Don't blame NCAA for UNC football players' shoes suspensions

Mike DeCourcy

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Don't blame NCAA for UNC football players' shoes suspensions image

When North Carolina football announced it was suspending 13 of its players for breaking NCAA rules by selling school-issued apparel — Air Jordan 3s — a lot of the reactions to the news were predictable.

Such as:

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The conflation of the university’s lengthy infractions case involving academic offerings by its African and Afro-American Studies department with this extra benefits case was bound to occur, because the AFAM scandal wasn't resolved to the satisfaction of many — rather, any — of UNC's athletic rivals.

And it wasn’t surprising the NCAA would come in for some fair criticism regarding the economic restrictions on its student-athletes, particularly the continuing prohibition against said players receiving compensation for their name, image and likeness.

In the year 2018, though, it was stunning how many used social media in the wake of Monday's announcement to rail against the NCAA for not allowing North Carolina football players to make some cash in this manner, given they can’t work, sometimes are hungry and aren’t provided any sort of spending money by the schools for all they do as intercollegiate athletes.

Like, for instance, former NFL star Seth Joyner, a Super Bowl champion and three-time All-Pro linebacker:

He’s right of course, in the sense student-athletes deserve to receive spending money. The problem with his argument, which continued in a subsequent tweet with a declaration that “it’s absolutely absurd that the NCAA thinks it is OK for them to be broke all the time,” is that the NCAA had already passed a rule allowing athletes to be paid cost-of-attendance stipends in 2015.

In 2016, those stipends ranged from a high of $6,082 at the University of Cincinnati to a low of $1,600 at UMass. At North Carolina, cost of attendance payments are individually calculated based on the location of the athlete’s residence and associated travel costs but averaged $3,177 per football player in the 2016-17 academic year, according to the school.

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So the athletes do have spending money available to them. These 13 just wanted more, even though they surely were aware that selling school-issued gear is against the rules and, if they were caught, they likely would receive a suspension of some sort.

That wasn't the only issue Joyner was misinformed on, though.

Student-athletes are not limited to three meals per day. In 2014, the NCAA passed a rule allowing Division I athletes to receive “unlimited meals and snacks” in conjunction with their respective participating athletic departments. The old debate about a bagel with no spread being a snack but a bagel with a cream cheese schmear being a meal — that's over. Athletes now can down both in one sitting and still be within the rules.

Joyner wasn't alone in his assumptions. Twitter user Steve Scott argued in favor of “per diem” payments, which athletes receive when they travel for competition, and have for years.

And former Memphis Tigers football player Doc Holliday criticized the NCAA for the rule that says athletes “aren’t allowed to work” during the school year. ESPN's Tony Kornheiser said much the same on Tuesday's edition of Pardon the Interruption.

However, that rule has been off the books for over a decade. Athletes even are allowed, under bylaw 12.4.2.1, to work as personal coaches in their sport, so long as the fee paid for the instruction is reasonable and the lessons don’t occur in campus facilities.

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The criticism of the NCAA regarding its prohibition against NIL rights remains reasonable, although it seems the greatest obstacle preventing its adoption is litigation regarding that issue that remains in the courts.

But it’s a mistake to assume that, if these Carolina football players had their own likeness rights, they wouldn’t have gone ahead and sold their free shoes. Because they’re already receiving cost-of-attendance payments and unlimited food, and they have the opportunity to work part-time jobs if they so desire.

Whether it's enough is not the argument relative to this circumstance; clearly, it is not "nothing."

Mike DeCourcy

Mike DeCourcy Photo

Mike DeCourcy has been the college basketball columnist at The Sporting News since 1995. Starting with newspapers in Pittsburgh, Memphis and Cincinnati, he has written about the game for 35 years and covered 32 Final Fours. He is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and is a studio analyst at the Big Ten Network and NCAA Tournament Bracket analyst for Fox Sports. He also writes frequently for TSN about soccer and the NFL. Mike was born in Pittsburgh, raised there during the City of Champions decade and graduated from Point Park University.