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Dalton and Misner will represent the United States at FISU forum

March 26, 2012 by

The International University Sports Federation Forum (FISU) is a conference held every two years at different locations around the world. The 2012 conference is in Chinese Taipei from March 26-31.

Former Division II Pittsburgh-Johnstown women’s basketball student-athlete Andrea Dalton and Division III junior Loras College baseball student-athlete Travis Misner will represent the United States at this year’s forum. The pair, who were selected based on academic excellence, leadership qualities and community service as well as athletics involvement, will meet with other athletes from around the globe to discuss this year’s theme “University Sport: a Platform for Sustainable Development.”

Neither Misner nor Dalton have traveled internationally and had to apply for their first passports in advance of the trip. They areoth a bit nervous about the language barrier, but say it will be part of the experience.

Dalton and Misner will post daily blogs on NCAA.org, detailing their journey and sharing their experiences.

About Marta Lawrence

Marta Lawrence is the associate director of digital communications at the NCAA.

Filed Under: Feature, Global Perspective

Bounties in the NCAA

March 25, 2012 by

“That’s how you do it” seems to be the general reaction to the NFL’s decision to suspend New Orleans Saints’ head coach Sean Payton for a year and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams indefinitely following the league’s findings that players and coaches had engaged in a scheme to pay bounties for hard hits and injuries to opponents over a three year period. The harsh punishment and swift decisions have been contrasted with a major infractions investigation in the NCAA, which takes longer and has lead to penalties decried as ineffective or merely slaps on the wrist.

Ignore for a second the question of whether it would be better for the NCAA to replace its layers of governance with a single, all-powerful commissioner[1] who hands out penalties which can only be appealed to that same all-powerful commissioner and that the NFL’s investigation started back in 2010. What would happen if a college football team was found to be engaging in a similar bounty scheme? What are the possible violations and what might the penalties be?

For our purposes here, we’ll assume the same facts were found by the Committee on Infractions as the NFL found, which include:

  • Players and coaches pooled money that was paid out as bounties.
  • The head coach knew about and failed to stop the plan.
  • The general manager knew about and failed to stop the plan after being instructed by the owner.
  • Involved individuals lied to investigators.

In college, the general manager would be replaced with the athletic director, and the owner would be roughly equivalent to the university president.

Violations

Gambling (Bylaw 10.3)

The actual bounty program itself could be placed in the catch-all category of unethical conduct, but it is normally better to find a violation of a more specific bylaw. The NCAA defines gambling as risking something of value to win something of value. The athletes in this case risked something (money contributed to the pool) to win something (money awarded from the pool). The way the bounty scheme was set up is really no different than say golfers gambling on practice rounds.

Extra Benefits (Bylaw 16.11.2.1)

In addition to the athletes contributing money to the pool, a coach was putting in funds as well. That portion of the bounty pool would be considered an extra benefit to the athletes. It’s hard to say what the amount of extra benefits would be since we do not know how much each individual contributed. Payouts ranged from $1000 to over $4000, but would likely be less in college, probably between $200 and $500. On the other hand, the share of the bounty pool from coaches would likely be larger in college than in the NFL. Given a similar number of athletes (22–27) over a similar time frame (3 years), a reasonable estimate might be that a few athletes received extra benefits in the thousands of dollars while the majority would be in the hundreds of dollars but less than a grand. The total extra benefits might be in the $10–15,000 range.

Unethical Conduct (Bylaw 10.1)

Aside from the possibility that organizing the bounty pool would be considered an ethical conduct violation, individuals (including athletes and coaches) lied to investigators. In total, the following sections of the unethical conduct bylaw could apply:

  • (a) Refusal to furnish information relevant to an investigation of a possible violation of an NCAA regulation when requested to do so by the NCAA or the individual’s institution.
  • (b) Knowing involvement in offering or providing a prospective or an enrolled student-athlete an improper inducement or extra benefit or improper financial aid.
  • (d) Knowingly furnishing or knowingly influencing others to furnish the NCAA or the individuals’s institution false or misleading information concerning an individual’s involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an NCAA regulation.

