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NCAA Rules Marine Vet Ineligible


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#1 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2013 - 03:12 PM

Unfortunate stories like this almost aren't news anymore.

 

Middle Tennessee State president Sidney McPhee is confident that the NCAA will reverse its ruling declaring Marine Corps veteran Steven Rhodes ineligible to play football this fall.

 

Rhodes' case became something of a national cause Sunday, when The Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro, Tenn., reported on his plight. The married father of two from Antioch served five years in the Marines, and after being discharged this summer he walked on the Middle Tennessee football team. But Rhodes' participation last year in a military-only recreational league ran afoul of NCAA rules, and the Eligibility Center's initial ruling was that he had to sit out this season.

 

MTSU's president clearly has no idea with whom he is dealing.

 

"I'm very confident common sense will prevail here," McPhee told Yahoo! Sports Monday morning.

 


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#2 DJ MC

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Posted 19 August 2013 - 03:29 PM

No one ever accused anyone in the NCAA of having the intelligence to actually attend or graduate from an accredited university.


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#3 Markus

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Posted 19 August 2013 - 03:36 PM

Yeah I read this yesterday and all I could do is shake my head.  Hope the dude gets to play.


Lemme get two claps and a Ric Flair


#4 Mackus

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Posted 19 August 2013 - 06:11 PM

http://espn.go.com/c...ee-blue-raiders



#5 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 19 August 2013 - 11:44 PM

Now why couldn't the NCAA have just done the right thing in the first place without drawing all sorts of attention? I'm really beginning to think they pull crap like this on purpose so they can pretend they are fair and magnanimous, all while deflecting attention from their numerous other scandals.



#6 DJ MC

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Posted 20 August 2013 - 09:03 AM

See, reading the rule (an athlete who doesn't go from high school to college will lose a year of eligibility for each year they play organized football) I can see where the NCAA came from in making the original decision.

 

However, that doesn't make it a REASONABLE decision. Even if it is some form of intra-military, inter-base league, how "organized" is it really? Especially compared to even mid-major Division I college football?

 

Considering that, and the simple fact that anything involving the military is such a hot-button topic (especially in areas where college football is popular), and the NCAA pretty much had to overturn the original decision. I'll give them a small bit of credit for not being their usual stubborn jackass selves. However, there should have been an obvious exception to the rule in the first place.


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#7 BSLMikeLowe

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Posted 20 August 2013 - 02:07 PM

See, reading the rule (an athlete who doesn't go from high school to college will lose a year of eligibility for each year they play organized football) I can see where the NCAA came from in making the original decision.

 

However, that doesn't make it a REASONABLE decision. Even if it is some form of intra-military, inter-base league, how "organized" is it really? Especially compared to even mid-major Division I college football?

 

Considering that, and the simple fact that anything involving the military is such a hot-button topic (especially in areas where college football is popular), and the NCAA pretty much had to overturn the original decision. I'll give them a small bit of credit for not being their usual stubborn jackass selves. However, there should have been an obvious exception to the rule in the first place.

 

Which illustrates my point....the NCAA is a bureaucratic and bloated mess of an institution that can't get out of its own way. The fact that the department that initially determines an athlete's eligibility couldn't make a common sense ruling on its own regarding this kid is ridiculous and a big problem. He never should have had to spend days wondering if he would be allowed to play football, and this never should have been a national story.



#8 DJ MC

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Posted 07 November 2013 - 12:13 AM

http://deadspin.com/...leag-1459931471

 

Well, if you though an intra-military football league was organized...

 

The governing body ruled that Harries played this past summer in an organized and competitive basketball league before enrolling at Colgate. In truth, Harries actually was just a fill-in for three games for a “C” level team in a relative church basketball league. Most players are in their 30s; one team is largely comprised of players in their 50s.

 

This sounds a lot like the league my dad plays in. It's as organized and competitive as any rec league: in other words, not remotely comparable to the frickin' Ivy League.


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#9 DJ MC

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Posted 07 November 2013 - 08:24 PM

And, the inevitable...

 

NCAA reverses decision on status of Colgate’s Nathan Harries

 

If you know that a decision is going to get people upset--and the NCAA has to understand by now that they aren't going to be able to slip these through a hostile media and fan culture anymore, right?--why not do something common sense to start with?


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#10 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 07 November 2013 - 08:25 PM

Is the NCAA over ruling these decisions just because they have service experience or was a devout Mormon? If so, is that right?



#11 Mackus

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Posted 07 November 2013 - 08:33 PM

Is the NCAA over ruling these decisions just because they have service experience or was a devout Mormon? If so, is that right?

 

Even if the service league was highly organized, it shouldn't cost anyone eligibility.  Unless a guy was getting paid to specifically play a sport, they should be exempt from all of those types of rules while they were serving.

 

The Mormon league, or any faith-based league, shouldn't be exempt from the rules just because it's faith-based.  Though the NCAA needs to be smarter about realizing what's actually organized and what's just rec-level stuff and avoid this nonsense in the first place.



#12 You Play to Win the Game

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Posted 07 November 2013 - 08:35 PM

Even if the service league was highly organized, it shouldn't cost anyone eligibility.  Unless a guy was getting paid to specifically play a sport, they should be exempt from all of those types of rules while they were serving.

 

The Mormon league, or any faith-based league, shouldn't be exempt from the rules just because it's faith-based.  Though the NCAA needs to be smarter about realizing what's actually organized and what's just rec-level stuff and avoid this nonsense in the first place.

 

That's completely fair.






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