Mike Slive’s sense of priorities

I’m not a lawyer, although I play one… whoops, almost forgot, I am a lawyer.  That doesn’t mean I grok Mike Slive’s self-serving BS about the Newton decision any better.

“The comments that we need to send a message should not be on the back of a student-athlete under the facts of this case where the established facts show that he was not aware of what his father did and he never received anything,” said Slive, referring to Newton’s father, Cecil Newton, who attempted to shop his son to Mississippi State for $180,000.

“[Cam Newton] is at a different institution than the one the father solicited, and the institution that he’s playing at, there’s no evidence that they did anything wrong. The message is better sent through improved legislation, clarifying and strengthening legislation to deal with this issue, and that’s what we’re going to do within these next few weeks.”

Slive made it clear that he fully supports the NCAA reinstatement committee’s decision.

“They took into consideration the No. 1 priority, which is the welfare of the student-athlete,” Slive said. “That was the No. 1 priority based on the facts of this case.”

That said, Slive agreed that the wording of the current NCAA legislation concerning the solicitation of a player was too vague.

“There’s no doubt that the legislation needs to be clearer so that the conduct of a father or the person involved needs to be made clearly a violation,” Slive said. “Then you work from there, and that’s what we will do. The SEC is anxious to be involved helping to create that legislation.”

What exactly is there to clarify?  Slive takes the position that penalizing the student-athlete is off the table in those cases where the student didn’t directly receive anything and didn’t know that someone else tried to solicit benefits.  And it’s not like the NCAA can regulate family members.  So what does Slive propose be done?  He doesn’t say, but my guess is that we’ll be looking at some meaningless window dressing.

Meanwhile, people much smarter than Cecil Newton will be sitting down trying to devise ways to game the system.  And they’ll succeed, too.  Because we all know what Slive’s No. 1 priority really is.

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UPDATE: And, gosh, how about this touching quote from the NCAA’s enforcement chief:

“When you’re talking about a National Collegiate Athletic Association, whose primary mission is to serve student-athlete well-being, then generally you land on the side of student-athlete welfare.”

Except at Georgia, where we didn’t land on the side of student-athlete welfare.  Student-athlete welfare landed on us.