Failure to Promote an Atmosphere of Compliance (Bylaw 11.1.2.1)

At the point where the head coach learned about the violation, he would have had an obligation under NCAA rules to stop it from occurring and ensure it was reported at dealt with. But as the NFL found:

 Although [the head coach] was not a direct participant in the funding or administration of the program, he was aware of the allegations, did not make any detailed inquiry or otherwise seek to learn the facts, and failed to stop the bounty program. He never instructed his assistant coaches or players that a bounty program was improper and could not continue.

That would certainly violate both the responsibility to promote an atmosphere of compliance and the responsibility of a head coach to monitor his program and the people who report to him.

Lack of Institutional Control (Constitution 2.1.1)

Not only did the head coach fail to investigate or stop the bounty program but imagine if this appeared in an infractions report:

 When informed earlier this year of the new information, [the university president] advised the [enforcement] staff that he had directed his [athletic director] to ensure that any bounty program be discontinued immediately. The evidence showed that [the athletic director] did not carry out [the president’s] directions. Similarly, when the initial allegations were discussed with [the athletic director] in 2010, he denied any knowledge of a bounty program and pledged that he would ensure that no such program was in place. There is no evidence that [the athletic director] took any effective action to stop these practices.

The lack of any action at all, even in response to an order from the institutional CEO on a matter as serious as athlete safety would go beyond a failure to monitor. It would be evidence of a lack of any system to control the athletics department, hence a lack of institutional control.

Penalties

Judging penalties is always difficult, but we can get in the ballpark at least. The biggest variable is to what degree the fact that the violations deal with athlete safety is treated as an aggravating factor. The case that comes the closest is the Baylor case, which would make a bounty scheme one of the worst violations with some of the most severe penalties in NCAA history. Even without that consideration, this is still one of the most serious cases ever, involving gambling, the possibility of significant extra benefits, and a lack of institutional control. Let’s look at the penalties for the athletes, the coaches and administrators, and the institution.

Student-Athlete Reinstatement

Sports wagering is one of the few bylaws that has a penalty written into the manual:

A student-athlete who participates in activities designed to influence the outcome of any intercollegiate contest or in an effort to affect win-loss margins (“point shaving”) or who participates in any sports wagering activity involving the student-athlete’s institution shall permanently lose all remaining regular-season and postseason eligibility in all sports. (emphasis added)

Just for being involved in sports wagering at all, student-athletes are subject to a one-year suspension and the loss of one season of competition in all sports. Given that a bounty system goes beyond gambling, it would be hard for the institution to make an argument for mitigating these penalties. Add in the fact that there could be repayment and further suspensions for the extra benefit violations, plus penalties for lying to the NCAA. There would likely be a number of student-athletes who are declared permanently ineligible and the rest would be facing suspensions that may start at a year.

Coaches and Administrators

There would likely be two show-cause orders handed down, with the possibility of a third. As important as the length of a show-cause order is, how the individual’s athletic duties are limited are even more important. Guessing there is even more difficult because the Committee on Infractions has only recently begun spelling these conditions out in the public report. 

The coach(es) who ran the bounty pool would be facing charges of providing extra benefits to student-athletes and unethical conduct. They would receive the most significant and lengthy penalties. Show-cause orders longer than three years are fairly uncommon, occurring in only a few cases in the last decade. In this case though, that might be the floor for coaches directly involved in the bounty scheme. Three to five years sounds about right. The coaches would likely be prohibited from any recruiting activities during that period, but the big question would be if or for how long they would be prohibited from all coaching activities, which would turn the show-cause into an extended suspension.

The head coach would likely also receive a show-cause order for the failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and any unethical conduct violations he was involved with. Former Ohio State University head coach Jim Tressel’s show-cause order seems to offer the best model. It would likely be around 3 years long, and would include a suspension from gameday coaching activities, with six games probably the starting point.

Finally, there might be a show-cause order for the athletic director who failed to take action after being told to by the university president. Show-causes orders for administrators are even rarer. One of the very few in recent history was in Florida State University’s recent major infractions case where a learning specialist received a four year-long show-cause order during which she was prevented from having any contact with student-athletes. A show-cause order for an athletic director might include limiting him or her to no athletic duties or from having direct supervision of sports programs.

