NCAA should make common sense an option

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© St. Petersburg Times
published August 21, 2002

Sometimes justice prevails. Sometimes the dreams of one are weighed favorably against the management of many. This is not one of those times.

The NCAA trounced Jeremy Bloom this week. Beat him until he had no choice but to give up. All in the name of fair play.

Bloom is not just a dreamer, but an achiever. He is a 20-year-old University of Colorado student with faith enough to chase dual careers as an Olympic skier and a college football player. So, of course, the NCAA said no.

NCAA officials said he could not play college ball if he continued accepting endorsement money from ski manufacturers.

Thus, he faced a choice.

Give up a life-long dream of college football or give up hundreds of thousands of dollars and, quite possibly, a chance at returning to the Olympics in 2006. Bloom chose football.

"I've always told myself I'd never let money control my life and my decisions," Bloom told reporters on Monday.

Wouldn't it be nice if the folks running college athletics could claim the same?

Granted, the NCAA's task is not easy. There are certainly those in, and around, the sport who would bend the rules. Those who would lie, manipulate, cover up and bribe. And that's just the assistant coaches.

So we accept that rules must be enforced and we try to ignore the hypocrisy as the money flows past. We understand the system will never be perfect.

But is it too much to ask for a person in charge of common sense?

The NCAA's rules, by and large, are meant to prevent one football team from gaining an unfair advantage over another by means of recruiting.

Those rules do not apply, yet were strictly enforced, in Bloom's case.

His situation has nothing to do with recruiting, nor will it provide the Buffaloes with any extra benefits. This is a case of the NCAA overzealously protecting its bylaws without pausing to look at the bigger picture.

The NCAA has provisions for an athlete to be a professional in one sport and maintain college eligibility in another. This is how Josh Booty and Chris Weinke could return to college football after pro baseball careers.

Where the NCAA draws the line is endorsements. Again, there is a legitimate basis. What's to stop a booster from recruiting a football player by promising him an endorsement from a local grocer?

Yet there are flaws in this case and NCAA leaders were either too myopic or too arrogant to acknowledge that.

For the most part, skiers earn their living through endorsements. This makes Bloom different from, say, Booty or Weinke. The only way he can financially support his skiing career -- the cost of equipment, coaching and traveling -- is by accepting endorsement money.

By denying Bloom the type of earnings made by every Olympic-caliber skier, the NCAA is essentially threatening his career.

That doesn't even take into account that the endorsements predated his days as a Colorado receiver, and have nothing to do with college football.

Bloom tried to get an injunction that would have allowed him to continue receiving endorsement money while he played for CU this fall. A judge last week ruled there was not sufficient legal precedent to grant the injunction.

But the judge did not stop there. He chided the NCAA for not having the flexibility to realize this case was unique and worthy of further review.

Boulder District Court Judge Daniel Hale said the NCAA was missing an opportunity to promote the personal and professional growth of a student-athlete with enough gumption to dream.

"I would like to see him live out those dreams," Hale said.

The NCAA would have you believe it was worried about precedents. That, to make an exception for Bloom, would open the floodgates for other claims of less merit. In other words, the NCAA was afraid. It was afraid to fight for the rights of the very people it is supposed to be representing.

Isn't that what this is about?

Isn't the NCAA supposed to protect the interests of student-athletes and member institutions?

The NCAA has no problem adding extra games to the football season, accepting advertising from beer companies, splashing sponsors' logos all over uniforms or allowing coaches to jump from scandal to scandal.

On the other hand, we have a young man who was an honor roll student in high school, made the Olympic skiing team at 19, placed 10th in moguls in Salt Lake City, and was prepared to carry a full class load at Colorado while playing football and continuing his training for a skiing career.

Yet the NCAA does not think his is a cause worth supporting.

The court said NCAA officials were within their rights.

That is not the same thing as saying they were right.

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