All Washed Up

The NCAA is really serious about rooting out the evil-doers in college athletics:

At a time when college athletics is overrun with rogue agents, unscrupulous coaches and handlers who exploit athletes for money, it's reassuring to know not every unrepentant rule-breaker goes unpunished. Hearty congratulations to the NCAA for penalizing a student-athlete from a West Coast Conference school for the unspeakable crime of washing her car with the university's water and hose.

Portland basketball coach Eric Reveno tweeted about the violation Wednesday after he learned of it during conference meetings, punctuating his message with the hashtag #stopinsanity. A spokesman for the WCC did not know any further details, but a source familiar with the circumstances revealed what happened.

A WCC school self-reported an extra benefits violation to the NCAA when university officials caught one of their women's golfers washing her car on campus, according to the source. The NCAA ruled a secondary violation had occurred because the water and hose were not available to regular students and requested the golfer pay back $20, which was deemed to be the value of the water and use of the hose.

In 1999 I was working on a project at the University of Texas, where I was designing fire protection systems for the renovation of Jester Hall, the largest dormitory building in North America. After a couple of trips to the Hall cafeteria, I was tipped off by a contractor that the place to eat was The Other Cafeteria, located in the basement. Apparently that cafeteria was for student athletes and select UT personnel only. The regular, non-athlete students weren't allowed in. As someone contracted to the Office of Facilities for the project, I was allowed to show my ID and pay for lunch in the "Special Cafeteria." The food was of noticeably higher quality and quantity, and the dining environment was much nicer: linen tablecloths and napkins, restaurant quality cutlery, etc. But that's not an "extra benefit," apparently.

The NCAA and college sports, especially DIV-IA football, are corrupt and money-driven. Everybody knows it, but there's so much money involved, the Big Schools don't want it to change. And if the Big Schools don't want it, the NCAA doesn't want it. So they go after female golfers for washing their cars. That'll learn 'em!