Ryan Boatright Vs The NCAA

of the super conference concept and saying goodbye to the NCAA look better every time we see a story like this.

But let’s assume that we aren’t going to disband the NCAA because an NYT columnist got his panties in a twist, or that the 10,000th bleeding-heart story about how poor little so-and-so is suffering at the hands of the big, bad, NCAA just isn’t enough to undo the organization.

[No comment necessary.]

So what should the NCAA do here?

Personally, for starters I would love to see a list from the NCAA of the families that have surrendered their bank records and financial sheets to (as many as) four NCAA investigators and been interrogated on their bank deposits. I would be interested to see all of the entries under the “head of household” column. I wonder what kind of diversity we would find there, and how many entries we would see for: lawyer, CEO, VP, etc.., as compared to “single mother on modest income.”

So what should the NCAA do here? Make an exception? Pat Boatright on the head, say "We’re sorry for doing our jobs, we didn’t know your plight was so evil?"

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the NCAA should be doing under its current tome of rules and regulations on family finances and the sanctity of amateurism- if that is what you are asking. That is up to them.

Or were you wanting the answer to be, “Follow the letter of the (not a) law, Glenn.” That would certainly be the easy answer, would it not? Black and white. No real thinking or introspection necessary.

It is time for this particular institution to become a footnote in a history book. And it is time for the rest of us to man up and admit that college football and basketball ceased being amateur sports years ago. There are padded bank accounts of university officials and coaches to prove it. Not that they will ever be investigated alongside Tanesha Boatright’s.

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to the wolves, but they crawl up the backside of a single mom trying to support her family, and claim “sorry ma’am, just doin’ my job”

To quote John Cougar Mellencamp, “callin’ it your job ol’ hoss, shore don’t make it right, but if you want me to I’ll say a prayer for your soul tonight”

Hundreds of reforms have been offered up to the NCAA….they choose to avoid most of them like the plague……I have given up on the idea of reform, but I will still cry foul if I fell like the situation warrants it.

Does the NCAA send 4 investigators to check out every recruit? No.

Yes, they do. Every recruit that is credibly accused of breaking the rules. See Enes Kanter, and Renardo Sidney, as well as Josh Selby for details, and see my comment in reply to HSLex.

So I would contend that they are treating them the same. They had a credible allegation, and they followed up. That’s fair, isn’t it?

Treat all the kids the same. Make the rules apply equally to everyone. If you investigate one kid for a week, you investigate all kids for a week. If one kid rates incestigators going through his or her families bank records…then they all do. No more selective and non standard treatment of student athletes.

Why do you think this is selective? They went through the records of Kanter, and Sidney, and Selby, and others. As to the time frame, do you really think that’s reasonable? If the evidence leads you across the state, out of the country, or into a maze of confusing transactions, are the investigators just to throw up their hands and say, “Oops, this will take over a week. Gotta let this pass.” ?

You are alleging that the NCAA treated Boatright differently than the others. Can you show that to be true? So far, I haven’t seen anyone else make that claim. The former boyfriend of Boatright claimed that Reggie Rose (remember him?) paid for a ticket for his mother that was not reimbursed. That turned out to be true, and a violation. That same man is now making claims that another violation occurred. Is the NCAA supposed to ignore that, especially given that the fist tip was accurate?

I agree that everyone should be treated the same. Do you think that if this were a rich kid at Duke and not a poor kid at UConn the NCAA would do something different? Can you support that with evidence?

I don’t think it would be fair to investigate one and not the other, no matter who had the money and who didn’t. That seems to be what you’re saying, but do you really mean it?

Obviously someone in the NCAA decided this was not enough, and then proceeded to cause his further suspension from playing. To me this goes much further than whether the NCAA was right or wrong about the air fare, it has to do with the fairness of the process. They made their ruling, and then seemingly arbitrarily decided to change it. Sound familiar? Get out your “Free Enes” t-shirts.

Here’s the NCAA rule in question:

13.2.10 Benefits for Prospective Student-Athlete’s Family Members. An institutional staff member may provide a benefit to a member of the prospective student-athlete’s family, provided: (Revised: 5/11/05)
(a) The family member has a pre-existing established relationship with the institutional staff member; and
(b) The benefit provided is consistent with the nature and level of benefits that the institutional staff member has provided to the family member prior to the prospective student-athlete starting classes for the ninth grade.

You are accusing the NCAA of bad faith. You may be right, but you have shown me no evidence to support that theory, and neither has the writer of the series. He’s just venting his spleen about the fact that the NCAA’s version of due process is not consistent with his idea of what it should be. I am even somewhat sympathetic to that viewpoint, but as I have discussed before, that is more the result of their lack of subpoena power than anything else. It sucks, but it has a rational basis even if we don’t like it.

Nice "straw man" argument there, but no not all of us fall into that neat little box.

Fair enough. I apologize for the generalization.

Oh Glenn! Hopefully you are regretting this sentence by now. It is not worthy of you, let’s see he must be wrong since he writes and lives in NYC, is that an homophobic jab with the “panties” comment? And since when is empathy for others, or as you put it “bleeding heart”, a crime. If you can’t think of a dozen cases from the past year where NCAA has made a ruling that had you fuming from it’s stupidity or inconsistency, then perhaps you need to see your physician about being tested for Alzheimer’s.

Oh, Bard. My reference had nothing to do with either the location or the publication, and frankly, I’m not clever enough to come up with a “homophobic” (Dude, seriously?) reference like that. You are reading things in there that don’t exist.

Empathy is one thing, but that’s not what this is. It is a rejection of authority based on emotionalism, and frankly, I have a problem with that. I sympathize with the young man, but unfortunately, good people get caught up in the gears of adults machinations all the time.

While I often disagree with the NCAA rules as they are written, and the fact that they don’t always seem to apply them consistently. But so far, I haven’t seen that in this case. They applied one rule consistent with many other cases, like Selby’s and Sidney’s, just to name two, and suspended Boatright for six games. They got a second allegation that they are investigating, and the school decided to sit Boatright until it is resolved. I see nothing inconsistent about that. In fact, it looks quite consistent to me.

So what is it, exactly, that is unworthy of me there? Writing something that you read nefarious motives into that didn’t exist? Okay, guilty. Feel better?

I think I have answered that above, but to summarize, I want the NCAA to be fair and consistent. I want them to make the punishment fit the crime, not keep raising the ante, without apparent reason. I don’t think they are anything approaching fair or consistent currently.

Fine. In what way, exactly, have they been inconsistent in Boatright’s case. For the life of me, I don’t see it. And if you aren’t talking about his case at all, well, I beg your pardon for unfairly mischaracterizing your opinion.