The Institution

Penalties for the institution would start with a lengthy probation, on the order of four or five years. This could be increased even more if the institution was found to not have cooperated with the investigation, beyond just the unethical conduct by individuals.

The extra benefits violation would result in the loss of scholarships. How many is the big question. The total dollar amount would be significant, but some of the individual amounts received by student-athletes would be relatively small. But when combined with the fact that the benefits were provided in a gambling ring that threatened student-athlete safety, the Committee on Infractions will not be inclined to offer relief. Once the athletes started receiving extra benefits, they would have been ineligible for competition, so records will be vacated as well.

The combination of gambling, safety, extra benefits, and a lack of institutional control on the institution’s part would mean a postseason ban for multiple years is possible, if not likely. Any money gained from postseason appearances with the ineligible student-athletes would need to be returned, and this might be a case where the NCAA would impose a financial penalty as they did in the recent Georgia Tech case.

In the end, the sanctions on the institution would be similar to those imposed on the University of Southern California. Significant scholarship loses, a multi-year postseason ban, a lengthy probation, and financial penalties. This all assumes that the case is decided under the current major infractions penalty system, not the new penalty matrix where this case would likely fall into the highest category of penalties given the number of aggravating factors.

  1. At least within the bounds of the collective bargaining agreement.  ↩

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

All It Takes Is One

March 21, 2012 by

Many people have moved from asking whether college athletes should be paid or why they should be paid to how they could be paid. It’s a fatalistic position based on the fact that everywhere in the world, amateur sports eventually lost out to professional sports. The US has the odd quirk of attaching high level athletics to higher education but whether that ultimately makes a difference remains to be seen. For pay-for-play advocates, the answer is already that it should not.

But the more interesting question is when. Or more specifically what will be the trigger that sets in motion the move to professional college athletics? Candidates emerge and are annointed all the time. Newspaper and magazine articles, lawsuits, possible unionization, an influx of money into college athletes are all pointed to as being the tipping point. So far, none have panned out and the whole exercise is becoming a bit like the boy who cried wolf. But a possible answer has come from Brazil. It could be as simple as waiting for the best football or basketball player ever.

Even the casual sports fan knows of Lionel Messi but few outside of soccer fans are familiar with Neymar. Neymar is the future of the Brazilian National Team and may be the only player alive right now who could challenge Messi over his career. Neymar is a little younger than Messi, but should be doing battle with him in Spain’s La Liga or in the Champions League. An even more frightening prospect is the idea of the two of them as teammates at Barcelona. But while Messi is the star NBA point guard, Neymar has so far played the role of the streetball legend.

The reason is that many forces well beyond Neymar’s control are keeping him from leaving his boyhood Sao Paulo club of Santos. Chief among them is the convoluted ownership of Neymar’s transfer rights. Normally soccer clubs own these rights, buying and selling players on the transfer market. Neymar is the classic case of third-party ownership. In exchange for paying a portion of his salary, a number of third parties (agents and investment funds typically) own a portion of Neymar’s transfer rights. European clubs typically must buy out all of the third-party owners in addition to the original club. In Neymar’s case, that means at least two investment funds, the club, and Neymar himself (his company owns 10% of his transfer rights). All of these parties are looking for a return on their investment, meaning the total transfer fee needed is approaching record levels.

Money could solve all those problems, and despite upcoming financial fair play rules and clubs suffering with debt and losses, there surely exists a team on the continent who could pony up the transfer fee, which could approach nine figures (in dollars, euros, or pounds, however you care to slice it). But other forces are at work. For starters, Brazil’s robust economy compared to Europe is keeping players like Neymar within the means of Brazilian clubs:

 A few short years ago, there would be nothing to debate. Financial realities already would have forced Neymar across the Atlantic. Brazilian football simply would not be able to afford him. Times have changed, though. Europe is in crisis. Brazil’s economy has been enjoying a consumer-led boom. For companies seeking to connect with those consumers, an involvement with football makes sense. Sponsors, then, can be brought on board to help with the wages that big-name players can command as much at home as by moving to Europe.

