I missed this SI story by Michael Rosenberg, originally published on August 31, about the NCAA exonerating UNC because there was nothing wrong with giving phony grades to athletes pretending to be students. I’m kind of glad I just read it, because the readers’ comments add some insight, some spice and, of course, some Penn State hatred.
The story highlights:
- How can NCAA justify its lack of action with UNC, but its punishment of others?
- UConn admitted its academic failures, paid the price; UNC gets away scot-free
- The NCAA has shown that it only cares about money and competition, in that order
The fact that UConn paid the price kind of shoots a hole in my theory that UNC got away scot-free because of the money they pull in for the NCAA basketball tournament, inasmuch as the UConn basketball program was also involved, and the punishment precludes the Huskies from participating in the 2013 tournament. On the other hand, one of the commenters stated that one of those making the decision not to do anything about UNC happened to be a UNC alum.
So, there’s a little more fuel added to the flaming NCAA saga.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
UConn’s ineligibility for the NCAA tournament was because of their APR score.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/apr-scores-ncaa-tournament-uconn-basketball-ban_n_1613102.html
If they were smart they would have followed the UNC model and lined their hoopsters up with some cake courses.
Unless those bad, bad Huskies violated some other NCAA statute that I’m not aware of?
I suppose the NCAA has to stick to its guns sometimes. Exempting UConn from the APR rules might have been an eye-opener. Someone might have caught on to the notion of institutional hypocrisy.
Shhh… At the moment, the NCAA’s arbitrary, subjective, hypocritical, pronouncements are flying well beneath the radar of the sports media.
[Extracting tongue from cheek.]
—TNT