The Time Has Come for the Media to Stop Playing the Role of NCAA Mall Cop

By D.J. Byrnes on October 15, 2014 at 11:08 am
Johnny Football allegedly signing autographs for money in a hotel room
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Unless you think there's something inherently wrong with trading your signature for cash or other cool items (like, say, tattoos), then Brian Floyd of SBNation dropped an article of which you will find quite agreeable. 

It's time for the media to stop chasing autograph and other non-scandals.¹ It's time for the media to quit playing the role of the NCAA's mall cop. It's time for the media to stop helping the NCAA enforce its ridiculous rules the NCAA can't enforce itself:

Ask yourself what probing authentication databases accomplishes. It may trigger a suspension as a school investigates the claims and tries to prove something without a paper trail, as is likely Gurley's case. On the off chance it can be proved that a player received a few $100 bills, it could result in a loss of eligibility for a game or two or even a season.

Is it worth it to play cop using circumstantial evidence and enforce rules that only exist in the fantasy world of amateurism created by the NCAA? Or is that time better spent doing literally anything else?

I couldn't agree more. Let's leave sensationalist covers like this:

lololololol

in the same place we left dial-up internet: the 1990s. 


¹ This does not apply to Jameis Winston. Winston is a pox on the house of college football, and should be removed by whatever means necessary.


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