As the snow melts from the rapidly rising spring temperatures spreading across the country, an exciting time of year is set to embark on 65 universities that will qualify to compete in the NCAA basketball tournament later this month.
Basketball lovers like me call this pure state of euphoria “March Madness”. Despite the last second shots and excitement the big dance gives television viewers across America, the NCAA is constantly receiving black eyes by stupid universities who cannot follow and abide by college rulebooks.
I am talking about the recent string of scandals that have rocked the college basketball world in the past month.
In the month of March alone, four major universities have reported NCAA infractions in their basketball programs.
At the University of Georgia, former basketball player Tony Cole accused head basketball coach Jim Harrick and his son Jim Harrick, Jr. of breaking NCAA rules. Cole accused Harrick Jr. of paying his bills, doing his schoolwork and teaching a sham basketball coaching class in which he never attended and received passing grades in.
Georgia is now banned from postseason conference and NCAA play. Both Harrick men have been suspended with pay until further notice.
At Villanova University in Philadelphia, 12 basketball players were suspended for the season after using a school access code to make phone calls. Villanova now only has seven players on its entire roster to finish the season.
St. Bonaventure University in New York was stripped of the teams’ six league victories and barred from postseason play when a transfer player was ruled ineligible for violating NCAA junior transfer guidelines. A day later, the players decided to boycott the final two games of the season.
St. Bonaventure will now worry about being banned from the Atlantic 10 conference for refusing to play its final two games.
Fresno State was also barred from postseason play because of incidents of academic fraud discovered by the university.
Although the violations hurts the integrety of collegiate sports, I am most upset over Univerisity leaders who place the blame entirely on the athletic department.
When an athletic program violates an NCAA rule, it is the fault of the entire university for hiring idiots as athletic directors or coaches who do not know or follow the rules indicated by the NCAA.
The NCAA is like a mean parent. It creates strict rules that it mandates every one of its children to follow. If the children do not follow the rules, they will get punished and grounded.
It is the same way for college athletics. If a university violates an NCAA rule, it gets punished or put on probation.
If a school is put on probation, it could lose everything from an allotment of athletic scholarships to money from not participating in conference and NCAA tournaments.
In order to avoid this, every university in America should emphasize on making sure every person from the athletic director down to the trainers and student-athletes understand every rule and consequence the NCAA implies.
If someone within the program wants to bend the rules and go against the NCAA’s wishes, universities should simply rid itself from rule breakers who bring black eyes, probation and negative criticism.
The NCAA means business and shows no mercy to disobedient athletic programs. If an infraction is discovered, everyone involved goes down.
And as the old saying goes, “All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch.” This is extremely true in the dictatorship world ruled by the NCAA.