The more I think about this, the more disturbed I become at the position the NCAA has adopted. Putting aside for now the privacy question the NCAA cited to justify its reluctance to release the requested information to the authorities in North Carolina, let us instead examine the core issue.
The NCAA has the right, and the duty, to punish schools and student-athletes for infractions of the rules it has established, but has no power whatsoever to punish the true culprits responsible for many of these problems . . . that percentage of sports-agents who instigate certain violations for their own personal gain. When the NCAA first raised announced they had launched an investigation into possible violations in Butch Davis's football program at UNC-CH, the university not only co-operated fully with the assigned investigators, and began their own internal investigations (which revealed several other potential problems, all willingly released to the NCAA and the public), but they immediately suspended from play over a dozen players who were the subject of these matters. Even though no official charges have been to date announced by the NCAA, and even though many of those players were later cleared to play, the school vacated its football wins for the past two seasons, announced self-imposed recruiting restrictions for the next few years, and volunteered a fine against themselves. Not only that, but they fired Butch Davis before the start of this season, and their AD announced his own retirement from that position.
Meanwhile, the legislature of the state of North Carolina, both embarrassed and angered by these accusations, enacted strict new laws to regulate the actions of sports-agents within the boundries of the state, thus taking up the mantle of enforcement which lies without the perview of the NCAA. They thus hoped to regulate and restrict the influence of these agents to the end of limiting, or eliminating altogether, any future problems with college athletics in the state . . and perhaps even with the hope that this might inspire other states to follow suit, to the benefit of all. Yet in their first attempt to accomplish the aim of this new legislation, the NCAA has decided that the co-operation they expect from others does not apply reciprocally to them. Bottom line, they can punish the schools and not the agents, yet will not help a legally constituted authority to take up the slack and do the job as needed.
Where do they get off?