Those means extend all the way to the government. Banco do Brasil, one of the country’s largest banks, was prepared to help finance Neymar’s new contract with Santos. Banco do Brasil also happens to be state-run. In the end a private bank stepped in, albeit with with an extensive sponsorship deal that may further complicate a future move for the player.

Beyond means though is the possibility of revolutionizing Brazilian soccer. In most countries, the United States included, clubs run their own league, sharing some of the power with the national federation. In Brazil though, state federations have disproportionately high influence in the structure of the game. The result is that major clubs in Brazil spend January through May participating in state leagues against tiny clubs. Imagine the Lakers having to spend the offseason playing semi-pro and amateur teams, with even the right to stay in the NBA on the line and you get a sense of the idea. One hope is that as the big clubs gain the financial might to challenge European teams for players, they will also gain the political power to break away from the state championships and create a national league and cup system similar to the rest of the world.

What does all this have to do with college sports? For starters, one athlete in a different hemisphere under a totally different set of rules has encapsulated many of the issues and debates facing college athletics. How much should governments invest in or interfere with athletic teams? Should programs be run to maximize the success of a few teams or athletes or to provide as many opportunities as possible (Santos shut down its women’s team and its futsal team, a form of indoor soccer, just to pay Neymar)? How much of how a program is run or control over an athlete’s career should be ceded to third parties (or the club itself)? How important is regional vs. national interest? And what is the responsibility of the haves to maintain some degree of competitive equity or even engage in competition at all with the have nots?

Collegiate athletics can also learn from the fact that one athlete, simply by being a great athlete, could potentially cause massive change to how a sport operates in an entire country. It would be like if LeBron James had decided to go to college and stay for four years, so the entire structure of the NCAA was changed to accommodate him. The main difference might be that while there might not be true alternatives in either Brazil or the United States for Brazil’s professional leagues and college athletics, in the US there are at least potential alternatives, like professional youth leagues or amateur development operated by national governing bodies.

Could it happen here? The short answer is: it depends. The long answer is that it will and already has, in bits and pieces. Athletes who are “too good” for college have been a problem solved in a myriad of ways across the many sports the NCAA oversees. Generally they’re presented with a choice: amateurism and education in the NCAA or payment and training in a professional setting. We’ve yet to have a major showdown between a once-in-a-generation athlete who desperately wants to go to college and an NCAA not designed to accommodate him or her (given that this would almost certainly be a football or men’s basketball athlete, probably him).

Because potential alternatives exist, it would require abandoning the assumption that colleges, backed by state and federal taxpayers and committed to different missions should be involved in the development of elite athletes and asking the hard question about whether they should. An American Neymar is almost a certainty in the foreseeable future (15–20 years). But rather than moving the NCAA and its members forward, the major change could be the end of elite, commercial college athletics.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: ,

A Simple Reason Schools Drug Test

March 10, 2012 by

In the wake of news that Syracuse is facing potential violations of NCAA Bylaw 10.2, people are asking why schools drug test at all. Bylaw 10.2 does not require schools to have a drug testing program, but does require them to follow the program, especially the consequences for positive tests, if they have one. If a school fails to adhere to their drug testing program, it faces the possibility of going on probation, which would in essence mean NCAA monitoring of the school’s institutional drug testing program. Why expose yourself to these risks, the theory goes, if the rules don’t require you to?

Ignore for a moment a number of very good reasons to have a drug testing program: the health of athletes, identifying individuals who need treatment and help with a problem, and the fact that in a lot of cases taking recreational or performance enhancing drugs is illegal. Also ignore for a second the idea that maybe the NCAA’s rules should just be the floor for what is required and schools so go above and beyond them sometimes. Even if all an athletic department cares about is winning, it should still have a drug testing program, simply because the NCAA does.

The NCAA conducts drug testing both at championship sites and as part of a random, year-round testing program. Most schools can probably expect a visit once or twice a year, although a positive test at a school may draw more frequent testing for a while. Year-round means year-round too; the NCAA has tested baseball players up in Alaska during summer ball, for example.

