Antitrust and Conference Realignments: Due Process and Players: Michigan Congressman John Conyers Urges Congressional Hearings on College Sports

John Conyers of Michigan has it right at the U.S. House of Representatives in urging Congressional hearings on college sports.

Fred Frommer of the AP via the Washington Post has the story at Congressman urges hearings on antitrust issues in college sports.

Conyers says that the impact of conference realignments on smaller schools in terms of the antitrust laws should be examined.

He also recommends an examination of the rights of college athletes in general in terms of due process considerations, including the legality of NCAA use of player images in video games without compensation, the right and sense of the NCAA to limit athletic scholarships for whatever reason, the costs of player injuries, etc.

The head of the NCAA told the AP in reply that one could not compare the situation with pro sports, because college sports is "not a business".

Legally correct, but far removed from the actual reality.

As Conyers puts it in his proposal for hearings, as submitted to the House Judiciary Committee:

"I would note, however, that modern-day college athletics is a massive business, with widespread economic impact on athletes, their families, broadcasters, and fans as well as universities and colleges all over the country."

SEC Suspends Flagrant Fouling Players: How Things Escalate if a Stop is not Put to Dirty Play Early: What About the Undisciplined Coaches?

As reported by Charles Odum, AP Sport Writer, in SEC suspends 2 Georgia players, 1 Vandy player, 3 SEC players from Georgia and Vanderbilt have been suspended for flagrant fouls.

The case also involves the question of whether coaches are inciting certain types of behavior by their players by themselves engaging in inappropriate behavior and thus acting as negative role models.

Many of these coaches earn massive amounts of money. If they are unable to discipline themselves, much less their players, they should be severely penalized.

Undisciplined behavior by coaches has in fact been increasing, rather than decreasing. This should be nipped in the bud quickly. College football is a part of education, a part of the college experience. Coaches are not being paid -- in some cases millions of dollars per year -- to bring cultural and societal standards downward. Young kids -- the athletes and citizens of tomorrow -- watch these things on TV and they are all learning the WRONG things.

The NCAA should have a code of conduct for coaches strictly prohibiting ungentlemanly conduct. Coaches violating that code of conduct should be banned from coaching college football for a period of time and their salaries forfeited to charity.

Read Odum's article here.

More Dirty Fouling in College Football Enabled by Incompetent NCAA and Conference Regulation

Here is another college football player who has no business being allowed to play college football.
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Caught on Film: Why This Hurricane Got Suspended

My opinion is that this type of flagrant intentional dirty play was in part surely enabled already last year by the failure of college football's ruling authorities, either at the level of the NCAA or the Big 12 Conference, much less team level, to punish a player grabbing the vitals of an opponent while down in the Texas A&M vs. Nebraska game. Whenever a stop is not put to certain types of prohibited behavior, it escalates. That is a rule known to all prudent and experienced persons.

Neither the coaches of the offending Texas A&M team nor the Big 12 Conference Commissioner seemed to be perturbed by the incident, and it is this non-action in important matters that characterizes bad leadership.

DETERRENCE is achieved by punishing offenders severely and letting the rest know that their football playing career is at end if they are caught on video engaging in dirty play.

The NCAA is spending all of its time drafting immaculate and unnecessary regulations about who and when coaches can call recruited players on their mobile phones and who and when not -- some of these look like clear violations of free speech rights to this observer.

What they should be doing -- and what they are not doing -- is drafting EFFECTIVE regulations concerning play on the football field and protection of players.

Sports, Rules and Law: Intentional Dirty Fouls in College Football Should Mean the End of that Football Player's Playing Career

Update 2 days after the posting: The Big Ten has correctly suspended the player in question.
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For throwing a punch in a game, a player should ALWAYS be suspended for a period of time to be determined by football's ruling organization.
No exceptions.

For intentional dirty fouls such as grabbing the face mask and twisting the head of a player who is down as in the video at this link Michigan State Spartans reviewing fouls by William Gholston, the player should be barred from college football permanently by football's ruling organization.

Unfortunately that ruling organization is the NCAA, which does not excel at keeping the game clean, but excels rather at penalizing the innocent, such as the current players at USC who had no hand in any infractions in the past, but who are prohibited from going to a bowl game, while the guilty flourish.

The NCAA is big on quashing the innocent.
They do not know how to handle the guilty.