| 01 September 2010
It's not difficult to understand why the NCAA wanted to deny the Ole Miss waiver request for Jeremiah Masoli. The kid did get booted off Oregon for multiple run-ins with the law. However, the NCAA is in the business of making and enforcing rules. In this case, college sport's governing body has a rule that allows athletes who graduate with eligibility remaining to enroll in a graduate program at a different school if that program is not offered at the previous school. That's what Masoli did when he enrolled at Ole Miss. The athletic department requested the waiver. Ole Miss and Masoli followed the rules that are set forth by the NCAA. The NCAA did not like the outcome of this fact scenario, so it's changing the rule. Imagine a world where police officers determine the speed limit on a car-by-car basis and you begin to understand the NCAA's enforcement power.
Here's the NCAA bylaw for graduate student eligibility:
Graduate Student Transfers [Bylaw 14.1.9.1]
For waivers of Bylaw 14.1.9.1 for those student-athletes transferring for the 2007-08 academic year or thereafter, the subcommittee adopted the following information standards:
1. A letter from previous institution (e.g., athletics director, faculty athletics representative, president) stating it does not object to the student-athlete being immediately eligible.
2. Documentation from the appropriate academic authority that the student-athlete has been accepted into a specific graduate program at the institution he or she wishes to transfer to.
3. Documentation indicating whether the specific graduate degree is available at the previous institution.
4. A statement from the student-athlete detailing the reasons for the transfer.
The rule also requires that the transferring player not be suspended from play at the institution he is transferring from. What, you ask? Where's that written in the rule? Weelllll, it's not written. The NCAA made it up yesterday when it denied the waiver request from Ole Miss. Nobody likes to play games where the rules get made up as you go along, and that's what is so distasteful about the NCAA's decision to deny the waiver.
Additionally, the NCAA has essentially just entered into the area of player discipline, and suspended Masoli for the season. It didn't like the fact that Masoli avoided a suspension at Oregon, and so the NCAA has decided that it will enforce the suspension. Will the NCAA now force suspensions for all players who transfer after being dismissed from their previous teams? If the transfer must be for an academic purpose, how does the NCAA explain its decision to allow former Duke basketball player Greg Paulus to transfer to Syracuse to play football? His enrollment at Syracuse was for no purpose other than to play football, and that cannot be denied.
Upset Ole Miss fans aren't the only people who are questioning the NCAA on this decision.
Tony Barnhart says the NCAA got it wrong. ESPN's Ivan Maisel thinks the NCAA is off base. ESPN's Chris Low says the NCAA's ruling is a hard pill to swallow. George Schroeder, a columnist back in Masoli's old stomping grounds of Oregon says the NCAA got it wrong. John Pennington at MrSEC.com questions the NCAA's logic.
Look, what happened here is simple. The NCAA didn't want Masoli to play. The rule it had in place didn't work. The NCAA made up a new rule to make sure Masoli doesn't play. You can do that when you're the NCAA. Or can you?
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