Collegiate sports are fun to watch. I love my Virginia Cavaliers; while I don’t get too hung up on the exploits of kids half my age (my wife would argue this), I enjoy cheering for my alma mater’s student-athletes and I do take a little pride in seeing them get better and better throughout their years in school. The NCAA, on the other hand, the body that governs collegiate athletics, tends to be a piece of shit. The jackassery of the NCAA was in rare form recently as five University of Richmond baseball players were suspended for having the gall to do something as reckless as play fantasy football.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the University will not release the names of the five players, but two are known to be two of the team’s best players: Keenan Bartlett and Kurtis Brown. Considering the Spiders have played five games and certain players have missed all five games, it is not particularly difficult to decipher which guys may have been suspended.
The exact violation that was committed has not been disclosed, either, but it was related to fantasy football. Technically, playing fantasy football is against NCAA rules. The Times-Dispatch provided the text of the rule:
You are not eligible to compete if you knowingly participate in any sports wagering activity that involves intercollegiate, amateur or professional athletics, through a bookmaker, a parlay card or any other method employed by organized gambling. Examples of sports wagering include, but are not limited to, the use of a bookmaker or parlay card; Internet sports wagering; auctions in which bids are placed on teams, individuals or contests; and pools or fantasy leagues in which an entry fee is required.
Thus, if the baseball players did play fantasy football for money, they technically violated NCAA rules. But man, if it was just your typical college kids playing daily fantasy (or season-long fantasy) for a few bucks, someone in the NCAA office has got to understand that nobody violated the spirit of the rule.
And arguably the worst part is that the kids are suspended indefinitely. The University provided a statement to the Times-Dispatch, which read, in part, “As a result of these violations, these five student-athletes will be ineligible for competition until the NCAA’s reinstatement process has been completed.”
They have missed five games already. They could miss the entire 2017 baseball season for playing fantasy football. That’s insane.
I understand why the gambling rules are in place. Gambling by student-athletes can open the door to players getting in trouble financially and then potentially doing something that damages the integrity of the game. While rare, there have been point-shaving incidents, for instance, in college basketball. In those situations, a player was paid by gamblers to purposely make sure his game (one in which his team was a solid favorite) stayed within the spread so that the gamblers, who bet on the underdog, could win. The player wasn’t trying to lose, just not win by too much.
Things like that weren’t necessarily fueled a player gambling, but simply being enticed with a sizeable sum of money. If a student-athlete gambles and runs up a debt, who knows what sort of mess he could get himself (or herself) into?
But this whole thing is just dumb, unless there is way more to it than it seems. To suspend five baseball players indefinitely for fantasy football is way beyond the intent of the gambling rule and it would be nice if someone at the NCAA would realize this. Unfortunately, the players have already missed five games, so plenty of damage has been done.