More Problems Than I Can Solve

Joan Niesen is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated.  In the mega issue devoted to the upcoming baseball season, there was a small blurb devoted to Joan's recent encounter with the NCAA.

A couple weeks ago, she was at the St. Louis sub-regional, covering the first two rounds.  Pretty quickly after she unpacked her water bottle, a NCAA rep told her that she "should not have been let into the building with her own water bottle".  You see, the NCAA had a policy that the only courtside consumption that could take place had to be out of NCAA-logo cups that also had a logo of a corporate partner.  Kudos to Joan for not giving in and revealing the corporate partner during the article (and thus giving said corporate partner free advertising).  And apparently Joan wasn't the only victim--as she attested to in the article, several coaches were also asked to take their water bottles and pour them into NCAA-specific cups to appease the powers that be.

Shake your head.  Shrug your shoulders.  Go ahead.  Take a second.  I don't blame you.  Be amazed at the short-sighted nature of it all.  But don't lose sight of why this is really a problem, other than the obvious (a greedy approach by a collection of megalomaniacs).

The NCAA is in trouble.  And they know it.  You can see it in the recent news of the Northwestern football players who are looking into forming a union.   The desperate comments by the NCAA brass as they utilize the media to run down the attempt by the players through the media is very telling in its verbosity.  So many words.  So many angles, including getting the football coach on their side.  All kinds of ways to say this single thought.

WE ARE BIGGER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.

In fact, they are so brazen that on the website selling their official apparel, they actually had the search engines correctly matching player names with their "nameless" jerseys, all the while maintaining their innocence in the face of the accusations that they were exploiting student-athletes for the almighty dollar.

The amazing thing about all of this is the continuing bravado in the face of a changing tide.  The student athletes are mobilizing, both old (lawsuits) and new (the union movement).  The public was so tired of the lack of a football playoff, the NCAA eventually caved to a four-team playoff while maintaining it was their idea all along and alluding to their misgivings of subjecting student-athletes to more games (even though the lower divisions actually already play more games--and have for many, many years). 

The NCAA's current MO--making billions while denying their methods and working hard to obtain more billions in the blatant "plain sight" view of the paying public.  Reminds me of the college kids from MIT in the book "Bringing Down the House" (the book upon which the movie "21" is based).  Even though people were on to them and Vegas was getting physical, they arrogantly kept coming back for more, convinced they could outwit the single biggest gambling machine of all.  When they lost that war, they got desperate and ended up in dangerous situations with "security" in lower level casinos on riverboats and across the border.  They were so greedy, they stopped thinking and did some really stupid things.  And paid for it with broken bones.

With all of the issues the NCAA faces right now, does the SI story above indicate the NCAA has "stopped thinking".

Not even the NCAA can be that stupid.

Can they?

Peace,
Reg