The NCAA’s brilliant tampering solution? Guilty-until-proven-innocent
Perhaps the taste of common sense was so exotic and so unpleasant that the members of the NCAA’s Division I board had to cleanse their palates. Board members couldn’t simply adjourn a relatively productive meeting without suggesting something that had that old, familiar flavor. To them, it must have tasted like the delicious cream cheese the NCAA once famously banned.
After pushing forward a potential five-year-to-play-five rule and granting a sensible request from the Big Ten that helps schools execute an aspect of contracts between athletes and the schools, the board decided it was going to tackle tampering once and for all. Here, in all its glory, is the board’s proposed solution: The board also introduced a proposal that would direct the infractions process to presume violations occurred in cases of impermissible contact with transfer students (i. e.
, tampering). If the proposal is adopted by the Division I Cabinet in June, schools suspected of tampering with student-athletes prior to their entry into the Transfer Portal would need to demonstrate the violation did not occur to avoid penalties. You read that correctly.
Their solution is guilty-until-proven-innocent. Your team’s coach tampered with that player before the player entered the portal because someone said your coach tampered. Do enforcement staffers have evidence of said tampering?
Maybe, but they don’t need it. The coach has to prove they didn’t do it. While they’re at it, they probably should prove they didn’t move 700 pounds of black market shrimp through the port over the past week.
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