0 The NCAA

The NCAA has been getting a lot of heat (and rightfully so) for their bungling of the Miami investigation. To sum it up, Nevin Shapiro was acting as a whistleblower for the NCAA; he was concurrently involved in a bankruptcy case. Somehow, someway, his lawyer for his bankruptcy case (which is handled under federal law and involved civil and possible criminal liabilities) got involved with the NCAA case and sent a bill to the NCAA for services. This meant that the NCAA was using the threat of civil and criminal liabilities as a hammer to coax testimony. The NCAA does not have this power. No private entity does. Only the government can compel such action. This has opened a can of worms with prior NCAA rulings, most notably the almost death penalty sanctions levied against Penn State as well as against USC and UCLA.

This article from a couple years ago basically sums up my feelings on the NCAA: http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1343

The NCAA is an anachronism that needs to be blown up and re-imagined in this new world we live in.  From the article "In other words the NCAA would enable student-athletes, in exchange for performing at an acceptable level academically, to pursue what they love heedless of money -- sort of what the NCAA says it's been doing all along. But "heedless" here means that whether money materializes or not the NCAA wishes you well, so long as said money doesn't come from the school or on its behalf."

The NCAA should (but won't) take a hard look at itself. As the world gets more sophisticated and more complicated, they still hang on to their noble and idealistic view of the student-athlete.