(02-01-2019 11:30 AM)JRsec Wrote: (02-01-2019 11:03 AM)arkstfan Wrote: The NCAA has twice encountered a situation where it wanted to punish someone for egregious behavior but had no authority to do so because no rule on the books made the conduct a violation of NCAA rules.
Each time the NCAA tried to bluff its way through.
Penn State was reeling and agreed to accept punishment at a time emails were circulating among NCAA officials wringing their hands over what would they do if Penn State called their bluff.
North Carolina sat down with the NCAA enforcement staff and the NCAA laid out the depravity of the university and a lawyer for UNC LITERALLY tossed an NCAA manual across the table and told the NCAA staff member to turn to the page that has the rule UNC violated.
Everyone can stomp their little feet and complain about the NCAA and UNC and the fact of the matter is UNC didn't break an NCAA rule with the classes because no one ever dreamed anyone would do such thing and never passed a rule that applied to the situation.
It's like the "murder zone" of Yellowstone Park in Idaho where a crime that would entitle you to a jury cannot be held because there are no eligible jurors so you cannot be tried for the crime that took place there.
UNC found the perfect loophole. The NCAA wanted to hammer UNC but UNC called their bluff.
The absurdity over the inability to punish heinous acts merely highlights the inefficacy of the governing structure and screams for a need to replace it. Alston may make the need to do so moot, since we would no longer be promoting amateur sports.
Right, well, and you pose the last resort: the courts. There are stop-guards all along the way for this stuff, and it always starts with the university itself. Local and state government, accrediting bodies, DoE, federal legislation...they all look like they drop the ball on this.
UNC is a good example of how to play the NCAA on this. Discover a big issue, and make the NCAA do its own work. Which, in its current state, doesn't. And the accrediting body is just academic peers writing letters and resistant to doing the big things (but have less issues dropping hammers on two-year and industry schools).
Penn State exposed how enforcement is overall. NCAA judges based only on Freeh. NCAA doesn't do their own report, which the government/DoE needs to render decisions on matters such as Clery. DoE was incapacitated by the lack of an independent review by the NCAA. It wasn't going to render a decision with just the school-issued report. Meanwhile, you have the state government getting involved mad as heck about whether the school was using state funds to pay for the fine, and the school was like, "you don't know what money we use, nor do we have to tell you," and the state has to back off.
It's all around failure. And it takes stuff like the courts to figure only shreds of it. But, it really shouldn't be this bad. All of the stop-guards up to the courts fail to perform.
Nobody should be working with the NCAA in these matters because of the awful inconsistencies and fecklessness in their enforcement. However, the schools are still doing the right thing. They're just failed by the NCAA.