Below is a great read from the NYT's Michael Sokolove on the suspension of Baylor basketball star Perry Jones. The piece highlights the inconsistencies in the NCAA's policy regarding payments and gifts for athletes and coaches. Somehow a $1,000 loan to a player's mother is worse (more suspendable) than a B.C.S. championship game QB's dad seeking cash payments during his son’s recruitment?
You be the judge. Read on:
On the N.C.A.A. Benching of Perry Jones
By MICHAEL SOKOLOVE
That Perry Jones may have run run afoul of some N.C.A.A. rules, triggering his suspension for Baylor’s Big 12 tournament game last night, is, in one sense, not shocking. The television contract for the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament is worth billions — the football Bowl Championship Series, the controversial enterprise dominated by the biggest conferences, is also worth billions — and big-time college coaches make millions of dollars annually, but within this cascade of money the athletes themselves are required to remain amateurs.
When athletes and coaches are caught breaking a wide range of rules and regulations, the penalties dispensed by the N.C.A.A. for doing so are wildly uneven. And this is where the Jones situation gets baffling.
Continue reading here, on the NYT's 6th Floor blog.