Posted on: Sunday, August 29, 2004
It's rather amateurish of NCAA
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
College football can begin another season secure in the knowledge that the bloodhounds at the NCAA headquarters are ever vigilant and unyielding.
The sentries of the collegiate athletic cartel have seen to it that there will be no Mike Williams on the roster at the University of Southern California or Jeremy Bloom at Colorado this year to besmirch the amateurism or contaminate the purity of our student-athletes.
That linebacker Willie Williams is at Miami with a record that includes a dozen arrests is beside the point, of course. Never mind that there might also be a drug dealer or rapist or two out there. What are a handful of misdemeanors or a felony conviction when there are guys who fall into the gray areas of amateurism that must be rooted out and made examples of?
Mike Williams' sin, the best we can tell, was in taking a federal court at its word that the NFL could no longer bar underclassmen from leaving college for the pros. When the court — briefly — opened the way for Ohio State's Maurice Clarett, Williams, who had completed his sophomore year at USC, sought to follow.
When an appellate court reversed the original finding, Williams was stuck in limbo. So, he returned to school, repaid the money an agent had given him, genuflected toward Indianapolis and petitioned to have his eligibility restored. Two months later on Thursday, hours before Williams' team prepared to fly East for yesterday's game against Virginia Tech, the NCAA refused to reinstate him.
You suspect the NCAA saw in Williams an opportunity to set a high-profile example to others who, a la college basketball, might consider leaving early for the pros. Better to remind the chattel just who is in charge here.
Then there is the unique case of Bloom, a world champion and Olympic freestyle skier, who wanted to fulfill his childhood dream of playing football for home-state CU. But, because he accepted sponsorship money to subsidize his skiing travel and training, the NCAA ruled he could not play football.
Heaven forbid that a flood of mogul skiers would rush through the loophole and overwhelm college football.
Of course, Bloom's real "crime" might have been taking the NCAA to court in the past, something he paid dearly last Tuesday when the NCAA sternly denied his bid for reinstatement for this season.
You don't have to be a USC or CU fan to see disappointment in the unflinching rigidity of the NCAA or wonder what happened to NCAA President Myles Brand's "athlete-friendly" glasnost.
A little flexibility in administering the rules was all that was called for here and would not have hurt anyone. What it would have done is allow two model students and athletes to continue their careers without contorting the mission of the NCAA.
Sadly, however, it is business as usual at the NCAA.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
