NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: There are few organizations that can make a mountain out of a molehill like the N.C.A.A. Believe it or not, the scathing report it issued last week, accusing Syracuse University and its basketball coach, Jim Boeheim, of a pattern of cheating, is a pretty good example…
What else? Nearly a decade ago, three football players received course credit for an internship that they hadn’t earned. So now we’re up to four cases of academic fraud in 10 years, only one of which was committed by a basketball player. (By comparison, in the 2013-14 school year alone, Syracuse students racked up 184 charges of academic dishonesty.)…
I have dwelled on this report because it illustrates that despite the blows it has taken recently — in court and elsewhere — the N.C.A.A. remains not only a powerful institution, but one that is all too willing to abuse that power. To nail Syracuse’s basketball program — for who knows what reason — it had to pad one serious 2012 offense with a handful of extraneous, at times silly, allegations that had occurred, here and there, over the course of a decade… (more)
EDITOR: Joe Nocera excoriates the NCAA for bringing charges and failing to back them up with significant evidence or any evidence at all. Sounds like the Penn State investigation all over again. But with Penn State, the Sandusky inevestigation hovered over whatever took place and to defend Penn State was seen as defending pedophelia.
