College sports nears a day of reckoning

Editorial by Rocky Mount Telegram, June 11, 2014.

As a court in California weighs the value of a college scholarship against the billions of dollars that basketball players and football players generate for the NCAA, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is being scrutinized over whether some student-athletes receive much in the way of an education at all.

In the California case, Ed O’Bannon, a former basketball player at UCLA, has sued the NCAA in a crusade to allow college players to capitalize on the fame and success they bring to college athletics.

O’Bannon has questioned in particular why the NCAA can make millions of dollars in licensing fees with entertainment software companies whose college sports video games feature the likenesses of real college players. The players receive nothing in return.

Needless to say, the stakes in the O’Bannon case are huge. In a different way, so are the stakes in the UNC-Chapel Hill case.

Rashad McCants, a former basketball player who helped lead the Tar Heels to an NCAA title in 2005, told ESPN reporters that he enrolled in no-show classes at UNC-Chapel Hill with coach Roy Williams’ full knowledge. The move proved so successful that McCants went from being on the verge of flunking out to a lauded spot on the Dean’s List in one semester.

In response, Williams said he has no idea what McCants is talking about. But McCants’ comments – and a transcript that appears to back him up – add to the pile of similar allegations made by former football players at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The McCants case suggests also that no-show classes and grades based on a single term paper weren’t just an isolated arrangement involving a handful of football players and the African and Afro-American Studies program at UNC. Someone helped spread the word to other sports, as well.

There is plenty still to love about college football and college basketball. But more and more players question the lack of compensation for the huge sums of money they generate for the NCAA and its member schools. And academic scandals like the one at UNC suggest that at least some athletes have been recruited, signed and pampered in order to remain eligible to play.

All of those factors spell a very rocky future for one of this sports-crazed nation’s favorite pastimes.

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/opinion/our-views/college-sports-nears-day-reckoning-2503333