How the NCAA Failed

After two years of investigating, scandals, and controversies with the University of Miami the NCAA needs a change or the universities need to change it.

I am not going to go into detail with the case brought against Miami or the problems that have occurred with the investigation. Everyone knows about it and it would be really redundant to back into detail. All I am going to do is talk about how the NCAA needs to get it together if it wants to keep all the power it has.

For the past two decades the NCAA has bullied its way through several programs with the ideas that it had the authority to do it. SMU, Ohio State, Penn State, USC, etc. Sure these schools and Miami have committed infractions but did they warrant the punishment that they got.

Did SMU really deserve the death penalty?

I mean yes they did some things that should not have done but it didn’t warrant a closing of an entire college program. The NCAA harmed mostly the innocent with that ruling, as coaches and other personnel were without a job for a few years.

Was Penn State even under the jurisdiction of the NCAA during the Sandusky case?

The Jerry Sandusky case was not something for the NCAA to decide the punishment for the school. It was up to the United States Justice System to decide what should happen. Sandusky was one man in an entire program. He was a monstrous man that committed terrible crimes that needed to be taken up to the law. Penn State fired its athletic coordinator and legendary head coach Joe Paterno because of the situation because they were negligent to the horror of a sick man. The NCAA had no right to add insult to injury by fining the program, taking away scholarships, and harming everyone in the school. They didn’t go after the perpetrators but the innocents.

I have never agreed to the power that the NCAA possessed. They shouldn’t be able to kill entire programs just because a rule was broken. All the powerful schools do the same things in order to one up their competitions. So the NCAA targets one of them just so they can say, “Oh we got one, yeah!”.

When we get to the Miami situation it really shows how much the NCAA tries to overreach itself.

During the investigation the Hurricanes put two self imposed postseason bans. Thats more than Ohio State had to serve and more than USC. But then its said “Miami’s crime was more severe, it deserves worst, like the Death Penalty.” That in itself is ridiculous. No program deserves the Death Penalty because it doesn’t help anyone and it only harms the innocents. Plus the crime of giving benefits to students shouldn’t be that bad of a crime.

Lets say your a college kid that is broke and playing football. You have to wait until Junior year before you can declare for the draft to make some money. What the hell are you gonna do for food? You practice all the time to make yourself better, so you can’t get a job. Your parents are barely making enough for your education so they can’t help you too much. College players need to make money some how and if someone tells you they will pay you just so you can play football, I’d probably say yes.

I mean its a little ridiculous that the penalties the NCAA give out don’t try to target a specific group that caused the infraction but everybody that is even close to the program. Even if they have nothing to do with the allegations.

But we finally saw what happened when it screws up an investigation. They wasted time in Miami, they failed to use Shapiro’s evidence to good use and they had a conflict of interest that was embarrassingly stupid to make out how bad the investigation was. They had to fire the chief enforcement officer because of how poorly everything went.

Miami got a sliver of light in the tunnel of NCAA of ruling darkness and they pounced on it. Now they are daring the NCAA to sentence them which will only make them look worse in the process. Miami may be able to get out of this scott free, basically opening it  up for other programs to beat the the NCAA. We have already seen a preview of this with Oregon. I think the NCAA was afraid to sentence anything serious against Oregon because of the situation Miami.

The NCAA has immensely failed at something that it was the king at a few years ago. There needs to be a change or the system will collapse on itself. The programs are smelling blood in the water and they may be ready to pounce at any moment. If the NCAA doesn’t work itself out then we may a see a college sports world without them. This is an extreme, obviously, but there could be a possibility.

But the question is, Can they fix themselves?

Do we even want them to fix themselves?