The life of a student-athlete or coach isn’t so simple.
Case No. 1: Northwestern women’s basketball guard Dana Leonard wants to baby-sit over a weekend for a mere $20.
“And just that takes a lot of paper work,” Leonard said.
Case No. 2: A member of the football team visits coach Randy Walker’s office to fill out a housing card. After signing the document with Walker’s pen, the athlete unknowingly sticks the pen in his pocket and dashes out of Walker’s office.
“He just took a Northwestern football pen — that is an extra benefit,” Walker said.
“It is an NCAA violation.”
These rules — and countless others — are clearly outlined in The Book, the 499-page, 1999-2000 NCAA Division I manual with 33 bylaws that coaches, student-athletes and athletic administrators are obligated to follow.
The Book — starting from Article 1 (“Name, Purposes and Fundamental Policy”) to Article 33 (“Athletics Certification Policies and Procedures”) with a long list of indices at the end — leaves many confused by its complex and varying interpretations for a single rule.
Nancy Lyons, NU associate director of athletics, who also oversees the compliance office, said The Book exists for two primary reasons: one, to protect the student-athletes; and two, to level the playing field between Division I schools.
But The Book has gotten extremely complicated — someone, somehow, will sneak around the rules, cite a different interpretation and gain a competitive advantage. This has forced the NCAA to add several specific amendments to a rule.
“By being a member of the NCAA, you agree to abide by its bylaws,” Lyons said. “The NCAA is us. We vote on all of these rules.
“Personally, I think we should throw it out and start all over again because people get so caught up in the minutiae of the rules that they forget the big stuff. They overlook the forest for the trees — and that’s when you get caught.”
In fact NU is one of only three Division I schools that have never been caught on a major infraction case, according to Lyons. Nevertheless, NU — and every Division I school — has had a “secondary violation,” Lyons said. NU had 10 to 20 minor violations in 1999 alone, she said.
The football player accidentally taking Walker’s pen from his office is one. And Lyons said a team going a minute over its allotted practice time of 20 hours per week would be another.
As if The Book isn’t complex enough, it gets thicker every year. Last year’s edition was 489 pages.
In addition, the Big Ten handbook — a separate 180-page rule book — added 29 separate rules from the year before.
After 25 years of coaching at the college football level, Walker could lecture on his experience with the NCAA rules. Off the top of his head, Walker can count the restrictions on his practice and game schedule.
But even with his knowledge, Walker doesn’t understand why The Book has become so bloated, complex and filled with “shades of gray.”
“The book started this big. Now it’s this thick,” said Walker, using his thumb and forefinger, then spreading his arms wide open for the latter.
Walker believes in the old saying, “You can’t legislate morality” — and he thinks the NCAA does just that with The Book.
“I think it’s the truest thing ever. And I think that is, in a lot of cases, what the NCAA tries to do,” Walker said. “Hey, obviously, you need someone to make sure the right things are going on. But I can’t tell you, in just the 25 years that I’ve been coaching, how many rule changes I’ve been through. They go from one thing to another — from this thing to that thing.
“And it’s gotten to a point where, gosh, it’s hard to just have fun and coach football. It shouldn’t be this complex. Let’s just play football, you know?”
Another veteran, NU men’s tennis coach Paul Torricelli, also has plenty to complain about The Book. For example, only one coach can make recruiting trips.
Yet in a prestigious tournament, more than 200 boys participate in the 18-and-under bracket. Below that is the 16-and-under bracket with almost the same number of participants.
“To be able to have only one guy out there — that to me is not logical,” said Torricelli, who has been coaching at NU for 17 seasons.
But he knows why The Book is complex — as college athletics evolves, so does the number of issues and amount of rules.
“I don’t think they’re fair. I think they’re complex and it’s cumbersome,” Torricelli said. “But I understand why they’re that way. The more complex, the more rules — that’s just the nature of anything. I would just like to see some things made more realistic and more logical.”
The student-athletes themselves live with the complexity of The Book. But for some, The Book’s reach makes no sense.
Some treat the whole matter with sarcasm.
Men’s tennis captain Brad Erickson knows coaches can’t hand out any benefits to prospects during recruiting. And benefits, according to The Book, include anything. Even a can of Coke, which Erickson thinks is “just dumb.”
“The joke with the NCAAs is, every time you turn around, there are 10 new rules,” Erickson said. “But it’s the NCAAs. They’re one of the most respected institutions, I guess.”
