ncaa Page 140 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The NCAA Should Pray That Players Are Able To Form A Union
Originally published in Bloomberg View....

Northwestern Football Players Are Trying To Unionize
In the opening shots of a major new assault on the NCAA's amateurism model, an "overwhelming majority" of Northwestern football players have filed to be recognized as members of a union. Their endgame, if successful, would be college football players officially being classified as employees....

The Forgotten Little Big Man Of College Basketball
The Wooden Award released its midseason top 25 on Wednesday. It's simply a promotional tool for the award, presumably listing the 25 best players in college basketball to this point in the season. Nothing is binding about it: Players excluded from the list are still eligible to win the honor....

How Many Ads Are In Your College Sports Broadcast?
In O'Bannon vs. NCAA, the defendants made a stunning claim. Collegiate athletes cannot be paid for appearing in televised games, the NCAA argued, because those games—like, say, the Vizio BCS National Championship—are First Amendment-protected news programs, and not commercial broadcasts....

No, Fans Won't Stop Watching If College Players Get Paid
Defending itself in the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit, the NCAA has made some stunning claims. One, backed by an NCAA-commissioned poll, is that people so hate the idea of paying players that they will stop watching college sports if amateurism ends. In the filings, ex-CBS Sports President Neal Pilson estimat...

No, Paying Athletes Won't Bankrupt College Sports
The NCAA's biggest and most bruited argument against compensating players is that athletics programs couldn't take on the additional burden of player salaries without going bankrupt. The argument has a certain appeal to a certain kind of fan, the one who thinks sports took a turn for the worse at ro...

The Path To Remaining Unbeaten In The NCAA This Year
Like most basketball fans, I enjoy close games. A contest featuring teams separated by one or two possessions late makes for enthralling theater. At the end of a tight game, every good decision and crucial mistake is amplified. Even the crowd feels like it wields more influence with time winding dow...

Ohio State DE Was Suspended For Ecstasy
On New Year's Day it was announced that Ohio State's all-conference defensive end Noah Spence was suspended for three games, including the Orange Bowl. Now we know why. Spence's family says he tested positive for ecstasy, and had to argue his suspension down from a full season because the Big Ten co...

How Will Muschamp And Florida Sold Their Disastrous Season
I wasn't yet in Gainesville for the first press conference, held immediately after the season opener. Will Muschamp's Florida Gators had just demolished Toledo in a tune-up, an easy victory foreseen by just about everybody. The Gators had gone 11-1 the previous regular season, and only BCS politics ...

"Distractions" Are Bullshit
So Chris Kluwe blew up the Internet last week with this post, entitled "I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot," and the sports world instantly split into two factions: Those who cheered on Kluwe, and those who thought he was a disgruntled ex-punter looking for revenge and ...

Teams In The Orange Bowl Don't Make Any Money, And Other Lies
Originally published on Sportsgeekonomics....

Suit: Arizona Coach Sent Dick Pic To Player's Mom
Sean LeBeauf is currently an assistant coach for the University of Arizona women's basketball program, a job he took in May 2013 after leaving his post as the director of athletics and head coach of the women's basketball team at Paris Junior College. According to a complaint filed by one of his for...

Southern Wins By 104 Points. How Did This Basketball Sham Even Happen?
Southern University defeated Champion Baptist College last night in Baton Rouge by the pedestrian score of 116-12. It could have been worse; the Jaguars led the Tigers 44-0 until CBC made a free throw with 5:10 remaining in the first half. The entire thing was a farce, but according to the NCAA it's...

College Hockey Player And Coach Suspended For Not Filling Out Form
Here's a heartwarming story for the holiday season about a college hockey coach who did the right thing, a player who did nothing wrong, and the insipid bureaucracy that suspended them both, apparently just for the hell of it....

Should You Try To Eat Your Marijuana During A Police Stop?
Texas A&M linebacker Darian Claiborne was arrested for possession of weed and Adderall, which he'd hidden in a giant Hershey's kiss ornament in his friend's car. Should he have tried to eat the weed instead? Here again is our guide on the matter. ...

The NCAA Is Not Going To Tolerate Excess Education
Originally published at Bloomberg View....

Swee'pea And The Shark: The Struggle For The Soul Of A Playground Hero
Originally published in the November 1992 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with permission. An afterword from the author follows....

Florida State Is Historically Dominant: 125 FBS Teams, Ranked
Each week during college football season we put the conventional polls to shame by ranking every FBS team from 1-125, by whatever standard we see fit. As always, last week's rankings were not consulted....

Why The Arguments Against NCAA Pay-For-Play Suck
NCAA president Mark Emmert, speaking Wednesday at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, pooh-poohed the idea of paying collegiate athletes. "There's certainly no interest [among college presidents] in turning college sports into the professional or semi-professional," Emmert said. He added: "I th...

Which Experts Predicted A Florida St.-Auburn BCS Title Game?
Originally published on Pundit Tracker....