two paragraphs from today’s Tony Barnhart post illustrate what stinks about the haphazard approach the NCAA has taken in upholding its sacred amateurism guidelines:
**–Agent gate: One bad decision by one of the game’s premier players (A.J. Green), basically wrecked Georgia’s season. An agent throws a South Florida party for underclassmen because the benefit far outweighs the risk. This problem is not going away. It is only going to get worse if something doesn’t change–and quickly. Unfortunately, the NCAA doesn’t do much of anything quickly. They need to open up the proccess (sic) and get these kids talking to agents much earlier in their careers.
…
**–And then there was the Ohio State ruling, which suspended five players for selling stuff given to them by the school. But the NCAA allowed the suspensions to start after they played in the Sugar Bowl. Critics jumped on the NCAA and college football because it appears both are making these rules up as they go along. The ruling made no sense unless you believe Ohio State’s claim that their players had not been instructed on the rules. I don’t.
A.J.’s transgression had nothing to do with any South Beach party, at least not directly. The NCAA got on his trail as a result of an allegation on an Internet gossip site that he attended one. The rumor didn’t check out, but that didn’t stop the NCAA from investigating his personal finances, which led to the discovery of his sale of a game jersey. The player and the school, it should be noted, cooperated fully, hid nothing and acknowledged that a mistake was made. All of which led to the maximum penalty after the NCAA took considerable time to rule, adding uncertainty to Georgia’s game preparation in the early part of the season. (As things turned out, it couldn’t have been any worse for the school to have played him in the first three conference games, could it?)
Contrast that with Tatgate. Even Barnhart doesn’t buy the fig leaf the NCAA placed over the facts to justify letting the ineligible players take part fully in the 2010 season. And let’s not forget that Ohio State is appealing the ruling and asking the NCAA to reduce the suspension of those players to four games next season, conveniently in time for conference play. If the appeal is granted, the lesson to be learned is that it pays to lie about the compliance procedures in place at an institution. No doubt Mark Emmert will attempt an explanation, all the while castigating those who would accuse his organization of double standards galore.
All in all, pretty nauseating.
Get The Picture 
Barnhart’s wrong. The NCAA decision on Ohio State doesn’t make sense even if you DO believe Ohio State’s explanation that the players didn’t know they were doing wrong. Ignorance of the rules has NEVER been allowed as a defense by the NCAA before. In fact, if the NCAA actually buys that load of garbage, then they need to hammer Ohio State for lack of institutional control. It’s the school’s job to make sure the players know the rules. Hell, if I’m Greg McGarity and I’m looking at the last 365 days in NCAA enforcement, the first thing I’m doing is committing to never being open and helping the NCAA in an investigation again. AJ Green learned that it doesn’t help. Second, I’m firing my entire compliance staff and never again holding a rules seminar for my athletes. If you keep them ignorant of everything, they’ll probably never be punished for anything.
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McGarity may want to be uncooperative, but I don’t think he has that choice.
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You’re probably right Stoop but maybe he can influence Adams to be more hard line instead of just rolling over. Hindsight is 20-20 but knowing what we know now the AJ thing should have been handled very differently by UGA from the getgo.
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Let’s not forget the elephant in the room…talk about making up the rules as they go along / convenient, incongruent interpretations. Still too sick to even talk about it.
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Dramatic re-enactment of what happens at a typical nsfw NCAA Rules Committee meeting:
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How do we fix corruption in the NCAA? I mean, either the organization is entirely corrupt, or horrendously inept. Neither one is very comforting, given that they can exert such influence on the outcome of the football season.
The entire organization needs to be dismantled and replaced with different people. They seriously rival the US government as a dysfunctional bureaucracy.
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The US Govt got nothing on the ACC government when it comes to dysfunctional.
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Always lie to the NCAA and don’t give them anything that can be of value to their investigation but say you have fully disclosed.AJ Green made a mistake, when the NCAA asked him for his bank statements he should have said go F yourself and hired a lawyer. Nothing scares the NCAA like a lawyer that will use the courts to turn their rock over and let the public see the stuff that crawls out. Sometime in the near future a player is going to sue the NCAA about his eligibility and the whole house of cards will come down.
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I want to know who told AJ to give them his bank statements.
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While it may sound good at this moment…. to involve legal counsel to advance this cause, I’m thinking that the NCAA may have a few attorneys of their own. It’s been my personal experience that those with the most attorneys on their team and deepest pockets win. Regardless of right or wrong.
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“It’s been my personal experience that those with the most attorneys on their team and deepest pockets win. Regardless of right or wrong.”
This neatly explains the Auburn situation.
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Sorry AHD, but that definitely has NOT been my experience. My experience has been that the side with the BEST lawyers wins.
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With all the emphasis on the NCAA and OSU delaying punishment from pre-Sugar Bowl to 2011 season, everyone is overlooking the bigger delay that some of these violations date back to 2008. That would mean some of these players played the entire 2009 and 2010 seasons after breaking the rules. This isn’t an incident that just came to light in December, anc completely flies in the face of the immediate imposing of sanctions on AJ. Just dirty, rotten, and inexcusable. There is no way for the NCAA to justify their actions when viewed in the broader context. Changes, significant changes, need to be made for them to have any credibility.
