NCAA's Morris decision: 'It's a living thing.'
Beyond the platitudes provided on both sides of the coin by a myriad of voices around the country on the NCAA's decision to suspend UK center Randolph Morris for an entire season, strip him of a year of eligibility and order him to pay back $7000 bucks, something must be said for the lasting ramifications of such a decision.
Many Kentucky fans are already hanging their heads, declaring Morris' absence the death knell to the Cats' chances at anything beyond a few useless wins over Ole Miss and the opening round of the SEC tournament. And who can be surprised at this reaction. UK fans are among the nation's most rabid and gracious fans ... when things go well. When they don't, they turn on each other, on the players and on their coach faster than the Donner party did when they discovered that wayward box of A-1 sauce. It's a mighty boulder to try and push back uphill once the gloom-sayers begin their mouthing, and I have neither the energy nor the ability to placate their self-flagellating opining. But there is more at work here.
Randolph Morris is a kid. A big, goofy kid with big, goofy dreams and the one thing that 99.4% of the UK fanbase lacks: a 6'11" frame. Morris made a huge mistake, and if anyone knows that by now, it's him. Any observer can see this, and anyone who can't simply doesn't want to. In many ways, Morris couldn't have handled this situation any worse. The NCAA's statement said as much. By treating his amateur status as a way station towards professionalism, and by thumbing his nose at the system, he sent a clear message to fans, his coaches, his teammates and -- more damningly now -- the NCAA infractions cabal that he didn't care. From his now infamous 'intentions' fax to his sketchy relationship with SFX to his slow decision to offer a mea culpa and return to Tubby's good graces, Morris showed little regard for the system and even less for his teammates and the institution that offered him its giant blue spotlight.
But since when is the NCAA punishing attitude?
If Myles Brand's group of predominately white, middle class professors and middle managers are allowed to decide the future of big, goofy kids, taken against the pleadings of overpaid coaches and overconcerned parents, and base the whole thing on the kids' apparent intentions, where does it end? Can they decide that a kid who is approached by a street agent and who doesn't run away is thinking of abandoning his amateur status and therefore punish him for not behaving according to their definition of appropriate? And why are they not involved in eligibility when one of their student-athletes, I dunno, hypothetically, steals laptops (UCONN) or beats his girlfriend (IOWA)? Do those not show intent to destroy the institutions' good name and to negatively affect the athlete's playing status within the NCAA?
And there are too many more cases to mention where the line between what is acceptable and not is grey at best. That the NCAA would pick a high-profile case such as this one to "send a message" is hardly surprising. The only group of people in charge of protecting kids to have shown less inclination to do just that is the New Jersey Child Welfare Department. The NCAA's self-serving, attention-grabbing attitude is infuriatingly out of touch with reality, and smacks of the worst kind of elitism. Anyone who has spent time around college administrators and professors can tell you this sense of smug self-congratulations is rampant among a certain set.
No, this decision doesn't have Morris' best interests in mind. It doesn't have the institution's best interests in mind. It doesn't even have the college game's best interests in mind. It has the NCAA's interests in mind, and that is disgustingly predictable. Instead of playing Judge in whether Morris broke the rules, the committee played Judge, Jury, Executioner and Bailiff to boot.
It's not the decision itself I have a problem with. Morris played with fire, and deserved to get burned. But the way the committee's convoluted process works and its heavy-handed statement proved to me that Morris the person was ancillary to any debate. Morris was a number, a case file, an object. That he made a mistake, that he was a big, goofy kid, mattered less than the fact that he played in a high-profile environment. That the point of defining his eligibility mattered less than making a lesson of him is sad, if only because the NCAA once again missed a chance to redefine its intentions, or to darken the line between what a student-athlete can and cannot do in the name of furthering his career. Were Morris a business major at Penn who took a paid summer internship on Wall Street, he would have been back in class with nothing but a few thousand bucks in the bank. Instead, he's a guilty young man at the end of an executioner's pike.
I tend to agree with Decourcey (amazingly) that the appeal will likely lessen the sentence, and I think this primarily because the NCAA's statement was so ham-handed. If no actual agreement could be found, written or oral, then the NCAA's jurisdiction has been met. That Morris was flippant, dismissive, arrogant, discourteous, stupid or conniving is not the NCAA's realm.
