knows about it, how come the NCAA, the group sworn to uphold their own moral standards, doesn't. How is it that a coach, who is fired for breaking the rules that the NCAA has set up, can go to another school and do the exact same things, and not get caught? The answer is simple, the NCAA would lose money by forcing its members to follow the rules, so they look the other way until the infractions are so blatant that they have to take action. Do the punishments fit the crimes though? Who is punished if a student is caught taking gifts from an unauthorized person? Not the individual, who knows that by giving the gift, he could ruin a kid's career. They get a slap on the wrist and told to stop it. How about the college who was fully aware of the contact between the known sports agent and the star player on the basketball team? Does the agent loose his/her licenses? Is the school penalized for allowing inappropriate contact to be made? The answer is a resounding no. The ones who are punished are the student athletes. Even when schools are punished for bending the rules, the punishment is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. The program responsible for the wrongdoing might be suspended from tournament play for a few years, and barred from playing nationally televised games. The program will recover and the school most likely has not lost all of its revenue from competitive athletics. The students, on the other hand, are immediately suspended from their respective teams, and in most cases, eventually lose their scholarships and possibly their only chance at getting a higher education. In the event that the athlete is on the verge of making it to the pros, being dismissed from their college team could hurt the athlete's stock. If the NCAA were truly concerned about keeping a clean athletic coalition, then the penalties would be harsher, and would affect the schools more than they affect the students. Or perhaps the NCAA could...
