seem to think, the sports staffs would remove all rules and allow big money and shrewdness to rule, what is the answer?
Mine is to have disinterested third parties make the rules. Who, you ask? I volunteer. Of course, like many engineering majors, I tend to think in simple straight lines and you might not like my set of rules any better than you would like my solutions to the national debt issue.
One thing I do guarantee, however, is that my rules would be simpler and would be applied consistently—no loopholes, no “they didn’t know and should not have known” excuses, etc. My first order of business would be to smack K+8’s hand and then, just for good measure, I’d go find L+7 and ban him from basketball for eternity, retroactively to the “stomp.” Then I’d vacate every win he participated in. Oops, my rules are getting more complex. Hmmm.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .who spends himself for a worthy cause . . ."
I'll vote for you. :-)
In fact, consider this a nomination. :-)
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
Although this is going to sound a bit like my usual
broken record theme, the NCAA cannot continue to exist unless something happens along these lines. Glenns points are not only valid, they are crucial to the continuance of college athletics.
I would add this. If there are not some people brought in from outside, who are not beholding to the schools themselves, nothing is going to change. The concept of people policing themselves in this case is a waste of credibility at the very least.
I am now and shall forever be the Cat in The Hat, The Artist Formerly Known As ABC!!!
by Greg Alan Edwards on Aug 7, 2011 9:45 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Excellent post,btw Glenn.
Nice to see you coming around…….even if it’s only a little……LOL…..
I am now and shall forever be the Cat in The Hat, The Artist Formerly Known As ABC!!!
by Greg Alan Edwards on Aug 7, 2011 9:50 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I'm not coming around to anything, Greg.
Don’t view this through the lens of a changed mind, because it isn’t. I have never thought that the NCAA rules were anything but painfully complex, and unnecessarily so.
This retreat just provided an opportunity for me to voice my opinion that many, perhaps most of those making the rules are too insular and too far removed from the results of their legislation. Academia and athletics exist together, but largely separately, and have conflicting agendas that find their way into the rules in a negative way. That’s my opinion, anyway.
I still support the NCAA model, but it can always be improved. Having athletics get a direct voice would be an improvement, in my view.
A Sea of Blue -- Kentucky Sports for the Discerning Fan
My belief is that we are closer to being in agreement
Than you might think. I am all for the NCAA staying if they change the way they do business. My difference is that I don’t think they will change on their own.
I am now and shall forever be the Cat in The Hat, The Artist Formerly Known As ABC!!!
by Greg Alan Edwards on Aug 7, 2011 11:32 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
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