The NCAA’s Take On Masoli Looking More And More “Unique”

 Send This Story To A Friend

Kudos to Rod Walker of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger for providing some interesting reading the past few days.

First, Walker provided info on a case very similar to that of Jeremiah Masoli… except in its outcome.  Yes, it seems the NCAA did recently give a waiver to another player who like Masoli was trying to work his way around a team’s discipline.

Meet basketball player Kenneth Cooper (photo at left).  Cooper began his career at Oklahoma State before transferring to Louisiana Tech.  He sat out the 2007-08 season as a transfer and then played in 2008-09 for Tech.  He was dismissed from Tech’s team after 15 games for violating team rules.

He stayed at Tech and graduated.  And then he transferred to UAB — taking up another major, etc, etc.  How was he able to join UAB’s team and play?  The NCAA granted his waiver.  And this was last October, less than a year ago.

Apparently the NCAA has since seen the error of its ways and decided to start ruling based on the spirit of the rule rather than upon the letter of the rule.

Either that or the Masoli case garnered tons of national attention while no one outside of Birmingham ever heard a peep about Cooper. 

And that, of course, IS the reason Masoli’s case was handled differently.  The NCAA didn’t like seeing so many headlines about a player skirting one school’s discipline by using an NCAA rule to aid his skirting. 

But that, too, is a problem.  If the NCAA has a rulebook, its contents should be applied evenly.  Bad kid or good kid.  High profile kid or no-name kid.

To be honest, I have no problem with the message the NCAA is sending.  I just think the fact they’re sending it sets an interesting precedent.

Clay Travis, a lawyer by trade, blogged about the issue and argued much the same thing.  (Travis, it should be noted, likes the NCAA’s decision.)

Andy Staples of SI.com calls the NCAA’s enforcement of the transfer waiver rule flat out “hyprocritcal.” 

My view: If the NCAA wishes to prevent players from transferring from school-to-school due to discipline issues, it needs to put that in writing.  Leaving the rulebook open for interpretation only creates bad press and bad blood.  Do Ole Miss fans not have a right to feel ska-rewed by the NCAA now that they know the same body OK’d a player’s move to UAB under very similar circumstances?

I understand that Masoli wouldn’t be transferring had he not been booted from Oregon’s team.  But I also know that Greg Pawlus would not have transferred to Syracuse had he not had a chance to play football.

The fact that one player got into trouble and the other was a squeaky clean Dukie matters in the court of public opinion, but it doesn’t if you read the NCAA’s graduate/transfer/waiver rule.  So if the NCAA wants to make behavior matter, it needs to write it into the graduate/transfer/waiver rule.

Leaving it out and then ruling against a kid — who was good-to-go according to the letter of that law — well, that’s not fair.  Even to a kid who was a trying to skirt discipline by switching schools.