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Law and Order
June 9, 2017
I have no knowledge of the rumored wrongdoing associated with the athletic department at Baylor University except what I’ve read in leaks and news reports for well over a year. One thing I’ve noticed is the different approach the NCAA is taking now compared to its high-profile involvement when the scandalous wrongdoing at Penn State began to surface just a few years ago.
In both situations, we are not talking about violations of rules directly related to the conduct of an intercollegiate athletic program. Apparently in both cases, there are crimes involved, for which society has a system to adjudicate guilt and, if found, to assess penalties.
In the earlier case, the NCAA jumped ahead of the judicial system to find guilt, and it vaulted over its own Handbook to fix penalties. Some of those penalties have since been modified or vacated. They were based on public opinion more than the published policies and procedures for governing NCAA operations.
Perhaps the NCAA’s lower profile now indicates it has learned from its earlier overreach that, however heinous the behavior, some things are beyond the authority and regulatory responsibility of a voluntary, nonprofit athletic association – no matter how powerful it may seem.
While I’m not aware of anything remotely resembling these situations in Michigan high schools, it is not infrequent that the Michigan High School Athletic Association is asked by a well-intentioned person to terminate the athletic eligibility of a student who has broken a public law but not a published rule of his or her local school or the MHSAA. We can’t.
The MHSAA does not have rules that duplicate society’s laws or seek to exceed them. Even with a budget 1,000 times that of the MHSAA, the NCAA has discovered it doesn’t have policies and procedures to do so consistently or well.
We already know that the MHSAA must allow local schools, law enforcement agencies and courts to deal with transgressions away from school sports. Our job is to stay focused on sports and a sub-set of issues that address participant eligibility and safety as well as competitive equity between contestants.
The MHSAA is an organization that cares about young people but recognizes its limitations, both legal and practical. The MHSAA has neither the legal authority nor the resources to be involved in regulating young people and coaches for all things, at all times and in all places. In the area of sports, and especially within the limits of the season and the boundaries of the field of play, the MHSAA does have a role, and it’s to help provide an environment that is sportsmanlike, healthy and consistent with the educational mission of schools.
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Don’t Mention It
October 27, 2017
It has taken every ounce of personal and professional discipline during the past month to keep me from writing what I’ve been thinking since the world became aware of arrests and suspensions in and around major college athletic programs.
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I won’t repeat that we have been outspokenly suspicious of the influence of apparel companies on amateur athletics in America.
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I won’t repeat that we have been continuously critical of the travel team environment infecting sports for youth and adolescents.
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I won’t repeat for the umpteenth time that the “arms race” in major college basketball and football is ultimately unsustainable, or at least indefensible under the banner of higher education.
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I won’t repeat that, in an era of ubiquitous high-definition video, it is ridiculous to think college coaches must be onsite for the cesspool of spring and summer tournaments funded by apparel companies, and that it would save colleges huge sums of money if NCAA rules did not permit onsite evaluations at such times and places.
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I won’t repeat that nationwide travel and national tournaments are bad for student-centered, school-sponsored sports.
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I won’t repeat that the Michigan High School Athletic Association limitation on travel and prohibition of payments to high school coaches from any source but the school are good for school sports.
I won’t mention any of this.