NCAA May Soon Exercise Some Common Sense, But President Needs To Check Himself

The NCAA is constantly ridiculed for its Bible-sized manual and lack of horse sense when it comes to some of its rules covering college athletics and their enforcement.

But they may be about to get something right.

An NCAA vote is expected next week on removing the recruiting test for coaches prior to their leaving campus for recruiting trips, Bryan Fischer of Athlon Sports reports. Instead, the NCAA would like to replace the test with a course requirement from each school's compliance departments. This will improve coaches' chances of not accidentally breaking the rules and give them a better overview of the recruiting rules.

Granted, many coaches know the rules and break them anyway, but too often coaches break rules of which they are unaware. And some coaches know the rules so well that they know how to circumvent them.

At any rate, more knowledge in long form will be better for most involved and serve them better than cramming for a test. And asking coaches to take a test could lead to phantom test takers, which has already gotten some programs in trouble.

Fischer also reports that the NCAA may eliminate the rule that bars the many analysts now working for football programs from scouting games. Now, they will have something to do other than watch film. They can actually watch live games. It may be wise for the NCAA to also limit the number of analysts.

Meanwhile in Las Vegas Wednesday at the Sports Business Journal/Learfield college athletics forum, NCAA president and former University of Washington president and LSU chancellor Mark Emmert spoke and and actually said this:

"Being a university president is the hardest job in America."

Not quite. Perhaps the NCAA should pass a new rule where high ranking NCAA officials must have a reality based education requirement.