Sports Essay, Research Paper

NCAA infraction committee and the payment of sports athletes

This paper is about the issue of paying college athletes and how the NCAA has formed a committee on infractions to deal with violations of coaches, agents, and unethical actions of administrators in the intercollegiate sports world. The following are some cases that the NCAA has been taking to reject the idea of paying college sports athletes and reviewing major infractions. In this report I have outlined the NCAA s purpose, resolutions, interventions, threats in college sports, eligibility, NCAA rule enforcement, investigations and how sports agents have been the leading cause of the problem.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is the governing organization through which the nation s colleges and Universities oversee matters at the national level. Through the NCAA, member colleges consider any athletic problems that cross regional or conference lines and that have become national in character. The Association tries to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program and the athlete as an integral part of the student body. The governing of sports athletes accepting bribes is a hard to regulate. The NCAA must carefully watch players and agents throughout the year and administer the entire process.

The NCAA has created an enforcement board that s mission is to reduce violations of NCAA legislation and to impose appropriate penalties if violations occurred. The program is committed to the fairness of procedures and the timely and equitable resolution of infractions cases. The achievement of these objectives is essential to the conduct of a viable and effective enforcement program. An important consideration in imposing penalties is to provide fairness to uninvolved student-athletes, coaches, administrators, competitors and other institutions. The enforcement process is an important part of the process to ensure integrity and fair play among the members. The specific mission of the NCAA enforcement committee is to act as a means of accountability for member institutions by seeking out and processing information relating to possible major and secondary violations of NCAA legislation in accordance with the policies and procedures enacted by the NCAA membership. The NCAA infractions committee enforces codes and makes sure that payers are not taking illegal funds from agents or coaches. One infraction case that the NCAA reviewed, involved the University of Alabama. The NCAA news reported that the former assistant men s basketball coach tried to obtain money from representatives of the institution s athletic department for recruiting purposes. The problem was that he used false information to do so. The representative also contacted perspective players too many times per week and took money from the college to give to the players all violating NCAA policies. The committee found the following violations: attempting to obtain money from the school to get athletes oral commitment and violating the NCAA s ethical codes. This specific case was classified as a major infraction because it involved serious individual violations of recruiting and unethical conduct. The university took action and the consequences included a five-year probation period for the University of Alabama. This case shows the unethical role of an administrator and the obstacles that college athletes must face. (1. NCAA staff writer (March 1) University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Infractions found. NCAA NEWS, 1999)