National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2000
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Opinions
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Editorial
Indianapolis Star
"If there is now a recognized epidemic of gambling sweeping the nation and threatening to cripple college sports, it should come as no surprise to legislators who have signed off on an array of legal gambling initiatives and members of Congress who have enthusiastically filled their campaign coffers with donations from the gambling industry.
"With lotteries in 37 states and casinos in operation virtually everywhere, how can students be inoculated against the personal and societal risks inherent in gambling? The line between legal and illegal is a blur."
Division II basketball
Bob Hanson, executive director
Greater Wichita (Kansas) Area Sports Commission
NABC Courtside
"I represented Division II (as the head coach at the University of Nebraska, Omaha) for so many years on the NABC board and was so involved. I think Division II has been hurt a great deal, as many basketball programs have, by cable television. It's so easy for people to just stay at home and watch any game they want on TV, rather than go out and see a local college team play.
"I'd like to see more money made available to Division II. The NCAA has just signed a huge new television contract and I think some of that could enhance Division II. There are a great number of terrific athletes at the Division II level who go on to make great contributions to society. Every athlete, and basketball player, can't play in Division I and there are so many who make a decision, for whatever reason, to play at another level. ...
"The Division II tournament now is too regional and the regionalization has hurt basketball. The NCAA used to swing teams to another region but now everything is about money. Even site selection is about who can make the most."
Amateurism
Art Thiel, columnist
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"The fact is, kid-hoops predators are getting to kids earlier and earlier, and that includes the athletics shoe companies, street agents and many college coaches. The practice of housing and caring for high-school athletics stars by non-family members is likely to be the next big mess for college sports. Not that they don't already have enough unmanageable problems on the campuses.
"The big-picture trouble is that the NCAA is based on a bogus premise: Its athletes are not entitled to receive any benefits for their labors beyond a scholarship, the renewal of which is not guaranteed beyond one year. The premise is so antithetical to a capitalist society that it not only makes cheating likely, it is virtually mandatory for success.
"Nowhere else in the world does this archaic system of amateurism still prevail. The Olympics long ago abandoned the hypocrisy. Throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, young athletes with world-class potential are enrolled in professional clubs for development, with tutoring worked around the sports calendar.
"(The NCAA has to) consider just how far it wants to extend its rules. It must consider whether it really wants to monitor high-school parking lots, and whether it wants to snoop into relationships between kids' parents and their friends. It has to consider whether it really wants to find out what's up. Or it could just conclude: Pay the kids a stipend, and dry up some of the well for jock-sniffers, fixers and street agents."