Grip on Sports: The NCAA wants to grab more power over basketball but should it have it?

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The NCAA has made its big announcement. The organization, under fire since the FBI decided to use its weight investigating the money pit that is college recruiting, says it wants to change its ways. But will it work? Read on.
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• Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dealt with rogue nations, political conventions and the Stanford faculty lunchroom. But one has to wonder if she’s ever had to deal with a more byzantine institution than the NCAA. The complexity of the organization’s recruiting rules, its lack of transparency and its general vindictiveness may be beyond the pale of anything Rice has dealt with over the years.
We will find out over the course of the next few months if the NCAA is really committed to implementing reform, even the not-really-going-to-fix-much reforms proposed by Rice’s committee.
Let’s recap: About seven months ago the FBI and a federal prosecutor in New York shook the basketball recruiting world with charges and indictments of college assistants, shoe company employees and would-be agents. Since then, the NCAA, the organization that oversees college athletics, has been playing the role of Captain Renault, basically saying it was shocked to find out such corruption was occurring. And that something had to be done about it.
Hence Rice’s commission. And its recommendations.
Reading through the commission’s proposals, proposals NCAA president Mark Emmert wants turned into rules by the end of summer, it’s obvious the organization wants more control over basketball and basketball players before those players enter college – if they do at all.
In simpler words, more power.
But should the NCAA have it?
That’s the $6 billion-dollar question. Can the NCAA be trusted with the power to give coaches a lifetime ban, the power to milk every dollar out of grassroots basketball, the power to approve agents?
The past tells us no. Resoundingly no.
The NCAA, like all organizations, is made up of people. And people, no matter who they work for, can be exemplary. But they also can be corrupt, can be petty, can be haughty. Most of all, though, they can be vindictive.
If you don’t believe they are already, then you haven’t been paying attention.
There is a trial going on in Los Angeles documenting all those traits in the case of USC football, Reggie Bush and Bush’s family. The plaintiff in the case is Todd McNair, the former USC assistant coach. He might not be St. Francis of Assisi, but he also probably isn’t the Boris Badenov as the NCAA portrayed him. There just isn’t enough evidence to support his show-cause ban.
And yet here we are, years after the sanctions were handed down – and their expiration – in a courtroom trying to figure out why the NCAA had folks who seemed to be out to get McNair and USC.
This is the organization that had one member institution protect Jerry Sandusky and another employ Larry Nassar, that organization that a couple years ago made it harder for anyone to see how the millions in shoe money was spent at its colleges and universities, the organization that did not punish a school, North Carolina, for holding fake classes for athletes, the organization that let Baylor basically skate after years and years of sexual assaults.
And it wants more power?
That doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.
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WSU: Spring football in Pullman is over until next year. Next up for the Cougars is the opener Sept. 1 at Wyoming. Theo Lawson was at the last spring practice yesterday – the one held in the best weather – and has this story, looking at the progression of center Fred Mauigoa. Theo also has video of interviews with assistant coach Matt Brock and players Jahad Woods, Dezmon Patmon, Nick Begg as well as Mauigoa. … Larry Weir’s latest Press Box pod is with WSU announcer Matt Chazanow. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, a linebacker at Oregon is finally healthy. … An Arizona State freshman is threatening a venerable baseball record. … UCLA has another player testing the pro basketball waters. … Arizona’s basketball recruiting is reaching a critical stage. … Washington’s Vita Vea may go in tomorrow’s first round. … Finally, this story is the most fun one of the day.
EWU: It will be official this morning, but Jim Allen breaks the news Lynn Hickey, who has been the interim, is Eastern’s choice as the fulltime athletic director. This is not a huge surprise.
Preps: It was beautiful yesterday afternoon, so it must have been fun competing in golf or soccer or tennis or softball or baseball.
Mariners: It was one of the best-pitched games of the year for the M’s and it came from Marco Gonzales. He shut out the White Sox for six innings and then the bullpen finished the job in the 1-0 win. Mitch Haniger supplied the one run. … Jayson Werth is ready to go in Tacoma. … Wade LeBlanc ate some key innings the other day. … Kyle Lewis is back.
Seahawks: The Hawks gave Sebastian Janikowski the best kicker contract. … The running game needs some juice – and some love. … There are no sacred numbers right now. Or sacred positions. The Hawks need secondary help.
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• Let’s be clear. The way basketball recruiting works right now is broken. But the NCAA seems heck bent on being in charge of youth basketball. USA Basketball is already trying to slowly wrest control of it, as well it should. The NCAA needs to take a back seat, though it should throw its weight behind anything USA Basketball wants to do. Until later …