Interpret the rules, NCAA, and leave the life lessons to parents, coaches ... and a thousand overzealous, screaming fans.
Many Kentucky fans are already hanging their heads, declaring Morris' absence the death knell to the Cats' chances at anything beyond a few useless wins over Ole Miss and the opening round of the SEC tournament. And who can be surprised at this reaction. UK fans are among the nation's most rabid and gracious fans ... when things go well. When they don't, they turn on each other, on the players and on their coach faster than the Donner party did when they discovered that wayward box of A-1 sauce. It's a mighty boulder to try and push back uphill once the gloom-sayers begin their mouthing, and I have neither the energy nor the ability to placate their self-flagellating opining. But there is more at work here.
Randolph Morris is a kid. A big, goofy kid with big, goofy dreams and the one thing that 99.4% of the UK fanbase lacks: a 6'11" frame. Morris made a huge mistake, and if anyone knows that by now, it's him. Any observer can see this, and anyone who can't simply doesn't want to. In many ways, Morris couldn't have handled this situation any worse. The NCAA's statement said as much. By treating his amateur status as a way station towards professionalism, and by thumbing his nose at the system, he sent a clear message to fans, his coaches, his teammates and -- more damningly now -- the NCAA infractions cabal that he didn't care. From his now infamous 'intentions' fax to his sketchy relationship with SFX to his slow decision to offer a mea culpa and return to Tubby's good graces, Morris showed little regard for the system and even less for his teammates and the institution that offered him its giant blue spotlight.
But since when is the NCAA punishing attitude?
If Myles Brand's group of predominately white, middle class professors and middle managers are allowed to decide the future of big, goofy kids, taken against the pleadings of overpaid coaches and overconcerned parents, and base the whole thing on the kids' apparent intentions, where does it end? Can they decide that a kid who is approached by a street agent and who doesn't run away is thinking of abandoning his amateur status and therefore punish him for not behaving according to their definition of appropriate? And why are they not involved in eligibility when one of their student-athletes, I dunno, hypothetically, steals laptops (UCONN) or beats his girlfriend (IOWA)? Do those not show intent to destroy the institutions' good name and to negatively affect the athlete's playing status within the NCAA?
And there are too many more cases to mention where the line between what is acceptable and not is grey at best. That the NCAA would pick a high-profile case such as this one to "send a message" is hardly surprising. The only group of people in charge of protecting kids to have shown less inclination to do just that is the New Jersey Child Welfare Department. The NCAA's self-serving, attention-grabbing attitude is infuriatingly out of touch with reality, and smacks of the worst kind of elitism. Anyone who has spent time around college administrators and professors can tell you this sense of smug self-congratulations is rampant among a certain set.
No, this decision doesn't have Morris' best interests in mind. It doesn't have the institution's best interests in mind. It doesn't even have the college game's best interests in mind. It has the NCAA's interests in mind, and that is disgustingly predictable. Instead of playing Judge in whether Morris broke the rules, the committee played Judge, Jury, Executioner and Bailiff to boot.
It's not the decision itself I have a problem with. Morris played with fire, and deserved to get burned. But the way the committee's convoluted process works and its heavy-handed statement proved to me that Morris the person was ancillary to any debate. Morris was a number, a case file, an object. That he made a mistake, that he was a big, goofy kid, mattered less than the fact that he played in a high-profile environment. That the point of defining his eligibility mattered less than making a lesson of him is sad, if only because the NCAA once again missed a chance to redefine its intentions, or to darken the line between what a student-athlete can and cannot do in the name of furthering his career. Were Morris a business major at Penn who took a paid summer internship on Wall Street, he would have been back in class with nothing but a few thousand bucks in the bank. Instead, he's a guilty young man at the end of an executioner's pike.
I tend to agree with Decourcey (amazingly) that the appeal will likely lessen the sentence, and I think this primarily because the NCAA's statement was so ham-handed. If no actual agreement could be found, written or oral, then the NCAA's jurisdiction has been met. That Morris was flippant, dismissive, arrogant, discourteous, stupid or conniving is not the NCAA's realm.
Interpret the rules, NCAA, and leave the life lessons to parents, coaches ... and a thousand overzealous, screaming fans.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home