NCAA Page 99 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
NCAA Deadenders Are Running Out Of Arguments
On the heels of the NCAA's Division I board voting to allow the "Power Five" conferences to make some of their own rules, our man Bob Bowlsby, Big 12 commissioner and managerial-class Marxist, inadvertently made the best argument for why football and basketball players (at most schools) should be ...
NCAA Gives More Power To Power Five Conferences
The NCAA's cartel got a little more streamlined and powerful today, as the Division I board of directors voted to allow the 65 schools in the five richest conferences to make some of their own rules regarding stipends, insurance benefits, coaching staff sizes and more. ...
FSU Paid For Jameis Winston's Insurance Policy On His Draft Stock
Florida State QB Jameis Winston is eligible for the NFL draft after this season, and barring catastrophe, will go very high and will make a lot of money. But what if something catastrophic does happen? There's insurance for that, and it emerged yesterday that Winston won't be footing the bill alone—...
South Carolina Gamecocks Self-Report Rule-Breaking Cookie Cakes To NCAA
The latest example of unnecessary self-flagellation for the NCAA's satisfaction comes from South Carolina. The Gamecocks reported 22 minor violations of NCAA rules, and the dumbest by far involves the football team and cookie cakes....
Dumb Person Has Bad Idea For How To "Control" College Athletes
This, by Matt Hayes at the Sporting News, was actually published yesterday, but since I haven't seen any angry reaction to it yet, I can only assume it's because we're all still so taken aback by the strangeness of a screed that wouldn't be out of place scrawled on a bathroom wall in feces. But you ...
Oklahoma State Avoids APR Penalties Thanks To Player From The 1990s
One of the NCAA's favorite weapons in its PR battle to classify amateur athletes as "student-athletes" is Academic Progress Rate, a formula which provides academic benchmarks programs must achieve to avoid penalties. How meaningless is APR? Oklahoma State football only managed to clear the bar by in...
NCAA Head Injury Lawsuit Settled With $70 Million Brain Evaluation Fund
The NCAA has settled a class-action lawsuit by agreeing to set up a $70 million fund to evaluate current and former NCAA athletes in a variety of contact sports for brain trauma. Unlike the NFL's maligned but needed settlement that's still evolving, this seems at first blush like an OK deal for NCAA...
NBA Draft Prospect Skips College For China (And $1.2 Million)
Point guard Emmanuel Mudiay has the potential to be a lottery pick in next year's NBA draft, but he won't be spending a year in college before going pro. Mudiay's taking his talents to China for the required year between high school and the NBA, and he's getting a hefty chunk of money for his effort...
Big 12 Commish Is Full Of Shit About Pay-For-Play Killing The Olympics
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby spoke to reporters during a press conference this morning, and spent a good deal of time painting a bleak picture of the future of college sports. What does Bowlsby see on the horizon, in a post-O'Bannon world? Athletes unionizing! Massive program cuts! The death of...
Ole Miss QB Says Players Go To Bed Hungry
In late March, UConn's Shabazz Napier caused a stir when he said there were some nights he went to bed hungry. People scoffed at the idea of a star player not being able to find an open dining hall or afford food on his own, but a couple weeks later–total coincidence on the timing–the NCAA changed i...
The Map The NCAA Got Thrown Out At Trial
At today's proceedings of O'Bannon v. NCAA, an antitrust suit which seeks to give players a share of the profits off their likenesses, the NCAA's lawyers successfully objected to the entry into evidence of our map showing that coaches are the highest-paid public employees in 39 of 50 states....
Rashad McCants Made The Dean's List At UNC Without Attending Classes
Rashad McCants, who starred on the 2005 North Carolina championship team, comes clean about his experience at UNC—and says academics could hardly have been more of a sham. He claims he skipped classes, had his papers written for him, and that Roy Williams and the athletic department "100 percent" kn...
EA Sports And CLC Finalize Video Game Settlement With Former Players
Four class-action suits brought by former NCAA players against EA Sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company were settled back in September 2013 for $40 million, but aside from the amount, most of the other terms needed ironing out. On Friday night, the parties filed a settlement with the U.S. Dist...
The Competitive-Balance Argument Against Paying Athletes Is Bullshit
High on the list of myths thrown out as excuses to delay or prevent the advent of pay-for-play is that the price-fixing engaged in by the 351 schools in Division 1, and especially the now 128 schools in FBS who play football, is necessary to ensure competitive balance across the sport. ...
Sooner's Girlfriend Had To Sign Affidavit Confirming Their Relationship
Former Oklahoma center Gabe Ikard signed as an undrafted free agent with the Titans this weekend, and it sounds like he's ready to get out of college. On a radio show last week, Ikard revealed that OU made both him and his girlfriend sign affidavits declaring that their love is real and not an imper...
How Athletic Departments (And The Media) Fudge The Cost Of Scholarships
Paula Lavigne has an insightful piece on ESPN.com about how college sports thrived even as the rest of America suffered through a terrible economic downturn starting in late 2008. Paula is one of the best people writing in the mainstream sports press on money issues, and this piece is no exception. ...
Mitch McGary Declaring For NBA Draft, Victim Of NCAA Reefer Madness
After missing most of last season with a back injury, University of Michigan forward Mitch McGary seemed likely to head back to Ann Arbor for another year of work on his sketchy offensive game and another deep run in the NCAA tournament. Instead, he'll be declaring for the NBA draft—all because he g...
Northwestern Goes Union-Busting
Tomorrow, Northwestern football players will vote on whether or not to form a union, a right given to them by a National Labor Relations Board ruling last month. NLRB rules stipulate that no meetings can be held today, the day before the vote, to decrease the risk of outside influence—which doesn't ...
The Athlete Advocate
Ivan Solotaroff writes about Ramogi Huga over at SB Nation Longform:...
FSU Fan's "Royals" Cover Was Such A Bad Idea
Every sports-themed cover of "Royals" is a no-good, stupid idea, but this one really takes the cake. What makes it so much worse than all the others? I'm gonna go ahead and say all of it....