“You need a commissioner for each area, one who has the power to seriously enforce the rules,” Krzyzewski said long ago. “Don’t make rules that can’t be enforced or won’t be enforced. Make rules that are reasonable and give the commissioner the power to come down hard and fast on those who break them.”
The rulebook doesn’t need to be 500 pages. It needs to be closer to 10 pages with clear rules and clear penalties on what happens if you break those rules. If you want to pay players, fine; but if you don’t, then those who do must be punished severely. Stop all the gibberish about institutions cooperating in investigations. Who cares? If you cheated, you cheated.
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The Miami Hurricanes' entire football team took the practice field Wednesday amid mounting allegations by a former booster and convicted Ponzi schemer who claimed he treated players with sex parties, nightclub outings, cars and other gifts.
While we’re at it, the BCS dies along with the NCAA, even though the NCAA has claimed for years it has nothing to do with it. It sanctions it and allows it. Don Emmert may not believe in selling drugs, but he does sell a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.
The football commissioner’s first job will be to get a national championship tournament up and running. The new money that will come pouring in from that should eliminate all the need for conference-jumping. Another thing that will eliminate that need is the pooling of all TV money, just like they do in the NFL.
The question in all this is how do you get the 50 presidents to agree to do this.
Simple: Go to the mattresses. In this case, for once, government needs to intervene.
College football and men’s basketball are multi-billion-dollar businesses being run as an illegal cartel. So don’t say Congress or the president shouldn’t be “wasting time” on sports.
If the president and Congress make it clear to the university presidents that the system is completely unacceptable and they will lose all the tax breaks they currently enjoy if they do not do a complete tear-down, that will force action.
It sounds impossible. So did going to the moon. Sometimes you need to attempt the impossible. Especially when the current situation is completely sickening to witness.
The NCAA needs to sleep with the fishes.
For more from the author, visit his blog at www.feinsteinonthebrink.com
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