The Book, according to Coaches
Coaches seem to share a common dilemma with The Book, especially concerning high school prospects. Questions arise as to what they can send and give to prospects, and when and how often they are allowed to contact prospects.
Women’s tennis coach Claire Pollard wanted to send out a birthday card to a prospect.
The Book said no.
“Just because you’re trying to make it a little bit personal in the recruiting process — to let them know that they’re not just another number — you can’t do that,” Pollard said.
In softball The Book prohibits prospects from playing in a competitive game on the same day of an official visit to a school.
So every time a softball prospect comes to NU on an official visit, NU coach Sharon Drysdale has to ask, “What are you going to do when you go home?”
“The coaches sometimes learn it the hard way,” said Drysdale, also chairwoman of the NCAA Softball Rules Committee. “Writing the rules is easy — interpreting them is not. Surely, nobody likes the size of it, the big one. But it’s there for a reason.”
To make things even more complex, the recruiting calendar changes every year. About 10 years ago at Miami (Ohio), Walker called a prospect during a “convention period” — a time of the year when coaches are allowed only one call to a prospect per week.
Not knowing that another Miami coach called the same prospect, Walker had to report it as a violation.
“I’ve broken some NCAA rules — I’ll be the first to say it. I’ve inadvertently broken a rule or two,” Walker said. “One year you’re allowed to do this, the next year, you’re not. For some old guy like me who’s been doing this a long time, you really get confused. It’s not that they’re doing anything wrong — it’s all about the right thing. It gets overwhelming sometimes.”
THE BOOK, according to athletes
For NU student-athletes, The Book thrives outside of Evanston.
If you’re a die-hard NU golf fan, you probably noticed that NU phenom Luke Donald didn’t wear or carry anything with an NU logo at the British Open last summer.
According to The Book, Donald couldn’t don anything NU-related because it would’ve counted toward the 20 hours a week of practice time allotted to the golf team.
“The only thing he could use was club and shoes,” NU men’s golf coach Pat Goss said.
Teammate Jess Daley, who will play in the U.S. Open Qualifier this year, will face the same restrictions as Donald. No NU golf bag. No free university T-shirts.
No nothing — and Daley doesn’t understand why.
“I don’t really know why they have rules like that,” Daley said. “They all kind of sound ridiculous. I’m sure they’re there for a good reason, but some of them are really nit-picky rules. To tell you the truth, I think it’s kind of anal.”
For collegiate tennis players — both men’s and wom
en’s — summer circuits aren’t rare events. But The Book prevents any college athletes from receiving stipends for travel and living expenses.
Last summer, Erickson joined former NU standout Doug Bohaboy in an amateur tour. Both won and advanced.
Bohaboy received a paycheck.
Erickson returned home with his bags in hand and a dent in his pocket book.
“I know how much I would’ve won — you thank the guys there, then you leave. It’s that simple,” Erickson said. “I agree with the whole not-taking-the-money thing, but I definitely think the NCAA should be able to expense stuff. At least break even, if you’re winning money.
“For some, there’s really no incentive.”
the book, according to nancy lyons
So how does Lyons and the NU compliance office discover a violation?
“If something smells like a rose, it probably is a rose — if it sounds like it’s not right, than it’s a violation, it probably is,” she said.
The policy at NU is to ask first. Lyons, in her fourth year at NU, has emphasized to her staff through seminars the importance of asking questions.
And that’s kept NU out of major infraction cases.
“I think it’s impossible to know the rules,” NU volleyball coach Kevin Renshler said. “Whenever I have a question, the compliance office gives me the proper interpretation.”
Added Pollard: “I’m not trying to be a goody-goody, but I think Northwestern does a great job of self-regulating itself.”
And Lyons and the compliance office expect the student-athletes to understand some of the most obvious rules in The Book — for example, laws against receiving extra benefits.
Other rules are also inadvertently broken. During his tenure at Miami, Walker gave one of his players a ride home, not knowing that it was a violation.
“It’s one of the first things I did — I gave a kid a ride,” Walker said. “I broke a rule that day. Now, if you would’ve gotten (the athlete) in a car with a $100 bill sitting on that seat, that’s a big violation.”
No matter how complex The Book gets, NU — as an NCAA member — has to live with it. Logical or not, it doesn’t matter.
The Book is The Bible in the NCAA.
“An old-family friend gave me a used car — sounds pretty innocent, right?” Torricelli said. “But you have to throw logic out of the window and think like the NCAA.
“That’s the NCAA.”
