The NCAA just doesn't get it. They voted last week to change eligibility requirements, adding yet another rule that will serve only to hurt collegiate athletics in the long run.
The NCAA has a new president, Myles Brand, who will take office on Jan. 1. To get the NCAA back on the right track, Brand should start by overturning two existing rules as well as part of these new academic standards.
I start with the NCAA's 5/8 rule in men's basketball, which I consider the worst rule in all of sports. Division I men's basketball teams are allowed 13 scholarship players (two less than women's teams are allowed). Of these scholarships, the original rule said that no more than five can be used in one year and no more than eight can be used in any two consecutive years.
The rationale behind the rule was twofold: to prevent student-athletes from transferring or leaving early and also to prevent newly-hired coaches from starting their program anew by giving eight or nine scholarships in one year.
But the NCAA has to be kidding itself. A school gets punished because a player goes pro and can't replace him. Or a kid sees a better opportunity and transfers, but the school gets punished?
"Coaches are not going to keep kids from transferring," UNC men's basketball coach Matt Doherty said. "The 5/8 rule intent was that we were going to keep kids from transferring and that's not happening. We can't keep kids here if they have opportunities."
Doherty speaks from firsthand experience, having dealt extensively both with replacing players leaving school early and transfers. Should former Tar Heel Joe Forte have stayed in school because Doherty couldn't replace him immediately? No. Joe Forte should have stayed in school because he wasn't a good basketball player, but that is not the issue. Doherty could not keep Forte in school on the basis that the program would be hurt, yet Doherty gets punished.
Doherty also lost two players, Brian Morrison and Jonathan Boone, who transferred this past spring. Like any coach, he sat down and explained the situation to them: with three super-recruits coming in the fall, they would see less playing time. Morrison and Boone decided to transfer to maximize their own opportunities. Doherty wanted the best for these kids, and he knew they could succeed elsewhere. Yet he could do nothing to replace them this year, because he already had used his eight scholarships for two years.
"I'm utilizing nine scholarships on my team," Doherty said. "Four are not being utilized. That's ridiculous that I can't give David Noel [one of six freshman] a scholarship when one's available for my program but because of that 5/8 rule I can't use it. How stupid is that? Pretty stupid."
All of the coaches on the NCAA basketball issue committee were in favor of scrapping this rule. Instead, the NCAA made a curious change last fall. They changed the rule to 5/9 for last year and this year, with it reverting back to a modified 5/8 in 2003-2004. The modification only works if the number of players graduating or leaving school on pace to graduate within five years exceed the number of scholarships given that year, in which case the school gets a bonus scholarship. Confused? I am, and so is Doherty.
"I feel like we're getting ready to do a comedy skit here," Doherty said. "Who's on first? What's on second? I'm not 100 percent sure."
The major problem derives from the NCAA looking at rules in abstract without factoring in their real effects, a problem common to other legislation as well.
For example, the NCAA is trying to encourage schools to boost graduation rates for players. However, if a player transfers, he counts at his original school as a player who did not graduate even if he graduated at his new school.
Brand said last Monday that he would look to change this inane rule in what could be the first step forward for the NCAA.
"If you leave in good academic standing right now, it counts against a coach and that's not fair," Brand told the Associated Press. Exactly. A player that leaves in good academic standing should not be a factor in this equation.
But the NCAA went two steps back two weeks ago when it voted to make two changes for athletic eligibility. Both went too far, though they went to opposite extremes.
The first, which lowers the required SAT score if the student-athlete has a high GPA, is a step in the right direction, but is too generous. The previous 820 SAT cutoff for freshman eligibility had no sound basis and there were growing concerns on the potential cultural biases of the SAT. But to be eligible with the minimum score, a 400, if the athlete carries a 3.55 GPA is going too far. Only four percent of people nationally score under 700. Classroom performance should be the biggest indicator of an athlete's performance, but not the sole indicator.
This presents serious problems and the possibility of students ill-prepared for college. What compassionate high school teacher wants to be known as the one that kept a troubled athlete from a college scholarship? Grade inflation -- athletes getting all A's their senior year-- already has started to run rampant. Others might head to an unaccredited prep school like the Christopher Robin Academy in New York, which is known as an eligibility factory: it bolsters GPA's by giving high marks in one-credit courses for little or no work.
Once ill-prepared students are admitted, they will struggle to stay eligible for four years under the new requirements. Now, the athlete's GPA must be 90 percent of the GPA required for graduation (2.0 in required courses at Virginia) at the start of second year, 95 percent by the start of third year and at least the required GPA by fourth year.
What we are doing is holding athletes to a higher standard than other students. Should we limit the activities of any student entering his or her fourth year with less than a 2.0? This doesn't just apply to scholarship athletes -- it applies to all student-athletes.
"Their intention is to increase academic performance and graduation rates," Virginia football coach Al Groh said. "They've just tilted the scale toward achievement. I do think it now makes the athletes in many institutions held to a more stringent standard of performance than the average student."
The real effect will be to encourage any kid struggling in school to go pro. If a rising senior has less than a 2.0 but wants to pursue a career in professional sports, there is no reason to stay in school because he will not be eligible to play (primarily football players because their season is over by the time they can pull up their GPA).
So, while trying to encourage higher achievement, we make it too easy to become eligible as a freshman and then hold athletes to a higher standard once at school, arguably encouraging them to leave school early.
Don't forget that if it is a basketball player that leaves school, his coach can't even replace him.
This is the work of the NCAA, the same people that bring you the BCS. It looks like Brand has his work cut out for him.
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