NCAA limits free speech
April 17, 2009
It’s no secret that the NCAA has cartel-like dominion over college sports. Likewise, most of us realize the source of their revenues: college athletes, themselves forbidden from financial compensation. Behind a pretense that only shallowly defends vague ideas of “academic integrity,” the NCAA is devout in its opposition to anything with enough influence to limit its power.
Hence, in the realm of college athletics, merely saying the word ”agent” is heretical, inherently anathema to the well-being of precious and vulnerable “student-athletes.” Likewise, “recruitment” — the ostensibly simple act of convincing 17- and 18-year-olds to play for your team – is tantamount to walking barefoot across a floor covered in broken glass. If you have any doubt about this, check out the rules themselves (hat tip: Beyond the Arc). Kinda’ like trying to drive a toaster through a car wash, as Tom Hanks put it, but such is the price of corruption.
To be sure, it is irrational to argue that recruitment regulations are, in their entirety, a product of a rent-seeking, power hungry institution. Certainly rules are needed as long as there are people like Kelvin Sampson in college basketball (and I think it’s safe to assume that there always will be). Just as a polity needs a government, so too does a massively lucrative and popular entity such as college sports require oversight and leadership. But beneath that leadership there must always be reasonable levels of individual autonomy, which brings me to the impetus behind this post, courtesy of NBC Sports:
College sports fans, be careful of the company you keep on Facebook.
You might get yourself – and the program you support – in trouble.
That was the lesson this week for Taylor Moseley, a North Carolina State freshman who expressed a common-enough opinion on campus when he started the Facebook group called “John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!!”
More than 700 people signed up for the group encouraging Wall – a local standout and the nation’s No. 1 basketball recruit – to pick the Wolfpack by national signing day next week.
But the NCAA says such sites, and dozens more like them wooing Wall and other top recruits, violate its rules. More than just cheerleading boards, the NCAA says the sites are an attempt to influence the college choice of a recruit.
Moseley got a cease and desist letter from N.C. State’s compliance director, Michelle Lee, warning of “further action” if he failed to comply. In an interview Friday, Lee said that people who act as boosters but fail to follow recruiting guidelines could face penalties such as being denied tickets or even being formally “disassociated” from the athletic program.
Just as civil liberties must be maintained for a free society to flourish, so must reasonable limitations be placed on the NCAA’s power to manage dissent. To limit the free expression of students, who have done nothing more than declare a shared desire to see Mr. Wall play basketball at their school, is unambiguously ridiculous. Think, for a moment, about the next step down this slippery slope. Does the NCAA truly think it has the authority to quash any and all discussion on matters of recruitment? If Facebook is off-limits, why isn’t MySpace? Hell, why isn’t the whole damn Internet under supervision?
Truly, this story needs to be told.
