Fans need to speak up. Tell Congressional co-sponsors that you support passage of The NCAA Accountability Act.
“North Carolina ruling proves NCAA is useless,” says Yahoo! Sports Pat Forde. He’s right. After years of investigation, last Friday a NCAA panel ruled that there were no major violations in an academic fraud case that spanned years and affected over one thousand students.
NCAA
The reason? Non-athletes benefitted, too, concluded the NCAA (see panel to the right). The NCAA also said: “Based on both the information available in the record and North Carolina’s support of the courses that were offered as not violating its policies, the panel could not conclude that the university failed to monitor or lacked control over its athletics program.”
-18 years of academic fraud.
-Over 1000 athletes enrolled in sham classes.
-Perpetrated by a faculty member who also served as a department chair, assisted by that department’s executive staff member.
And the reason, again? Forde answered: “NCAA bylaws basically say that if you’ve got a sham degree program available to the general student population at your school, and it just so happens that a high percentage of athletes are in that program, that’s your issue and not ours.”
What do fans think about this? Here’s a sampling of comments from just one mainstream source (USA Today).
The NCAA’s rationale is technically/legally correct. Doesn’t make it right. If I understand this correctly, there were forged signatures, papers that were “ghost” written, and I’m sure numerous things too lengthy to mention. Yes. That sounds like something that everyone should be able to get away with.
Since other students, who were not athletes benefited from the fraud, that makes it ok? WOW! This is your NCAA at its worst. What a joke!
No credibility at all.
NCAA = toothless.
So the NCAA has basically approved “no-show classes” that require very little work ….”
UNC admits students were given grades in classes they didn’t attend, but as long as it doesn’t affect sports all is good. Fan comment, USA Today
Just goes to show how corrupt the NCAA is. Selective enforcement, anyone?
Selective outrage at athletic program abuses. If you bring in enough TV money, you’re safe.
What a pathetic joke. This is asinine.
This is outrageous! There is obviously one standard for favored, “blue-blood” schools, and another one for everyone else. This episode should put an end to the NCAA as we have known it.
What an effing joke.
Courtesy: Philly.com
That joke is on us – the fans. It shows us, once again, that the NCAA can’t manage its own affairs. It IS toothless. A membership organization (of universities), the NCAA protects its members. In so doing, it turns major college sports upside down—something to be ashamed of.
Yes, the NCAA is awfully good at marketing athletics and making money. It’s awfully good at something else, too … protecting itself. Last week The Miami Herald reported that the NCAA has spent nearly $2 million dollars on lobbying since 2014. A primary target is Congress. At issue is promoting organizational priorities and deflecting attention from matters that might hamstring the NCAA. One target on the latter side: derail attempts to pass The NCAA Accountability Act.
That Act, proposed in 2013 and introduced by Rep. Charles Dent (R-PA) and Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), is by no means the last word in reform, but it’s certainly a major start. In was reintroduced n 2015 with two additional co-sponsors–Rep. John Katko (R-NY) and Bobby Rush (D-IL). The action was taken, said Dent, because “the NCAA has a disturbing amount of inconsistency with its enforcement process that grows with each investigation, and profit and big business has trumped health, safety, and educational achievement. The time has come for the NCAA to get back to its original purpose.”
Among other things, the proposed bill establishes “a Presidential Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics to review, analyze, and report to the President and Congress on the interaction of athletics and academics, the financing of intercollegiate athletics, the recruitment and retention of student-athletes, oversight and governance practices, health and safety protections for student-athletes, and due process and other protections related to the enforcement of student-athlete rules and regulations.”
It time for fans to speak up and support this legislation. It’s not disloyal to support your school and demand NCAA reform. Contact Rep. Dent, Rep. Beatty, Rep. Katko, and/or Rep. Rush. Let them know you care about college sports and that you want the NCAA to become an accountable organization. Tell them that the UNC ruling was the last straw.
