NCAA Should Wise Up and Reinstate Williams

If the folks at the NCAA can lift their heads out of the paperwork for a moment, they might realize they need Mike Williams more than he needs them.

If the NCAA wants to show it actually cares about its athletes, if it wants to give players reason not to bolt for the pros the first chance they get, it will reinstate Williams. Quickly.

The best player not currently in the NFL wants to play college football this fall. What better advertisement could there possibly be for the sport? This is more good fortune than the NCAA deserves.

In April, Williams followed Maurice Clarett through the legal hole resulting from a judge’s ruling in Clarett’s favor as he tried to defy the NFL’s ban on players less than three years out of high school. Williams turned pro. Then an appellate court closed the hole like a speedy linebacker, siding with the NFL. Williams, who had dropped out of school and signed with an agent, was stuck.

He tried to run a reverse. He paid back the money he’d made, hoping to regain his amateur status. That’s one thing on which the NCAA must rule.

He enrolled in summer school to get his academic status back on track. But because he didn’t finish the spring semester, he’s in violation of a new rule that requires the completion of six course units in the semester before competition and he would need a waiver from the NCAA to get back on the field. That’s potentially his biggest hurdle.

“He’s otherwise academically eligible,” said Todd Dickey, USC vice president and general counsel. “He has met NCAA requirements, he has met university requirements. If this had occurred last year, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

Keep one thing in mind: NCAA rules exist primarily because the schools don’t trust each other. They want equal footing, so they commission the NCAA to level the playing field.

As Dickey explained, the six-unit rule is there “to make sure that student-athletes are competing against other athletes who are really students.”

As long as Williams is in school, getting passing grades, it seems to me that he’s a student.

For a while in the spring, he was a professional athlete. A judge said he could be one.

Williams did what he could do. Not necessarily what he was told to do. Yes, he might have been naive to jump for the money when some were advising him that the legal battle wasn’t yet finished. Can you blame the kid for wanting to turn pro? Wouldn’t you if you had the talent and you weren’t breaking any rules?

That’s why the NCAA needs to cut him some slack. Stop trying to impress the tweed-jacket set. There’s no need to worry about setting a bad precedent because there’s no way anyone else can follow in the footsteps of Clarett and Williams. That path is roped off.

How about treating the fans to several Saturdays’ worth of Williams working his wonder on the field? What about showing the athletes that the NCAA is committed to giving them the chance to compete?

Otherwise, I’d advise every player who has the opportunity to go pro as soon as possible and avoid the hypocrites who cloak cheap labor under the veil of idealism.

Williams’ world won’t end if he is not reinstated. He’ll be just as attractive to the NFL next spring, with another year of physical maturation. He will have a scholarship at USC whether or not he plays, so he can gain the education he’ll need for his life after the NFL decides that he’s too old, not too young.

But the waiting and the hoop jumping are unnecessary exasperation for all involved. Coach Pete Carroll is losing patience.

“It’s been a long, arduous [task] and it continues to be very cumbersome to get this thing done and finalized,” Carroll said a few hours before the paperwork was sent to the NCAA. “It has been extraordinarily frustrating for Mike and his family. They have been as frustrated as you can be to get to this point, and then still can’t get the word on what’s going on.”

Carroll said it was “highly unlikely” that Williams could be reinstated in time for Saturday’s season opener against Virginia Tech, and cautioned that a ruling in Williams’ favor was far from a no-brainer.

Carroll said the team was ready to move on without Williams, and that life would indeed go on for the top team in the country, even if the top player couldn’t be there.

Carroll will be fine. There’s a shiny new trophy in Heritage Hall proclaiming USC as Associated Press national champion, and everyone knows which coach put it there. The recruits keep rolling in.

Matt Leinart? The quarterback doesn’t need his training wheels anymore. Williams has done his part. The guy who helped Carson Palmer to his Heisman has already booked a trip to New York for Leinart. Leinart will be sitting in the room when they hand out the trophy, and he just might bring it home with him.

Williams took Leinart from no-name to cover boy. Leinart has hype now, and that’s half the battle.

Williams was there when Leinart simply tried to avoid mistakes. Leinart knew that if he could safely deliver the ball to No. 1 he’d be all right. By the end of the season, Leinart was a threat himself, reading the defenses, making plays. He’ll take it from here. Thanks, Mike.

“Obviously it’s different when Mike’s in there,” Leinart said. “Just having him is a huge advantage for us. But I think we’re prepared without him. That’s how we’re going into the season. If he does get back, then it’ll be a plus for us.”

A plus for all of us. Especially the NCAA -- if only it could realize that.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.