NCAA continues to get it wrong with suspension of A.J. Green
Submitted by admin on September 11, 2010 – 11:39am
As the college football season begins to get into full swing, the NCAA continues to hand out suspensions to players suspected of violating rules concerning contact with sports agents. The latest player to feel the blow from the NCAA is Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green.
Green was suspended by the NCAA for four games on Wednesday for selling a bowl game jersey for $1,000 to someone who the NCAA says qualifies as an agent. Green sold his jersey from last season’s Independence Bowl and after sitting out the first game, must miss three more games before regaining his eligibility, according to the ruling from the NCAA.
According to ESPN, Green sold his jersey to former North Carolina football player Chris Hawkins who is also at the center of the NCAA’s investigation into the Tar Heels program.
As more information continues to come out regarding the findings from the Green investigation and the other investigations still being conducted by the NCAA, a few things are becoming blatantly clear. The NCAA is continuing to simply punish college students instead of fixing the real problem.
The NCAA has become nothing more than a hypocritical governing body that operates as a non-profit, but carries out its operations as if it were a for-profit entity. The NCAA continues to bring in billions of dollars while making sure that college athletes perform at high levels to bring in more money for schools.
The truth of the matter is the scholarships that athletes receive are paid for ten-fold with the amount of money that the players help generate for the school. In the case of Green, we are dealing with $1,000, not the tens of thousands that have come up in other cases of agent related violations.
Other college students are allowed plenty of opportunities to bring in extra income as they struggle through college life, so why is Green being punished for essentially doing the same thing? Green only received $1,000 for selling his jersey, not exactly enough to say he was trying to live a lavish college life. It seems that Green was simply trying to earn some money to help survive the college struggle, much like other college students.
While the NCAA is busy handing out absurd suspensions, they need to pay more attention to the way schools are able to move around from conference to conference in order to make more money and the way coaches are able to not only get paid millions of dollars, but also able to have schools pay large buyout amounts when they jump from school to school.
Instead, the NCAA felt it necessary to suspend Green three games even though he was forthright about the sale of his jersey and was very cooperative in their investigation.
By punishing green, what has the NCAA accomplished? The problem with unscrupulous agents is still very much a problem. Suspending Green didn’t help solve that issue. There are still several cases of dealings between agents and players that have not been addressed and there will be many more to come this season and in seasons to come. Suspending Green didn’t solve that issue either.
If the NCAA was truly concerned with solving the problem between agents and players, they would start being proactive instead of reactive.
With the actions and non-action by the NCAA, you have to wonder whose best interest they really have in mind. It obviously is not the players and with the way they are handling issues that have occurred, it appears the NCAA is only interested in what is best for the NCAA’s bottom line. Since Green got the profit from the sale of his jersey and the NCAA didn’t get a cut of the money, it is deemed inappropriate. I doubt the NCAA would have a problem with this situation if they would have received a portion of the money.
Don’t let the NCAA fool you. They are out to maximize their profit, not to look out for the best interests of student athletes. Punishing players has not done anything to fix what an apparent problem and until the NCAA realizes that and does something to truly fix the situation, there will be many more situations similar to that of A.J. Green.
Writer name:
Quentin Jones
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Contributor
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