Look deeper into foreign recruits
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
The NCAA insists it isn't trying to make an example of the University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team, but it would be hard to miss the overriding message from the case:
Schools that recruit international athletes had better know the background and status of all their players, down to every drachma they might have received and any league they ever stepped on the court in, because they are going to be held accountable.
While UH fans wait to see what might be the fate of the school's only national championship banner in a men's team sport hanging in the Stan Sheriff Center, the case offers a pointed lesson on a toughening area of NCAA policy for everybody.
"If you chose to recruit internationally, (you) need to be well-versed and attentive," said Bill Saum, the NCAA's director of agents, gambling and amateurism, who cautioned that he was speaking generally and not specifically about the UH case.
But through this and other recent cases surrounding international athletes in basketball, tennis and now volleyball, the NCAA has made clear that it is demanding — and willing to enforce — a higher standard of accountability than has existed in the past. Of that there is no longer any doubt.
As their numbers and influence have grown, international athletes have increasingly become a hot button issue across several sports and now volleyball has found itself under the microscope. So much so that an NCAA official estimated that in men's volleyball alone the enforcement branch received "20" or more queries, like the one that has resulted in UH's investigation, about player eligibility in the past year. That's a significant number considering only 40 schools compete on the Division I/II level.
Once upon a time, schools could run through a short checklist with their athletes and as long as the players answered "no" to 25 or so key questions having to do with receiving pay, dealing with agents and the like, that was the end of it. Schools could — and did — say, "Hey, we did our part."
Schools weren't inclined to delve much deeper, partly because of how cumbersome and time consuming the process could become and also, you suspect, out of fear of what they might find.
Now, and for some time, the NCAA has been saying with the threat of sanctions that ignorance and disinterest aren't valid defenses when violations are uncovered.
"Just taking the word of the athlete is not good enough anymore," Saum said. "People got a little bit complacent and that's not the case anymore. (Schools and coaches) need to get on their toes and be attentive to this issue."
Given what is happening to UH, chances are the NCAA is getting people's attention.
