In Defense Of The Cheaters, Sort Of

Friends, fellow Wolverines, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to bury the cheaters, but to praise them. Sort of.
In Defense Of The Cheaters, Sort Of
In Defense Of The Cheaters, Sort Of /

Friends, fellow Wolverines, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to bury the cheaters, but to praise them. Sort of. 

Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney is pictured here not because I know for sure he's cheating NCAA rules. or because I'm accusing him of anything. I don't know if he's a cheater, and frankly depending on how "cheating" is defined I don't give a rat's rear end if he is. 

However, many of you that will read this and root for the same team as I do believe he's a cheater, thus his aw shucksness accompanies this friendly polemic. 

Let's say Dabo and everyone else better at college football than apparently Jim Harbaugh are, indeed, cheating their backsides off. Depending on how cheating is defined, so what?

Let's say we're defining "cheating" as someone like Clemson offering Rashan Gary $400 thousand to not sign with Michigan, as John U. Bacon's most recent best-seller Overtime tacitly alleges (courtesy of Gary's own testimony) the Tigers may have done. While that's a serious violation of NCAA Rules, who cares? NCAA Rules are seriously stupid. 

Many Michigan fans got to know the Gary family while he was here, and during the Amazon documentary "All or Nothing" back in 2018. This is not a wealthy family by any means. So in what other context in all of American culture is it considered tawdry, unethical, and villainous for those with plenty to provide for those without -- especially for services rendered? 

In what other context is it considered immoral to pay for a single mom's mortgage, utility bill, or transportation? In what other context is it considered nefarious to enrich those who are underprivileged or impoverished for their excellence? 

There is only one such context where these notions exist in this culture -- NCAA Rules. The only current place in America where such traditionally charitable and capitalistic practice is shunned and scorned is the 140,000 square foot Taj Mahal known as NCAA Headquarters. And guess where the money for that basilica came from? From the excellence of players called "amateurs." 

"Rules are rules" some will say. Well, today is Sunday. This will publish before I head off to church. And in one of the Lord's first sermons he spends a considerable amount of time rebuking stupid rules that don't reward doing good and punish wickedness as rules should. Rather, they place an undue burden upon those already bearing the brunt of the burden to begin with. 

Michigan athletics has generated more than $180 million each of the past two years. And to be sure, when you look at the elite education it makes available to its student-athletes, as well as the quality of coaching, care, and connections the university also provides, Michigan is about as first class it gets. 

However, if it weren't for the presence of these stupid NCAA Rules, would we consider it a blemish on the university's brand if Gary took $400 thousand to come to Michigan instead? The answer, of course, is no. If anything, since he was the first consensus number one overall prospect in the recruiting site network era, you might even think that's a bargain. 

Not to mention football, as we all know, is a dangerous game. Literally at any moment these players are risking serious and potentially life-altering injury. The head coaches making $5-10 million a year aren't risking that by just standing there on the sidelines. Plus they usually have buyouts, and when fired get to walk away from failure with the gross domestic product of a small Latin American country. 

Undoubtedly, these NCAA Rules are what's tawdry, unethical, and villainous. Furthermore, they're laughably ineffective and arbitrarily applied. You could argue that if they were applied evenly and punitively, as imperfect as they are, the way they maintain a level competitive playing field makes them worth the cost. But they don't even do that, which is why the only schools really obeying these stupid NCAA Rules are the programs in no danger of breaking them. 

Now, if we're defying "cheating" as performance-enhancing drugs (which Clemson was caught up in a year ago), defecating on your academic integrity (looking at you North Carolina), turning your campus into a sexual assault hunting ground (hello Baylor and Michigan State), or harboring a child rapist (see Penn State), then by all means these are crimes and should be mercilessly punished. 

Yes, there's already legal ramifications, but schools are breaking these laws and/or concealing lawbreakers because it would severely damage the program should it come to light. Thus, the cover-up is done by the schools to give them an unfair competitive advantage, for they'd be disadvantaged if the public knew. Isn't that what the NCAA says its enforcement is here for? To punish unfair competitive advantages? Then punish the most serious among them. The ones that also have true victims. Don't strain a gnat to swallow a camel. 

I'll stop now, before I offend too many. Besides, a documentary is on about my all-time favorite college basketball team -- The Fab Five. 


Published