NCAA Bans Colgate's Nathan Harries for Playing in Church League Game

[GophersInIowa]

The inconsistencies continue. OMG.

Nathan's father, Michael, has refused to stay silent during the process.

“Some of the rulings that come from the NCAA don’t make sense," Michael Harries said. "Johnny Manziel gets a half-game suspension for signing autographs. A guy plays three games in a church league, and he loses a year. Obviously there’s a difference between big-time athletes and small-time athletes with the NCAA.”

Michael Harries, of course, refers to the Heisman-winning Texas A&M quarterback, who received a light suspension for his alleged involvement with autograph brokers. The NCAA has also shown a weakened hand following Sports Illustrated's exposé on Oklahoma State football and its own handling of Miami's (Fla.) rules violations.

But, in this case, college basketball's governing body chose to stick with the letter of the law, despite this church league being "organized" in name only. Schultz describes the league as a group of men in their upper-30s with other professions, guys without matching jerseys or so much as rosters full of players who have even participated in the sport.

“We had one guy who played with us and he was like, ‘If any of you have any advice you could give me that would be great because I never played basketball before,’” Matt Adams, one league participant, said.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1840122-ncaa-bans-colgates-nathan-harries-for-playing-in-church-league-game?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming-national

 

[Bad Gopher]

Gopher Warrior defense of the NCAA in 3...2...1...

 

[mnsports1]

I wonder if they will go harder after Reid Travis now?

 

[Gopher Warrior]

The rules are clear. There are more cases out there that if they came to light would cause eligibility issues, but this one happened to and the enforcement of the rules makes sense (according to the rules... whether or not the rule makes sense is a different conversation).

I see no inconsistencies here. If you want to be mad at a "stupid rule" that the NCAA and its member schools have in place, go ahead... but I fail to see inconsistencies here.

 

[station19]

It fails the 'common sense' test.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

Best line on the comments from this article: "this is like a girlfriend dumping her boyfriend for hugging his grandma."

 

[jovs]

The rule makes sense, the NCAA wants to control league's players play in, if you don't do that things could get really ugly, under the table payouts, room and board for a leagues in the Bahamas, etc., amateurism would be the victim, but the penalty doesn't match the violation is where this goes terribly wrong, suspend the guy for a couple of practices would be about right.

 

[BarnBoy]

Best line from the article itself: "“We had one guy who played with us and he was like, ‘If any of you have any advice you could give me that would be great because I never played basketball before,’” Matt Adams, one league participant, said."

 

[Bad Gopher]

Best line from the article itself: "“We had one guy who played with us and he was like, ‘If any of you have any advice you could give me that would be great because I never played basketball before,’” Matt Adams, one league participant, said."

It does make a reasonable person question where you draw the line. What about a regular, organized neighborhood HORSE league in a guy's driveway? What if the HORSE game gets boring and they start to scrimmage? Stratomatic, anyone?

 

[From the Barn]

So let’s be clear on this. It is not a “bizarre decision.” It is a dumb rule. (Memo to old-timers: Just because a rule is really old doesn’t mean it’s not dumb. See also the foul-out.) Harries should be free to play in a church league or any other recreational league, because any advantage that he will thereby gain relative to Colgate’s opponents is inconsequential as long as the same opportunity is available to those opponents as well.

That would be true even if Harries weren’t a devout Mormon who had participated in the Model UN in high school and was elected to the National Honor Society. (That latter group, by the way, is a rather straightforwardly named body which Colgate nevertheless has somehow managed to misspell on Harries’ official bio page. Come on, Raiders, I thought you fancied yourselves a near-Ivy!) Indeed for our purposes the NCAA’s rule would be equally unnecessary if Harries were a skeptical Unitarian who played in a garage band and got straight Cs.

http://johngasaway.com/2013/11/07/dumb-ncaa-rules-harm-athletes-with-normal-bios-too/

And those jerseys are matching. The Horror! The Horror!

 

[mcal24]

How can you defend the NCAA here? A CHURCH LEAGUE?? That's just pathetic how they take a year away from a guy like that. Like someone above said, if you play a neighborhood game every Tuesday night, should you get suspended for that? Or maybe if you go to the gym with your brother and organize a 1 on 1 game, you should be suspended for that too. Johnny Manziel makes the NCAA loads of money, so they make sure he is out for much less time despite a much worse violation.

 

[GophersInIowa]

The rules are clear. There are more cases out there that if they came to light would cause eligibility issues, but this one happened to and the enforcement of the rules makes sense (according to the rules... whether or not the rule makes sense is a different conversation).

I see no inconsistencies here. If you want to be mad at a "stupid rule" that the NCAA and its member schools have in place, go ahead... but I fail to see inconsistencies here.

1. It is inconsistent because they ruled that the Marine who played in something similar could play for Middle TN St. (football).
2. It is inconsistent because you have extremely minor cases like this, where there was no advantage at all, and they are suspended for an entire year. Then there are other cases where players do much worse things and get a slap on the wrist. It's like a school putting in the rule that if you eat someone else's snack pack, you get expelled. But if you beat up another kid, you get suspended for a day.

At least they NCAA did the right thing. They've already reversed the decision without even going to the appeals committee.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Source: NCAA has reconsidered and granted Colgate's Nathan Harries his fourth-year of eligibility. Process didn't reach appeals committee.</p>— Jeff Eisenberg (@JeffEisenberg) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffEisenberg/statuses/398498302657695744">November 7, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[mcal24]

The rules are clear. There are more cases out there that if they came to light would cause eligibility issues, but this one happened to and the enforcement of the rules makes sense (according to the rules... whether or not the rule makes sense is a different conversation).

I see no inconsistencies here. If you want to be mad at a "stupid rule" that the NCAA and its member schools have in place, go ahead... but I fail to see inconsistencies here.

Are there still no inconsistencies now that they already reversed the decision? Or why would they reverse it? Sometimes common sense clearly overrules a "stupid rule."