Indianapolindependence

I was listening to David Glenn’s radio show yesterday, and he was asking his callers what the NCAA leaders should discuss and attempt to change at their current deliberative summit in Indianapolis.

Most of the discussion I heard revolved around somehow eliminating the rash of infractions that have recently popped up in places like USC, OSU, Auburn, and UNC. Much of that discussion suggested that the NCAA should make those things not infractions, i.e. by allowing pay-for-play. Glenn, in fact, brought up and discussed – mostly positively – a proposal from Jay Bilas that would allow college players to receive money from institutions or individuals that are not the university, like car dealers or tattoo artists, without forgoing the athletes' NCAA eligibility.

So, in other words, the primary question was: how can the NCAA ensure that its athletes are adequately compensated without NCAA institutions losing their integrity, their non-profit status and, frankly, their pompousness?

To me, the solution is fairly simple: don’t (essentially) force athletes who don’t belong or don’t think they belong in college to go to college. But that’s what the NBA and NFL do with their rules regarding draft eligibility. Those few athletes (and it is only a few) who should or think they should be in the professional leagues cause a number of the high-profile cases that stain the NCAA’s reputation (OJ Mayo and Reggie Bush, Cam Newton, Terrelle Pryor, Robert Quinn and Marvin Austin, etc.).

Removing those few athletes alone would completely alter the conversation surrounding NCAA rules and regulations. More importantly, allowing all players to enter the NFL and NBA drafts would provide athletes who either need or think they deserve money for their talents a more legitimate option than taking money under the table or trading bowl-game swag for tattoos.

But, even if the NCAA leadership determined that this change could help to solve its problems surrounding rules violations, these are the NBA and NFL’s rules so the NCAA can’t just vote to overturn them. There are a couple of options, however, for the NCAA to undertake to attempt to make these rule changes reality.

The first is simply to encourage the professional leagues to change their rules. The NCAA obviously has a lot of influence on the NBA and NFL since their fates are so intertwined. The NCAA should use that influence to make what I think is a fairly airtight argument against draft-eligibility restrictions.

The most important part of the argument, which I’ve discussed before (about a month ago in my last post), is that these restrictions are antithetical to the American ideals of personal freedom and reward for merit. This seems like a major problem.

In response to concerns that fresh-out-of-high-school players may not be ready for professional sports, the NCAA simply needs to point out that NFL and NBA teams aren’t required to draft every player who declares for the draft.

The going line of logic in the NFL seems to be that 19-year-olds couldn’t play with NFL players, but I have to imagine that some could. (DeSean Jackson probably hasn’t gotten that much bigger over the past six years.) NFL teams should have the option, not the requirement, to draft those players.

In the NBA, the distinction is even murkier considering some 18- and 19-year-olds have had significant impact in the league. Of course, players like Darius Miles and Kwame Brown didn’t. But that doesn’t mean the NBA should exclude those players from the league; it would be more prudent to exclude the Donald Sterlings and (it pains me to say this) the Michael Jordans of the league who thought it was a good idea to draft those players at 18 and 19 years of age.

And this is where the NCAA can stop talking at the professional leagues and actually take action to help mitigate this draft-eligibility-restriction problem. The NCAA rules in the draft/college eligibility dance can be a major roadblock for an athlete trying to communicate with professional teams or vice versa.

Players who don’t have dads in NBA front offices or on NBA benches often contact NBA teams through agents, but the NCAA doesn’t allow its athletes to hire or to even contact agents, which prevents or impedes teams from learning about players and players from learning about teams. The NCAA should certainly understand the value of good research, but it doesn’t allow the two parties to conduct it.

The NCAA is understandably concerned that athletes’ dealings with agents would lead to improper benefits for the athletes, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. (The term “hiring” of agents actually suggests the opposite: that agents will receive payment from the players.) The NCAA could – with the right amount of effort and resources – legalize agent contact while still outlawing the receipt of money or benefits from those agents.

The NCAA should also relax restrictions about players declaring for drafts, which include early withdrawal dates to retain college eligibility and a limited number of early-entry declarations without absolute commitment (in the NBA). I don’t see why an athlete shouldn’t be able to declare his eligibility for every draft until he is selected. The signed contract is a much better marker of professional status than a draft declaration.

Along with pressure on the professional leagues to change their draft eligibility rules, these simple changes to how the NCAA views athletes’ transitions to the pros should make those transitions easier on the athletes, which the NCAA presumably hopes to serve, and the professional teams, which are ultimately in charge of the draft eligibility rules.

The current rules regarding amateurism and eligibility seem draconian, confusing, arbitrary, and often counterintuitive. In any instance – sports or otherwise – that combination will lead to a lot of rule bending and breaking. To increase fairness for its athletes and compliance with its own rules, the NCAA should encourage and cooperate with a movement towards more inclusive draft eligibility standards for all professional sports leagues.

I don’t imagine this will solve all of the NCAA’s problems regarding rules violations. There will always be greedy college athletes and obliging schools and boosters. But it should eliminate a number of the high-profile cases, and more importantly, it would give the NCAA much more solid ground to claim that professional athletes shouldn’t be in its schools. With these changes, those who want to be professionals can simply leave.

Event of the Week:

Saturday. 7th Annual Pig Pickin’.