Former active duty Marine sergeant ordered to redshirt for one season at MTSU because he played in a rec league on base where there were game officials, team uniforms and the score was kept.
“This is extremely frustrating. I think it’s unfair, highly unfair,” Rhodes said. “I just got out of the Marine Corps, and I wanted to play. For (the NCAA) to say, ‘No, you can’t play right now,’ I just don’t understand the logic in that.”
Expecting logic? That was your first mistake, buddy.
(h/t Pete Roussel)
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UPDATE: As you might expect, John Infante has some details about the NCAA rule.
Get The Picture 
The NCAA proves that common sense isn’t so common on a daily basis. They are their own worst enemy.
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Protecting the Best Interests of Student-Athletes 101.
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C’mon Senator. If we don’t draw the line here, think of all the former military personnel that played in rec league games with officials present that will besmirch “the honor of the game”. It would be a landslide of misdeeds.
The consequences are dire.
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You want the NCAA on that line. You need the NCAA on that line.
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Clearly they can’t handle the truth.
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Some will always prefer maintaining the security of the status quo and trying to work something out and living in harmony but I hope the big, power schools go the divorce route. There should be consequences for continual stupidity. Run, don’t walk through the door.
I wonder of forming a separate organization could offer a “protective shield” for the player compensation issue. Let the NCAA scholarship regulations for their members remain the same under the name of some pure amateurism definition while the new organization allows stipends for athletes so long as the stipends are paid out of profits. This could possibly knock out the Title IX silliness and make the key distinction of paying it’s own way. After all, it is the unique differences that are driving the need for a new division, why not make it so different it can only be available to those who qualify? That would limit the number of lawsuits from those that get left behind, they can’t afford the price of admission.
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Sgt. Rhodes needs to get a layer and sue the NCAA. IMHO this will not stand up in court no matter what the literal wording of the rule says.
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What law’s been broken? As far as I know, there’s no constitutional right to being on a college football roster.
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Better question, what if this happened at Penn state or Miami?
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The guy was in the military. The NCAA cannot penalize him for participation on military teams. Void as against public policy.
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So if you serve in the military, you get to do whatever you want in the next life?
I’m sympathetic to the guy, but your argument’s silly.
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No, my argument is a legal argument which apparently you cannot understand. “Void as against public policy.” Look it up. They might be able to make this stick against somebody playing in an industrial league but not somebody playing on a military team, IMHO.
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Here, I’ll help you. See Reid v. American National, 218 S.W. 957 at 959. Anything rule, clause of a contract, local ordinance etc. that would operate to discourage enlistment in the military is void as being against public policy.
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That’s the way to help the real estate lawyer out. Come on Senator Contracts 101.
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Oy.
He didn’t enlist in the military to play football.
Plus, the NCAA rule isn’t directed towards military rec league play.
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Weak, weak, weak. Read the case. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t enlist to play football. What matters is that he WAS in the military and his service can’t be used as a basis to impose a penalty against him. If you want me to I’ll tell you the exact strategy to use to win the litigation.
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P.S. I don’t want to beat this to death and I’m not going to do any more legal research on this as but Infante’s revelations in the Update you linked to make the NCAA’s actions even more unsupportable IMHO. Look for a quick reversal of this decision coming from the NCAA. I think the DOD or Justice might even get involved if the NCAA persists. I know that if I were Sgt. Rhodes’ attorney I would request them to do so.
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The NCAA is the judge, jury & executioner … when they choose to be.
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Guess what. If he sues for an injunction to be able to play and wins, he still won’t play. The NCAA has something called the Restitution Rule. It basically states that if a team plays a player who was declared ineligible but got an injunction to play, that school will have to pay a HEAVY fine to the NCAA. No school would do that.
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Clearly MTSU got a competitive advantage by recruiting the kid out of that military on-base league. Those leagues are legit. Hell, I even played quarterback one season in San Diego. That’s how legit those leagues are. (For anyone who doesn’t know, I never played QB at any level of my football career … Except for the USS Okinawa squad in 1991.)
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The USS Okinawa was struck in 2002. They sank her the same year.
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The Proud Lady of the Pacific was old when I rode her. She would make a good reef or razor blades, no doubt.
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What a load of __________
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Ridiculous even for the NCAA. What a waste of money.
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Somewhere, Franz Kafka is shaking his head and smiling.
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If he was on the “skins team” would he still be eligible since he had no uniform
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Wait until they find out he sold his Marine “fighting air traffic controllers” jersey!
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The NCAA has never heard that when you find yourself in a hole the first rule is to stop digging. They just keep shoveling and shoveling. If I was President of a University I would be embarrassed to be associated with the NCAA.
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That Infante response would be really interesting if he took a second to think about why people find this so silly. Hint: it has nothing to do with the detail of the rules.
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