You know, as much crap as I direct towards the NCAA, I have to be fair and admit it doesn’t have an easy task monitoring sleazy behavior. So take a minute and read this depressing story (warning: you’ll probably need to shower after reading it). While most of it’s about basketball, there is this one little football nugget:
Some might say the only people a player can trust are his parents — but that’s not even 100 percent true. Take current Carolina Panthers star Cam Newton. Cam’s father, Cecil, shopped him to different schools for reportedly up to $180,000 — without his son knowing. The NCAA was irked enough to enact a “Cecil Newton Rule” in January, making it possible to include parents as potential outside third-party agents.
That’s one incident, but we’d be naive to think Cecil Newton is the first parent to try to make money or get a job because of his son’s athletic talents. Parents aren’t exempt from this “inner circle” syndrome.
If it’s naïve to think it hasn’t happened before, then why did the NCAA just wake up and pass a rule about it this year?
Get The Picture 
“without his son knowing”. ????
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Of course it has gone on before, but never with quite so public a player on so public a stage….and in Alabama, but not AT Alabama…all the key ingredients for a media storm.
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It WAS against the rules before. That’s what makes it so frustrating.
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I agree. Just because you can’t get every relationship (i.e., pen pals, mistress) listed by the NCAA doesn’t mean it isn’t tacitly implied in the wording already there. Your frustration is shared.
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Not only was it against NCAA Rules it was against SEC Rules as well. The SEC office actively tried to cover it up, too. Slive failed to conduct even a cursory investigation until the Miss State people went to the press. An obvious attempt to cover it up. Why? I still don’t understand.
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I think the Senator mentioned something like this before, and given enough thought, I’m sure there are still numerous problems that would be found with the idea, but….why not let kids be officially represented by NCAA sanctioned agents? It would seem this would condense the number of parties coaches need to deal with during recruiting…so in theory, less shenanigans. Seems easier to police since either a party is authorized and reviewed, or you are automatically disqualified for not using a permitted party. Agents take the risk on a kid’s success, so they “should” have their clients’ best interest in mind. And kids would have help in deciding which scholarship offers, visits, etc to entertain…and understand the implications of gray-shirting and other tactics. Finally, agent licensing fees would fund the NCAA compliance costs.
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How could you vet them?
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