COURTESY ESPN.COM Because of a possible NCAA infraction while in high school, Jamal Crawford's college career and pro future is in limbo.

ELItorial

NCAA bureaucracy plays Big Brother

Over the last several years, it has become apparent that the NCAA has forgotten its roots. It is an organization of, by, and for its member universities. Everyone, except the NCAA, seems to acknowledge this fact. The NCAA is accountable to no one; there is no outside appeal process for punishments. Its erratic rulings are legendary, as are the grudges it holds for decades. It took 25 years and a $2.5 million settlement to get the NCAA off Jerry Tarkanian's back after he sued it for fabricating evidence against his UNLV basketball team. "They can never, ever make up for all the pain and agony they caused me," Tarkanian said to the press after the settlement. "All I can say is that for 25 years, they beat the hell out of me." The adversarial and bureaucratic system that the NCAA employs to search out rule violations is ludicrous, and in any other setting would likely qualify as illegal.

Hardly a day goes by without another college basketball player being accused of an NCAA rule violation—and the NCAA coming up with a new and inventive way to botch the investigation. Earlier in the season, Cincinnati forward DerMarr Johnson was suspended for one game after it was revealed that part of his prep school tuition was paid by his coach. But an Oklahoma State player was suspended for five games for the exact same offense. Unfortunately, different punishments for identical offenses are hardly unusual for the NCAA.

Not only are its rulings erratic, the NCAA is not committed to giving accused players a fair and timely judgment. Most recently, on Sun., Feb. 27, Auburn star forward and preseason All-American Chris Porter admitted to accepting money from an agent in order to save his mother from eviction. Auburn immediately sent Porter home while the team played Florida, but the NCAA is waiting until Auburn completes its investigation before getting involved. If Auburn finds Porter innocent, and the NCAA later rules him ineligible, then Auburn will have to forfeit every game that Porter played in this year. No. 19 Auburn, currently a shoo-in for the NCAA tournament, would see its entire year go down the drain. At the very least, the NCAA should conduct a concurrent investigation with the university to minimize the consequences for the rest of the Auburn team.

Given how aggressively the NCAA chooses to prosecute certain violations, it is amazing how long it can dawdle on others. It came to the NCAA's attention almost a year ago that Michigan's Jamal Crawford might have an eligibility problem. It seems that, as a senior in high school, he attempted to declare for the professional draft. However, he missed the deadline, so his letter of declaration was never acknowledged. He later sent another letter withdrawing from the draft, which also went unacknowledged. In the view of everyone involved at the time, he never declared for the draft, and therefore did not forfeit his college eligibility. The NCAA allowed Crawford to practice and play for the Wolverines this season—until Tues., Feb. 1, that is, when he was abruptly pulled from the lineup against Michigan State and suspended.

Exactly what took the NCAA so long to decide that Crawford might have violated its regulations? If it had questions about his eligibility, the issue should have been resolved before the Wolverines even started practice. Let's disregard for now the "irrelevant" fact that NCAA regulations allow college athletes a chance to declare and withdraw from the draft without penalty, and that Crawford had already signed a letter of intent with Michigan when he first declared for the draft. The NCAA took 10 months to make a decision that could have been settled in two or fewer. Crawford's future could now be ruined when, had he previously known his eligibility was forfeit, he could still have played pro ball. "The last two weeks have been unbelievable," Crawford said to reporters on Thurs., Feb. 2. "I can't sleep sometimes." Such is the impact of the NCAA.

The NCAA should not be allowed to pursue its own agenda through the punishments it metes out to its members. It needs to commit to both reforming and following its own rules so that schools, instead of assuming they're going to get screwed when the NCAA comes calling, actually have faith in the organization that is supposed to serve their best interests.

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