Well, it’s pretty much official. Multiple sources are telling reporters that Johnny Manziel has selected an agent and will forego two whole years of NCAA eligibility for the riches and, more importantly to him, the freedom of the National Football League.
I don’t really want to go through the shenanigans that Manziel has pulled, nor the lame duck punishments the NCAA tried to use to control him. Manziel acted like what he is, a superstar quarterback with access to Texas oil money and legions of fans that ranged from adoring to creepy.
All in all, everyone will miss Manziel for his play. Many will also miss him for his Devil-may-care attitude on and off the field. The NCAA will not miss him for said attitude.
Manziel will go down as the single greatest example of the NCAA’s increasingly corrosive relationship with its top talent. He is a superstar that the league doesn’t really seem to want and that is a scenario truly unique among sports leagues. Only in college.
This is especially shocking when you consider just what Manziel was as a player. He was incredible, an absolute joy to watch even if his team’s defense couldn’t really back him up this season. However, his skills were also clearly better designed for the college game.
His arm strength has been considered below average by NFL standards and he is fairly undersized. Could he be Russell Wilson? Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that Manziel was the kind of player who just belonged in college longer.
As it stands, the NCAA is operating under the idea that it is providing its student athletes a service. Free education is received in exchange for getting to play the sport a student athlete loves. It’s a pretty good deal.
Except if that athlete could be making millions of dollars instead of playing in school. Then, we delve into a pretty dark rabbit hole of financial ethics.
The idea of student athlete status as a privilege only applies to the non revenue sports. In reality, it is the football, basketball, hockey and baseball players that are providing the (incredibly cheap) service to the NCAA.
And those players are becoming more and more aware of that as each ticky tacky and inconsistent NCAA attempt to punish and control them comes out of the league office.
North Carolina basketball players PJ Hairston and Leslie McDonald currently sit on the sidelines as they await the NCAA to make a decision that has, for some reason, taken months to make. Hairston got into trouble over the summer for a legal incident involving a convicted felon, a rental car, marijuana, and guns (Google it, it’s pretty amazing how stupid it is), while McDonald faces eligibility issues because of a photo he posted that could be seen as an endorsement for a mouth guard. I’ll say that again: McDonald hasn’t played at all this season because he posted a photo of himself with a mouth guard.
Former Tar Heel and current Milwaukee Buck John Henson summed up the situation well, posting a photo of him wearing a t-shirt featuring the NCAA logo with the word SCAM printed instead of the association’s name.
The NCAA has found a way to punish these players without actually punishing them. They have basically served an 8-game suspension because UNC won’t play them so long as their eligibility is in jeopardy.
Why do they do this? The NCAA simply doesn’t fully comprehend their place in the lives of student athletes and programs. Do they even have the jurisdiction to punish Hairston, whose issue is purely legal, and has absolutely nothing to do with the NCAA?
The NCAA definitely felt they had the jurisdiction to punish Penn State, a program that shielded a child molester for years. Sure, everyone involved in the cover-up is now in some combination of fired, imprisoned, or dead. But the NCAA took it upon itself to end the “football first culture” it saw as responsible for the cover-up by taking a hammer to Penn State’s checkbook, bowl eligibility, win totals, and scholarships. Despite none of the parties responsible still being at Penn State.
Of course, the NCAA has decided that maybe they were a little harsh, and have recently reduced their sanctions. Why did they do this?
They wanted to end the constant sell-outs and football fans that have made Penn State a national power. But the fanbase rallied, the stadium still sold out, and five-star recruits have still signed their scholarship in Happy Valley. The punishment wasn’t fulfilling its supposed intent.
The reason they reduced their sanctions is a cynical attempt to show they aren’t the bad guys, that they can be cool and show they aren’t as self-important as almost every sports columnist in America wants you to think they are.
They do this while Hairston and McDonald sit on the sidelines and Manziel flees their attempts to parent him.
This isn’t simply to bash the NCAA, as I enjoy doing. Instead, it’s more of an attempt to question what plane of morality the NCAA considers itself to operate on.
Should the NCAA consider itself as a secondary American legal system? Laws are already in place to discourage crime, but the NCAA doesn’t want criminals in its midst.
Should it be an overarching morality police, in lieu of the schools, coaches, and parental guidance of its athletes? If Manziel’s coach Kevin Sumlin, who just signed a $5 million a year contract extension, has no problem with Manziel’s antics, you have to wonder what gives the NCAA the right to intervene.
Should it even have the right to restrict their athletes’ ability to profit from their status? Schools make millions by being a “Nike school” or an “Adidas school.” They also benefit from jersey sales, memorabilia, and tickets sold to watch said athletes.
In the NCAA’s mind, it seems that a school profiting from an athlete being good at sports is fine, but an athlete profiting because he himself is good at sports is reprehensible.
Morality wise, they are confounding questions. And there is no reason to think that going forward, the NCAA has anything close to a real answer.
What should the NCAA do in these scenarios? Where should they step in and intervene? Let Jack know what you think by emailing jfbaer@wisc.edu.