The penalties for a positive NCAA drug test are hefty. For the first offense, student-athletes lose a season of competition in all sports and are suspended for 365 days.[1] If a student-athlete tests positive a second time for a recreational or street drug (a designation only three substances have, everything else is considered performance enhancing), the athlete faces the same penalty: lose a season of competition and sit out for a year. If a student-athlete’s second positive test is for a performance enhancing drug, he or she loses all remaining eligibility in all sports.

If an institution does not conduct drug testing, that means when the school receives notice that athletes will be drug tested by the NCAA (typically a day or two in advance), it has no idea which athletes might be on the verge of a year-long suspension, and has done nothing to help those athletes possibly avoid that fate.

From a cynical standpoint of just what helps the athletic department competitively, volunteering to suspend athletes for 25% of the season, for example, is a lot better than hoping they do not lose whole seasons at a time. When they are done well, institutional drug testing programs have a therapy or rehabilitation component, are good examples of progressive discipline, and remind student-athletes of the consequences of a positive NCAA drug test which might come infrequently but carries dire consequences.

  1. The loss of a season of competition can add up quickly because it is in addition to the use of eligibility for competition. So if an athlete plays in the first game of the season, then has a positive NCAA drug test, he or she has used one season of competition and loses another season of competition for the positive test.  ↩

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With:

Majoring in the Minors

March 3, 2012 by

One of the most common criticisms of the NCAA is that it is (or has been for a long time), the minor league for the NFL and the NBA. With no youth or developmental system at all in professional basketball and football, it is left to college athletics to develop players after they leave high school.

That raises intense, heated debate about the responsibility of the NCAA and its members, given that the major leagues have as little or maybe even less interest in providing a professional option for 18–23 year olds. But it also raises a different and more important question of what the NCAA’s responsibility is to those players for their development.

Because one of the best arguments against the idea that the NCAA is operating the NFL and NBA’s developmental leagues is that the NCAA seems wholly uninterested in developing professional athletes. Sure, plenty of professional athletes come out of college athletics, not just in sports with no other options. And sure, some programs have a huge pipeline to the pro ranks. But all of this is in spite of many of the NCAA’s rules rather than because of them.

Seasons are generally short, with some sports have far too few games and some sports having far too many against too inconsistent a level of competition. Practice time with coaches is tightly restricted, and often has to cede to games when the schedule gets congested. And in the offseason, there is little or no time to develop skills.

Instead, NCAA rules regarding playing and practice seasons are designed to provide as high a level of a competitive experience to student-athletes without an unacceptable level of disruption to the academic experience. Rather than professional athletes, the rules are focused on creating national champions and college graduates.

This does help some student-athletes become professional athletes due to the sheer volume of athletes who get an opportunity to compete at a high level. But the process is haphazard. Defenders of the NBA’s age limit (and to a lesser extent the NFL’s) point to failed pro careers that started to early. But how many potential pro careers are ruined by the athlete not getting the intensive training and maybe even competition at a consistently elite level?

You could run college athletics as a developmental league, with longer seasons, fewer games against higher levels of competition, and more incentives for producing pros than for winning games. And it would not be a revolutionary idea to provide an education and training in a discipline that the vast majority of students will never make a living from (see: many performing and arts majors).

But the best musicians are produced in conservatories and the best actors come from performing arts schools. A university can develop and produce talented entertainers, but it would be hard to argue that the specialized environment doesn’t have a number of advantages a university never will.

The fight over pay-for-play and academic standards is part of a larger discussion about what we do with athletes between the ages of about 12 and 22. To come up with an answer, we need an answer to this question: How important is going to high school and college with their peer group for professional athletes? Do they have to reach those milestones at the normal ages to get the benefits? Do they have to go to traditional educational institutions? Or is simply getting the education at some point the key?

If it is important, then the onus maybe on universities, as institutions that are part of the public trust, to provide this type of training and increase access to college for elite developing athletes. But if not, it might be time to seriously question why we insist on hammering a square peg into a round hole.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: ,
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