National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2000
« back to 2000 | Back to NCAA News Archive Index
Opinions
|
The NCAA News
Charlie Adams, executive director
North Carolina High School Athletic Association
Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer
"(The NCAA's amateurism proposals) would completely alter the existing education-based athletics program and turn it into athletics-based education system. The NCAA is taking the tack that they cannot regulate their potential players so they will just eliminate the regulations. ... These changes would undermine high-school programs throughout the country. Top prospects would be driven away from the high-school programs that are run by educators to other programs that are controlled by no one."
Gender equity
Scott Miller, wrestling coach
Syracuse University
The Associated Press
Discussing Syracuse's recent decision to eliminate its wrestling program:
"We all agree that the student-athlete experience is one of the most important experiences a person can have, so why do you go about eliminating that? It doesn't make sense. I don't agree with the fact that schools are saying they just can't afford it. Well, yeah, you can."
Donna Lopiano, executive director
Women's Sports Foundation
Chronicle of Higher Education
"There isn't a parent I speak to, especially dads, who isn't incredibly enthusiastic about what sport is doing for girls. They also don't like the elitist direction of men's sport. They don't want all of their dollars going to a select few, and they intensely dislike the arrogance, selfishness, and misbehavior of the professional athlete or the spoiled college athlete."
Students' right to work
Tim Bald, director of compliance
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Capital (Wisconsin) Times
"(Student-athletes are) doing two full-time jobs already -- a student and an athlete -- and you just can't fit another part-time job in there. Those who are doing all three ... something is giving."
Pay for play
Jemele Hill, columnist
Detroit Free Press
Discussing a recent survey indicating that more minorities than whites thought student-athletes should be compensated:
"But in supporting pay for college players, Blacks are guilty of some faulty perceptions. Too many black parents and children think their best contribution to society will be with a basketball or football. Too many preach athletics as a means to an end, and not just one of several ways a living can be earned.
"Too many of us have gotten the idea that becoming a doctor or a lawyer is less attainable than becoming a pro athlete, which is much more improbable. Just consider the ratio of lawyers to NBA players."
Parents and recruiting
Craig Esherick, men's basketball coach
Georgetown University
Washington Post
Discussing occasions where parents become too involved in promoting their children at a young age:
"The most discouraging aspect of recruiting is when parents start acting like kids. The parents start thinking they're the ones going to college and need to be stroked, and that they're the ones who are going to reap benefits of a great college athletics career, and they anticipate their son having a great athletics career. Parents say all the right things ... and all of their actions speak otherwise. That's when it's discouraging."
Baseball bats
Lloyd Smith, assistant professor of mechanical
engineering
Washington State University
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"(Aluminum provides) a lighter bat so you can swing the bat faster, but a lighter bat has less inertia than a heavier bat. The only advantage you have is that, since it's lighter, you are able to control it better. It's more of a bat-placement advantage."
Division I football
Pete Richardson, head football coach
Southern University
Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Sunday Advocate
"Division I-AA has a future, but I think what's going to happen is we'll have to rethink how we do business. And we're going to have to take the playoff system out, because it doesn't make a penny. It costs us money. And that's not the situation we want our schools to be in.
"I'd rather have the opportunity to have a regionalized bowl game and let people speculate who's going to be the national champion.
"I like our position in I-AA right now. It doesn't really make a difference. The ones that are I-AA who are going Division I-A will probably never get into the Bowl Championship Series anyway. So it doesn't make any difference. It's just a matter of dropping one of the A's."