The NCAA likes to paint a rosy picture about student-athletes thriving in the classroom and overcoming great odds to succeed on the field, but the truth is the world of organized amateurism is in disarray. College athletics is a mess, and it’s something the NCAA needs to address, but can it? More importantly, does it really want to?
Sure, Mark Emmert and his team would love to nail North Carolina, but it hasn’t been able to yet. The situation at Baylor keeps getting worse by the day, but is there anything the NCAA can do? Probably not. There are allegations of players getting paid at Ole Miss and then the sticky situation currently playing out at Pitt. While Pitt is hardly the first and won’t be the last, it’s merely the current university making news for denying a student-athlete’s wish to transfer to a certain institution. Leaving many to ask, if a student-athlete is not an employee, why are restrictions placed upon student-athletes when they try and transfer.
While none of these questions have clear-cut, easy answers, in which everyone comes out like a winner, one thing is clear. The NCAA must fix this mess now, or at least begin taking steps to fix its problems, beginning with North Carolina.
The NCAA’s own mission statement claims “Our purpose is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.”
But when one looks closely at the NCAA’s case and North Carolina’s response it leaves many wondering, how important really is integrating intercollegiate athletics into higher education?
An interesting point about the allegation that the NCAA has no jurisdiction in athletics. This claim came about because UNC says the school wasn’t treating players special. It was a sham class for all students, so it’s not their business. But, the NCAA controls eligibility beyond what a school may require. So if this lands in UNC’s favor it calls into question whether the NCAA can restrict eligibility beyond a school’s own standards.
The biggest question becomes how. While its system of keeping student-athletes labeled as amateurs works best for the NCAA and its member institutions, it’s a model at the end of the day that leaves many student-athletes feeling used and abused.