Court Decision Could Be Supreme Test of NCAA’s Power

What was most surprising to me about the decision rendered against basketball Coach Jerry Tarkanian was the revelation that a Supreme Court ruling is valid in Las Vegas.

I always thought they had their own constitution in Las Vegas, based on the city motto, “Hey, whatever.” I figured if you went to court there, you slipped the bailiff a 10-spot to seat you close to the jury. If sentenced, you flipped the judge, double or nothing.

How could Tark the Shark be deemed guilty of misconduct while operating in a city where every bad habit known to man or woman is not only legal, but strongly encouraged?

But it’s true. Tark fought the law and the law won.

Right now Tarkanian must be wishing he had taken the Laker coaching job when Jerry Buss came begging in 1979.

The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tried to bench Tark for 2 years back in 1977 for a long list of rule violations. Tarkanian felt that the NCAA acted unfairly, and 2 courts agreed with him. Now the Supreme Court has spoken, siding with the NCAA.

The citizens of Las Vegas have to be steamed. “What kind of country is it,” they must be asking, “where you beat the house 2 out of 3 and still lose the pot?”

This is a big decision that the Supreme Court has handed down, not that it hands down many small ones. Now we have to figure out what it means.

Should the NCAA park the Tark, make him serve that 2-year suspension, or has he suffered enough? Will the NCAA use this ruling as a steroid pill, to puff itself up and start kicking some rule-breaker butt, other than Tark’s?

The verdict of this independent jury is: Let Tark go, and use the newly granted power of suspension to start scaring and suspending coaches who have broken rules during the last decade.

Tarkanian did his rule busting 12 years ago. If the NCAA can find any more recent dirt on UNLV hoops, go with it.

The charges against Tarkanian, presented by the NCAA in 1976, were serious ones. He helped his athletes stay eligible with trumped-up grades, he tried to influence witnesses testifying about the UNLV program. He did not display, in the opinion of the NCAA, “high ethical standards.”

Picky, picky, picky.

How can you violate the ethics of an organization founded on a false premise? The NCAA is the National Charade of Athletes as Academicians.

In order for a young man to get a shot at professional football or basketball, he must first play for a college team, while simultaneously pretending to be a student. This is a unique arrangement, which makes absolutely no sense. It’s like telling a would-be doctor, “OK, we’ll let you try out as a brain surgeon, but first you must earn a black belt in karate.”

The unusual arrangement remains in effect because it benefits the pro leagues and the universities.

Tark sees through the pretense. He has built a career on reaching out to the academically marginal player, taking kids from disadvantaged backgrounds and giving them opportunities to train for their chosen profession--basketball.

That’s not to say that all of his players are scholastically disinclined, but Tarkanian has never lost a recruit to MIT.

He often recruits the scholastically marginal player, because it is a good way to get good players. He also does it, in my opinion, because he has a genuine affinity for the underdog and wants to give these kids a shot at developing their basketball skills.

If I am to believe what I read and if I trust my judgment, I’d have to say that Tarkanian is a slimeball with a heart of gold.

But the main question now, other than in Las Vegas, is not what will happen to Tark, but what will happen to the NCAA. Apparently it will now have real policing powers. Will it know how to use them, or will this be Barney Fife with an Uzi?

The hope among many observers is that the NCAA will at least become a little more even-handed. There is a widespread belief that the NCAA is reluctant to squeeze the vise on schools that bring in big TV money.

The Lexington Herald-Leader gathered and published so much evidence of wrongdoing in the University of Kentucky basketball program that the paper earned a Pulitzer Prize. But when the NCAA stepped in, suddenly all the evidence disappeared. Kentucky was clean.

When the NCAA ordered UCLA super-booster Sam Gilbert to be disassociated from the Bruins’ athletic program in 1981, Sam laughed and stayed right where he was until he died in 1987. Did the NCAA crack down on the Bruins because of Gilbert’s continued presence? Not yet.

Nobody ever said life was fair, but it would be nice to think that the NCAA was at least leaning in that direction.

So we’ve got the rule breaker with the heart of gold, and the enforcement agency with the heart of Jell-O.

And we’ve got a college athletic system that has more flaws than the plot of a porno movie.

It was nice of the Supreme Court to take time out of its busy schedule to try to help straighten out the toy department, but the suspicion lurks that the problems in college athletics will have to be sorted out by a higher authority, and I don’t mean a pit boss at Caesars Palace.