Are you kidding me?
The NCAA has denied USC receiver Mike Williams’ application for reinstatement of his eligibility after he declared for the NFL draft based on the court decision in the Maurice Clarett antitrust suit.
When I first learned of the outcome watching ESPN News, I was sure I had read the scroll at the bottom of the screen wrong. My contacts must be fading; the light was playing tricks with my eyes. There was no possible way the NCAA could be that stupid, to deny Williams eligibility. Surely they knew that he had done nothing wrong, surely they knew he had complied with their every request, surely they had some common sense. I had definitely read the scroll wrong. Time for bed. But just to be sure, I’ll wait until the scroll comes around again.
I didn’t have to wait long. A big yellow “Breaking News” banner jumped onto the screen and the anchor set in stone what I thought could only be a bad dream. At that point, I lost it. The room became blurry. I sank into my chair, the energy drained from my body as I contemplated the situation. Sean Salisbury was talking, but his words were muffled and jumbled.
This is it-the cap of all that is wrong with college football. Recruiting scandals, athletic criminals, all of the stupid things athletes and coaches do. The NCAA is supposedly a body to prevent these sorts of travesties from happening and protect the law-abiding athletes and programs. Instead, they trample all common sense and decency, the very things they should be trying to protect, and kill Mike Williams’ dreams.
Williams hired an agent and declared for the draft after Maurice Clarett, the former running back of Ohio State, won his lawsuit against the NFL rules stating that a player must be three years removed from high school to be eligible for the draft. Williams knew he was a first-round pick, so losing his eligibility wasn’t a concern. When the decision was overturned, however, Williams had no eligibility for any football league. He appealed to the NCAA, who set up two separate committees to study the case; one dealing with amateurism and one with academic eligibility. Williams left his agent and returned all the money he had been given, and he attended summer school to maintain academic standards. He took care of both problems set before him. That wasn’t enough for the NCAA.
How could the NCAA do this? How could they screw someone over so blatantly? How could they be so square and follow their guidelines so strictly as to disregard all common sense? The Terminator had more compassion than these committees did. Their excuse? They ‘didn’t want to set a precedent.’ The ruling was overturned! There will be no more athletes declaring for the draft that are not three years removed from high school because the rules say that they cannot! Deal with it on a case-by-case basis if you have to. Apparently the NCAA was willing to sacrifice Williams to show other players what not to do. Isn’t that setting a precedent in itself? And what kind of precedent is that? Follow the rules, do what you’re told, and you still get thrown out of football?
Unfortunately, since this will be the last case of this kind, the NCAA cannot admit fault and make changes in the future. All they can do is blindly defend their decision. Hopefully, they will learn that in today’s complicated world of sports, nothing is cut-and-dried. An absence of contract issues and salary caps in the college game does not mean an absence of problems. As for Mike Williams, all I can say to you is work hard, keep those grades up, kick ass in the combine and I’ll see you again next April. And to the NCAA-see you in hell.
8/29/04
