ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601110024
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The 90th annual NCAA convention runs through Wednesday in Dallas, so pardon me while I hold my breath waiting for news we can use from this annual session
Actually, maybe it would be good if we all held our breath, because a lot of good oxygen will be wasted in Big D. It's this way every year. The NCAA meets, passes some legislation that mostly ends up in fine print somewhere, and the world is a better place.
Or, at least the people who run college athletics say it is. Meanwhile, they have their handprints all over coaches and footprints all over athletes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association thinks it is bigger than its unwieldy rules manual. And it is.
The NCAA constantly tells us that its 900-some member schools are the association. Actually, it's an organization where nobody really is in charge. It's an organization adept at hand-wringing and self-indulgence and officiousness and a bunch of other words I'd need to look up in the dictionary.
OK, it does put on a great basketball tournament. But then, who couldn't for the $195-or-so million the NC2A will reap from the Big Dance this year?
And they don't like that, either, when you call them the NC2A, and they'll tell you so.
The photo above is of a guy who really enjoys college athletics. The games are great. So are most of the athletes, coaches, athletic staff members and conference executives. It's the system and its pooh-bahs that invite seaminess.
Really, how many people care what the NCAA does at its convention, which is the height of the regular exercises in excess by the NCAA? College sports fans want to know who plays whom, who's leading the polls, who's on TV, who's being recruited by whom and why there isn't a real national championship in big-time football.
They also want to know who's cheating, and the NCAA doesn't have enough Barney Fifes to nip it in the bud, so it relies on the same system of arrest and fingerprinting renegades that's used at grade-school recesses across the land.
It's called the tattletale.
Perhaps only the U.S. Congress plays politics better than the NCAA. There are those who retain this wishful thinking that the NCAA oversees amateur athletics, and that's true in some sports, and at two-thirds of the member schools, because they're not in Division I. However, if you see it on TV, there's not much amateur about it.
What is a TV timeout except selling yourself? Now, college basketball, even on non-TV games, has something called a ``media'' timeout. Don't look at press row. I'm not calling them. That isn't as hypocritical as it gets, however.
The NCAA accepts an average of more than $200 million annually from a TV network for its basketball tournament rights, then tells the network that it can't run beer ads during games. However, it does OK beer advertising before tip-off and after the final horn, during those studio shows. It's also OK for conferences to air beer spots during regular-season games, but it's not OK during the NCAA Tournament.
Well, aren't those schools and conferences playing regular-season TV games NCAA members? Does the NCAA think the public is that stupid and the game that pure?
The answers are: yes and yes.
It's OK for the NCAA to get a gazillion bucks for its basketball tournament, but a recruit can't accept a $10 T-shirt. Colleges are hurting for money, but the NCAA goes on holding its sports committee meetings in places like Jackson Hole, Cape Cod, Hilton Head Island and Key West.
The NCAA comes to Salem and even for Division III championships, the organization has officious administrators from the home office in Overland Park, Kan., running around bossing people, calling newspapers trying to intimidate young reporters into writing ``something positive,'' staying in the best hotel suites in town and leaving with enough gifts to fill Santa's sack - all the while reminding everyone this really isn't a Salem event, but rather ``an NCAA championship.''
Don't blame the schools. They don't have much of a choice. If they want to play, they pretty much have to belong to the NCAA, which bills itself as a volunteer organization. It's really almost as much of a monopoly as your local cable system.
At this NCAA convention, the major item on the agenda is to get more power into the hands of the big players in Division I. What's new about that? It's a concept the NCAA has played by for years. The rich get richer.
Some say the NCAA is an acronym. What it really seems to be is an anachronism.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB