Jsyte

Open Letter to the NCAA

To: The National Collegiate Athletic Association
700 W. Washington Street
P.O. Box 6222
Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-6222

Dear Mark Emmert,
Today, the University of Central Florida announced its NCAA violations, and the resignation of Athletics Director Keith Tribble and Assistant Football Coach David Kelly. As a senior here at UCF, I’ve heard of the past violations UCF had with recruiting and rumors of some issues with some interesting characters. While I don’t know any of the specifics of what happened, I do know that this has affected some of my favorite student-athletes.
Take, for instance, AJ Rompza. He’s about my age and my height (5′ 10″), and people told him growing up that he couldn’t play basketball, he was too short. He’s strong and motivated, and sure enough got into UCF and played some amazing games. He’s good friends with Marcus and Jeff Jordan, sons of basketball legend Michael Jordan. Rompza’s excitement about UCF brought them over here, and they all fell in love with the school the same way I did.
Reading their posts on Twitter, I noticed that they’re quite smart and motivated. Rompza’s tweets have motivated me to work harder in school and life to get what I really want. Jeff Jordan often speaks about current issues and posted some slides of an old presentation he did about nuclear power plants on fault lines shortly after the Japan earthquake. Oh and did I mention Rompza also wrote for the New York Times and has his own book out? I can’t think of many college students who can say that, let alone one who is a student-athlete.
But then if you look to some other popular schools in Florida, you see a much more dismal picture. One school has the nickname “University of Felons” because their student-athletes get arrested all the time. These players have a “go-to” lawyer that always seems ready to help out these players, even when they come from poorer families. This lawyer may claim he is following the regulations, but everybody knows that they are toeing the line and that, in reality, are violating the ideas behind the rules.
So what I ask is this: that the NCAA begin looking more at those who violate the idea of being a student-athlete. It’s hypocritical to rain down on some student-athletes who may have been friends with someone who happens to be a professional agent, while turning a blind eye at institutions who continually have problems with their student-athletes getting arrested for DUI charges, among other things. It shouldn’t be OK for student-athletes to get away with crimes because they have lawyers who are fans of the team. It also shouldn’t be OK for student-athletes to get punished for having certain people praise their institution.
I hope that these issues get resolved quickly and fairly by the NCAA. I hope that this doesn’t interfere with the ability for student-athletes and their fans to enjoy a great season and doesn’t interfere with academics either. If the NCAA does impose harsh penalties on UCF and its players, I hope that the NCAA considers the lives it may be impacting and considers imposing strict penalties on all those who violate the ethics of being a student-athlete (such as those who get in trouble with the law, and the institutions that seem to have a rampant problem of that). I hope the NCAA sees their policies as hypocritical and flawed, and that they will focus on punishing those who commit blatant and grievous violations of the rules to the point of affecting the game or image of the school or the NCAA as a whole.
As the famous line from Bad News Bears goes “Let Them Play!”

Sincerely,
Jeremy Mayeres