War Between The States Of Mind?

[The Poet]

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this story. On the one hand, it seems the soverign state of North Carolina is attempting to gather evidence necessary to prosecute certain parties under their recent restrictive laws controlling the activities of sports agents within their borders. On the other, it seems like the NCAA is trying to defend potential privacy issues by claiming they are not subject to North Carolina laws, being an entity housed in Indiana, and thus bound to obey only subpoenas filed from Indiana courts. Both have a point, and who's is more valid?

The only thing I know for certain: If push comes to shove, Tar Heels are MUCH better armed than Hoosiers.


http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/footbal...ncarolina-ncaa

[SvilleKid]

I'm betting that since the NCAA has jurisdiction and control over schools in North Carolina, that they will be held accountable to the NC AG's request. I'm thinking it's the same principle that applies to large corporations doing business in multiple states.

I suspect the NCAA doesn't want this to happen because it will open a spat of actions by all states with sports agent's laws. Plus, if all the crap the NCAA overlooks became public, it would undermine their creditability (like they have any of that left!).

The NCAA DOES NOT have any legal ability to go after sports agents, only the abilities to punish colleges and athletes for actions the sports agents know 100% to be against NCAA rules. Everyone's getting hurt here, except for the ones causing the problems, the sports agents! And, since the NCAA can't go after them, you'd think they would cooperate fully with the states that DO have the ability to go after the agents.

So, why is the NCAA dragging their feet? I'd say: Because the NCAA is just as rotten inside as most all entrenched bureaucracies, and they cannot stand the light of truth shined inside their shaky house of cards! Just an opinion, of course. But I think it's a valid opinion!

[The Poet]

Cliff, I'm not completely convinced the NCAA is totally corrupt, but it does seem odd that they appear unwilling to co-operate with an investigation into potential illegal activities, even if those occurred in a different state. As you noted, the NCAA is a national organization whose responsibilities include oversight into prohibited practices such as those some sports agents promulgate for personal gain. To think they would only respond to a subpoena issued in Indiana, and even then would only provide redacted documents to the investigators, does smell a bit piscine.

[The Poet]

The more I think about this, the more disturbed I become at the position the NCAA has adopted. Putting aside for now the privacy question the NCAA cited to justify its reluctance to release the requested information to the authorities in North Carolina, let us instead examine the core issue.

The NCAA has the right, and the duty, to punish schools and student-athletes for infractions of the rules it has established, but has no power whatsoever to punish the true culprits responsible for many of these problems . . . that percentage of sports-agents who instigate certain violations for their own personal gain. When the NCAA first raised announced they had launched an investigation into possible violations in Butch Davis's football program at UNC-CH, the university not only co-operated fully with the assigned investigators, and began their own internal investigations (which revealed several other potential problems, all willingly released to the NCAA and the public), but they immediately suspended from play over a dozen players who were the subject of these matters. Even though no official charges have been to date announced by the NCAA, and even though many of those players were later cleared to play, the school vacated its football wins for the past two seasons, announced self-imposed recruiting restrictions for the next few years, and volunteered a fine against themselves. Not only that, but they fired Butch Davis before the start of this season, and their AD announced his own retirement from that position.

Meanwhile, the legislature of the state of North Carolina, both embarrassed and angered by these accusations, enacted strict new laws to regulate the actions of sports-agents within the boundries of the state, thus taking up the mantle of enforcement which lies without the perview of the NCAA. They thus hoped to regulate and restrict the influence of these agents to the end of limiting, or eliminating altogether, any future problems with college athletics in the state . . and perhaps even with the hope that this might inspire other states to follow suit, to the benefit of all. Yet in their first attempt to accomplish the aim of this new legislation, the NCAA has decided that the co-operation they expect from others does not apply reciprocally to them. Bottom line, they can punish the schools and not the agents, yet will not help a legally constituted authority to take up the slack and do the job as needed.

Where do they get off?