Once again, the NCAA has made a baffling decision, and this time it’s the American Cancer Society that pays.
Our Bulldog basketball team opened the season last week as the host of the first round of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. The American Cancer Society receives a portion of the proceeds from this tournament.
If you don’t remember seeing all the hoopla on campus that usually comes with a home game, it’s not that you’re blind or that you slept late. The reason for the lack of activity on campus was because our so-called “home” games are being played in the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex Arena, more than 140 miles away.
See, the NCAA has this rule that bans any school from hosting a “predetermined” tournament if their state flag features the Confederate Battle emblem. This means only Mississippi and South Carolina are affected by the rule.
Whether having the Confederate “Stars and Bars” on our flag is right or wrong, the NCAA has no business encroaching into the arena of governmental policy. The citizens of Mississippi voted overwhelmingly in 2001 to keep the flag the way it is. Who is the NCAA to come in and say what we choose to do is wrong, and to place a restrictive punishment on us for it?
Now, the NCAA has made some seemingly bogus calls in the past. Just look at their messed up system for picking a national football champion. Last year’s two top BCS teams and national co-champions, LSU and USC, never even played each other. And this year, if both Auburn and Oklahoma win out, Auburn will be shut out of the National Championship game, even though they compete in what is arguably the toughest conference in the country.
Mississippi State would have made a lot of money from this tournament, as well as receiving national attention for our part in the charity Classic. But this flag rule hurts not only Mississippi’s (and South Carolina’s) institutions, but also the American Cancer Society.
The draw in ticket sales for the first two rounds of the tournament in Birmingham didn’t even come close to selling out the 17,000-seat arena. In fact, little more than 2,000 tickets had been sold as of this time last week. Fans simply do not want to go see a “home” game in Birmingham instead of The Hump.
The Coaches vs. Cancer Classic was unaware of the NCAA rule when they asked Mississippi State to host the first round. And Jim Satalin, national director of the Classic, fully expected to raise more than $100,000 from the tournament in Starkville. As it stands, however, the American Cancer Society can expect nowhere near that figure from the event in Birmingham.
Another problem with the rule is that it is applied unevenly. Only two states are affected by it and only in what the NCAA calls “predetermined” events. We can host as many tournaments as we want as long as they are post-season tournaments that are awarded based on on-field or on-court performance.
But isn’t being chosen to host a prestigious charity tournament evidence of more than satisfactory on-court performance? After all, if we were not a nationally well-known and respected basketball program, would we have been asked to host the Classic? I don’t think so.
Oh, and speaking of good basketball teams, we weren’t quite as good as we could have been in the first two games because of another dumb NCAA decision. Our star player Lawrence Roberts served a one game suspension for the first game of the season for accepting some traveling money to attend an NBA tryout during the off-season.
Roberts decided to stay and finish his college career here at State before entering the NBA draft, and he returned the money. But still the NCAA spanks him with this suspension. As a result, the basketball Bulldogs narrowly defeated Fairfield in round one of the Classic and came from behind to beat Birmingham Southern college in round two. Not having our star player and traveling 140 miles to play a “home” game no doubt had an effect on our performance.
The NCAA says they are committed to protecting the best interests and ensuring a quality education for student-athletes. Maybe they should concentrate on doing that as well as considering what effects their actions will have on other people. By exercising a little common sense and staying out of public policy issues, the NCAA could fulfill their mission. And they could do so without hurting organizations like the American Cancer Society.
Nick Thompson is a senior communication major. He can be reached at [email protected].