The recommendations for how to improve college basketball issued by an “independent” commission led by Condoleeza Rice doled out a lot of blame for the current state of the sport, but placed none of it on the NCAA itself.
There’s a very good reason why the NCAA publicized the announcement of the Rice Commission recommendations and now proudly displays them on its own web site. The recommendations from the supposedly-independent commission were a toeing of the company line that had all the nuances of an expertly-crafted crisis management press release.
Rice, making the announcement herself live on Twitter on Wednesday, April 25, summed up the commission’s recommendations with the succinct statement of “it’s time to put the college back in college basketball.” What the commission recommended is a strengthening of the NCAA’s roles in the lives of its athletes who play basketball, but completely ignores that it is part of the situation the commission was formed to address.
In the recommendations, the blame for the current state of college basketball is placed upon apparel companies, agents, youth leagues, the NBA and “others who seek to profit from their [athletes’] skills.” That statement conveniently ignores that among those seeking to profit off the skills of college basketball players are the NCAA and its member institutions. The commission called upon apparel companies to increase their transparency of their dealings with schools, restrictions upon agents to be tightened, the NCAA to have a more watchful role over youth leagues and the NBA to remove its age requirement for eligibility into the draft.
On the subject of allowing players to profit off the use of their own image, likeness and name as a basketball player — which is currently impermissible under NCAA rules and would fix a lot of the issues which has led to the current FBI investigation — the commission was conveniently completely mum.
The lone recommendation seemingly aimed at the NCAA itself was that independent individuals and/or groups be appointed by the NCAA to investigate and adjudicate “major” infractions. That “independence” could turn out to be a red herring if the selections are made by the NCAA, however. If the Rice Commission is any indication of how that independence will pan out, then such a body would indeed be independent in name only.
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It’s important for fans to remember that these are only recommendations, and the Rice Commission has zero authority to compel the NCAA to adopt any of them. That’s perhaps the largest reason the NCAA trumpets them from upon high. They are nothing but the NCAA vilifying everyone else involved in college basketball while painting an unrealistically altruistic portrait of itself.