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I agree that the NCAA is broken. The big question is how will it ever be fixed?
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The other issue of hypocrisy that doesn’t get as much play is the rule that allowed Clemson’s qb to play this year while making millions from his mlb contract. All because it was a different sport? Hard to call that kid an amateur athlete when he’s making bank like that.
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What was his name? Jeremy (or Jeffery?) Bloom? The CU kicker who was a professional skier? But he had to surrender his football eligibility because the only want pro skiers get paid is through endorsement deals and that didn’t pass muster.
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This isn’t a new thing. Quincy Carter never would have played at Georgia if the NCAA didn’t allow you to be pro in one sport but an amateur in another. The hitch is that you can’t make money from endorsements, which was the problem with the Colorado kicker. Quincy made his money from bonuses and salary from the Cubs, didn’t make it, and then came to play for Georgia. You know, on second thought, maybe it’s not a good rule….
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Quincey “throw it over their heads and point to his chest” Carter hurt UGA more than we ever acknowledge. Ask Jim!
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Without QC at QB the Dawgs would have had Nate Hybl as their QB. He left when Donnan promised QC the starting job as a condition for QC to sign with UGA, transferring to Oklahoma and becoming the starting QB there for 2 years. Hybl won 1 Big-12 title and was MVP of the 2003 Rose Bowl. Bad trade for UGA–good for Oklahoma. At least QC got Donnan fired though.
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Except in extreme cases, if you fight the NCAA you win.
If you roll over, you lose.
This is why UGA loses every time.
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You nailed it Joe. Voluntarily sitting AJ without formal charges was another notch in our lengthening belt of gutless decisions.
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I disagree. If Richt had confidence that a suspension was inevitable, then it would be best to serve (part or all of) it during a garbage game. Not a bad decision, but I do agree that we have lacked guts/heart lately. I hope a lot of it was a carryover of disappointment from early losses to unexpectedly good teams. It’s also not surprising to see such a beaten-down team not show up for a bowl game against a cusa team. Next year starts out rough…the first two games will be huge.
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I don’t define garbage as SCU and Arky. The NCAA did not vacate OK States games played with their player that lied, the NCAA just kicked him to the curb. We could have played AJ until the NCAA said he was suspended, we would have had a better start to the season.
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Yes, but ULL is a garbage team and that was the only game during which he was voluntarily suspended. The NCAA suspended Green on 9-8-10 before we played USCe. Again, the strategy was sound and, had the NCAA not stepped in, we could have played Green the second week under the assumption that one game would be adequate punishment. The voluntary suspension during week one was not a bad move.
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Mr. College Football. What a joke. Check out his pre-season 2011 rankings he posted yesterday. Exact Top 5 that one of the robots at the WWL posted Tuesday.What a hack.He’s an embarrassment to the University,it’s fans,and college football fans in general.
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Why the hate for Tony? You don’t like his top 5? Lighten up Francis.
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PD’s right. Barnhart has lost whatever integrity he had and has become a shill for the NCAA.
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UGAdog,
When I was at Ga in the 1970s, Clemson had professional soccer players as their kickers. Half the year, they played professional soccer and the other half, they kicked for Clemson.
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Happened again this season, one of the bowl teams had a kicker that played professional soccer in Europe. If that doesn’t make a joke of the NCAA quest to uphold a standard for amateurism I don’t know what would. “Pro” and “amateur” is pretty clearly defined when money is paid contractually by a professional sports team.
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And may I ask, who is going to enforce the ruling requiring the dirty OSU players to attend school next year? An NCAA hit squad? This is absurdly unenforceable on its’ face. AND OSU gets to keep all it’s wins! How lucky can you get? Naturally, they have the gall to appeal their gold-plated gift, and I’ll bet that they win it just in time for the 2011 kickoff. Let’s see, OSU wins its’ appeal=no foul for the players. Wouldn’t you love to have a seat at that teleconference? It would be the only way to know what the h#** is going on since the NCAA, in its’ wisdom, has announced that it will not share comments or issue statements to the public.
Where is CBS’ Sixty Minutes when we need them? Are they all too old to chase athletes?
If/when theses players bolt for the big bucks before this fall, perhaps the Powers That Be will decide to fine them individually (good luck with that) or the school rather than make them stand in the proverbial corner. Big whoop. Go Dawgs! is right, let’s keep our players silent and stupid. Ignorance seems to be a perfect defense.
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I think it’s clear that the system is arbitrary. This may benefit us in the future though. I think that Auburn may have benefited from the sense that they were screwed by “the system” in ’04. Perhaps we are in for some leniency ourselves…it certainly seems overdue. Maybe tOSU is going to be under the microscope and overpunished for any minor indiscretion.
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Danny Ainge played minor league baseball and college basketball while he was in college. I don’t think the SEC allows that. As for the NCAA, standing up to them is fine, fight them and you wind up like Dale Brown, the Shark, or Bobby Knight. Remember that the NCAA is made up of college presidents, nuff said?
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