The latest NCAA “scandal” involves the University of Michigan’s college football program. In reports stemming from interviews with current and former players in the program, the Detroit Free Press has written that the Michigan Wolverines’ football program is guilty of breaking NCAA rules that stipulate a player should spend no more than 20 hours every week on mandatory football practices and activities.
Any college football writer or analyst, who believes players at major Division I programs spend no more than the NCAA mandated 20 hours per week average should re-evaluate their chosen career. Let’s assume Michigan head coach, Rich Rodriguez is lying and the Wolverines’ football players are spending more than 20 hours a week. The culprit in this latest NCAA rules transgression is none other than the NCAA governing body.
The rules which govern college sports programs are archaic and unrealistic. These rules and regulations that have been in place controlling the actions of players and programs in football and other major sports belong in a past era and have no grip on the current environment in major college sports.
When millions of dollars in donations from universities, donors and boosters are being pumped into major sports programs, results are expected. Results have lead to far more pressure, which has led to programs searching for ways to circumvent the rules in an attempt to reach expectations.
NCAA football, meanwhile continues to suffer from the belief that 20 hours is sufficient time in a week for players to know their game plan, implement it in practice, study game film of themselves and their opponent, do conditioning work and lift weights. Back in the 1940’s twenty hours was enough, but the extent to which the game has developed at present it is absolutely absurd to expect players and coaches to be able to follow this rule.
The unreal expectations with which college sports are governed is certainly not strictly limited to football.
Does anyone really think it was a crime for O.J. Mayo to take some money from a sports agent when he was busy reviving a USC basketball program, helping them fill the stands?
Are we going to forget that Memphis reached the Final Four with Derrick Rose leading the team and that they won 38 games or are we too devastated by the knowledge Rose may have had somebody take the SAT for him to get a qualifying score?
NCAA basketball has become an absolute joke with the NBA forcing players to attend school for one year before they become eligible for the draft. It has created scenarios where players such as O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose and others who grew up expecting and preparing to enter the NBA after high school had to change plans for a year and attend a university, because of a rule that was forced upon them.
These are just a few instances which show that though college sports are now a major business, they are still governed like local youth recreational leagues. What really needs to be examined and re-evaluated here are these ridiculous rules and regulations that nearly every program needs to violate in order to be able to compete.
Meanwhile any real story of substance that should cause a national uproar such as the case involving Daniel Hood, receives little national press. If you aren’t familiar with the story, Hood is a tight end who has received a football scholarship to the University of Tennessee, though he was tried as a juvenile at the age of 13 and found delinquent in a case where he stood watch as a 17 year-old friend, raped his 14 year-old first cousin.
There are a number of issues with college sports that I could delve into, but they all stem from the same problem; the NCAA’s inability to adjust to the times and change their rules and regulations accordingly. Instead we are stuck now with college sports scandals that create no sense of controversy among the general public in the current college sports environment.