The Silly NCAA

One of my favorite things in the world to pick on is the NCAA and its silly rules. Pat Forde, in his column at ESPN ,notes their latest effort to clean up college football with an inane idea that accomplishes absolutely nothing...

This year, the NCAA instituted a rule limiting media guides to 208 pages. This came as a mighty blow to schools such as Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Florida, which published books nearly as thick as the average dictionary.

The purpose was to rein in the schools that had turned media guides into costly, Tolstoy-length tomes. The primary reason media guides had put on more weight than Kirstie Alley was because coaches had turned them into recruiting guides, loading them with dozens of pages of de facto program advertising aimed at teenage studs.

As is so often the case with NCAA rules, the intent was outflanked by the schools' reaction. Instead of trimming the fat, many schools eradicated or drastically reduced the history of their programs and kept the recruiting propaganda.

"This is what the coach wanted," came the apologetic response from one SID trying to explain why his guide had lost so much of its useful information. "And what the coach wants, the coach gets."

The Dash's favorite version of football Pravda belongs to Iowa, where the program has apparently just sprouted out of the cornfields within the last 12 months. (This should come as surprising news to Hayden Fry.) There is no year-by-year record of anything the Hawkeyes did before 2004, no school records, no bowl history.

If the Hawkeyes should start the season, say, 8-0, the media will report that it's the first time since ... uh, well ... we don't know when. If quarterback Drew Tate should throw for 500 yards in a game, it could well be a school record ... but we really wouldn't be able to tell you that for sure.

But let's look at what you do get: 144 pages of recruiting top spin titled "Why Iowa" to start the guide, including 16 consecutive pages trumpeting Iowa's success putting players in the NFL (in case the point didn't sink in, the back page of the guide reiterates the current Hawkeyes in the NFL). There are a mere eight pages on Minister of Information/head coach Kirk Ferentz, including a section entitled "Coach Kirk on Kirk." Eight pages apparently were not enough to include Ferentz's career record. (It's 42-31, in case you're wondering.)

And on page 17, recruits are shown pictures of Bill Cosby and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The caption's unspoken message: Dear African-American player: See, black people really do come to Iowa City! By next year, we'll try to update this page with a picture of Fifty Cent!

Once again, an effective use of regulations to accomplish nothing. Are we sure the NCAA isn't a government entity?