Quote from: DBQ1965 on April 01, 2016, 03:14:36 PM

Quote from: formerd3db on March 27, 2016, 03:04:31 PM
Although sac and a couple of others posted on this over on the MIAA basketball board, anyone have any comments about the Kalamazoo sanctions by the NCAA?  "Creative thinking" with regard to financial aide for student-athletes has gone on at other schools in the conference to some degree in past decades, but, Kalamazoo was dinged for this.  From what has been presented on the official statements by the NCAA committee and Kalamazoo's administration, it appears this was a good intended effort to help admissions,m although unintentional as far as violating the rules.  However, it also appears there is a chance at avoiding the post-season participation ban if the situations in all of their sports are rectified.   

I'm interested in hearing any comments/opinions from some of our Kazoo posters here.

I heard a rumor that one of the baseball HCs in the MIAA got wind of something he thought he could use and reported KC.  This was maybe two years ago and the head baseball coach at KC and the AD had to go to an NCAA seminar on violations and penalities.  From reading the report on the KC website, it sounds as if they already changed/corrected the process for awarding financial aid for any entering student last Fall, and are in the process of adjusting current grants to fit the parameters of the NCAA so all teams will be eligible for post season play. Who knows what is true and what isn't?

Here's what the NCAA stated  http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/kalamazoo-college-failed-monitor-financial-aid   

I think the key part is 567 student athletes were affected, which is not small and quite baffling how a school like Kalamazoo could make such a mistake in its financial aid process.

Kzoo owned up to it, made changes.  But they sent a letter out to parents that said they were not going to change financial aid awards for 6 varsity sports.  Baseball and M/W Basketball were 3 of them.  Kzoo appealed the post-season bans and the NCAA lifted those bans while the appeal process is completed, so that is why their baseball team was allowed to compete in the MIAA and NCAA tournaments.

First a baseball coach that is turning that program around .... now a round ball coach that is committed to doing t
he same ... can football put a sustained together next?  Go Hornets!

    MIAA pre-season poll

Team    Points (First-Place Votes)
1.      Adrian    12 (1)
T-2.     Albion    13 (3)
T-2.    Olivet    13 (1)
4.    Trine    17 (2)
5.    Alma    27
6.    Hope    30
7.    Kalamazoo      35


Math wise, a very very weird poll

Surprised Albion had 3 1st place votes. They are very well coached but replacing that many starters on O will be tough.

Updates from Kalamazoo. 
https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/4y2sup/we_are_a_diii_football_program_that_has_suffered/

Sad to see these kids get bullied around by the NCAA like this.  I hope something gets worked out that lets these kids stay at KC and keep playing. 

That's a mess but I see both sides of it. The NCAA is saying Kalamazoo created an unfair environment. How many of those kids would have gone somewhere else if they hadn't been given the incorrect financial aid? That gives Kalamazoo an advantage. However, it's tough on the kids to ask them to pay up right before the semester starts. Probably should have gotten a grace year if the NCAA had any humanity.

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 11:56:20 AM
That's a mess but I see both sides of it. The NCAA is saying Kalamazoo created an unfair environment. How many of those kids would have gone somewhere else if they hadn't been given the incorrect financial aid? That gives Kalamazoo an advantage. However, it's tough on the kids to ask them to pay up right before the semester starts. Probably should have gotten a grace year if the NCAA had any humanity.

I mean how unfair is it, seriously?  KC is 3-7 and 2-8 the last two years.  What competitive advantage have they received?  I don't understand how there's not a solution to the financial award situation that satisfies the NCAA that doesn't also crush those kids and their families.  Why does the NCAA always have to get THAT specific pound of flesh? 

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 12:04:48 PM

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 11:56:20 AM
That's a mess but I see both sides of it. The NCAA is saying Kalamazoo created an unfair environment. How many of those kids would have gone somewhere else if they hadn't been given the incorrect financial aid? That gives Kalamazoo an advantage. However, it's tough on the kids to ask them to pay up right before the semester starts. Probably should have gotten a grace year if the NCAA had any humanity.

I mean how unfair is it, seriously?  KC is 3-7 and 2-8 the last two years.  What competitive advantage have they received?  I don't understand how there's not a solution to the financial award situation that satisfies the NCAA that doesn't also crush those kids and their families.  Why does the NCAA always have to get THAT specific pound of flesh?

To be fair, the financial award situation is only a problem if they want to play sports. They can keep their financial aid and drop from the team. So it doesn't have to crush the families or the education. It's disappointing not to be able to play sports, but getting the degree is paramount and sports should be secondary. I sympathize with the kids and think the NCAA is being ridiculously hard given the timing, but keep the money and get your degree.

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 12:32:24 PM

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 12:04:48 PM

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 11:56:20 AM
That's a mess but I see both sides of it. The NCAA is saying Kalamazoo created an unfair environment. How many of those kids would have gone somewhere else if they hadn't been given the incorrect financial aid? That gives Kalamazoo an advantage. However, it's tough on the kids to ask them to pay up right before the semester starts. Probably should have gotten a grace year if the NCAA had any humanity.

I mean how unfair is it, seriously?  KC is 3-7 and 2-8 the last two years.  What competitive advantage have they received?  I don't understand how there's not a solution to the financial award situation that satisfies the NCAA that doesn't also crush those kids and their families.  Why does the NCAA always have to get THAT specific pound of flesh?

To be fair, the financial award situation is only a problem if they want to play sports. They can keep their financial aid and drop from the team. So it doesn't have to crush the families or the education. It's disappointing not to be able to play sports, but getting the degree is paramount and sports should be secondary. I sympathize with the kids and think the NCAA is being ridiculously hard given the timing, but keep the money and get your degree.

That's hardly fair.  The school can award merit-based aid on extracurricular athletics activity in high school for everybody except the students that want to play in college?  That makes negative sense.  I remain of the opinion that there's a way for the NCAA and Kalamazoo to deal with the aid process that doesn't punish the current student-athletes.  Punishment levied on the S-As for a college administration policy error is wrong.  Like egregiously, offensively wrong. 

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 12:50:36 PM
That's hardly fair.  The school can award merit-based aid on extracurricular athletics activity in high school for everybody except the students that want to play in college?  That makes negative sense.  I remain of the opinion that there's a way for the NCAA and Kalamazoo to deal with the aid process that doesn't punish the current student-athletes.  Punishment levied on the S-As for a college administration policy error is wrong.  Like egregiously, offensively wrong.

I wish they had given them this year to sort it out. But regardless, you have to either take the aid away or take the students off the team. The one area I agree with the NCAA is they can't play while receiving aid based on athletics. That's not DIII any way you cut it, regardless of intention. As I said though, the timing is unacceptable to me.

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 01:07:50 PM

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 12:50:36 PM
That's hardly fair.  The school can award merit-based aid on extracurricular athletics activity in high school for everybody except the students that want to play in college?  That makes negative sense.  I remain of the opinion that there's a way for the NCAA and Kalamazoo to deal with the aid process that doesn't punish the current student-athletes.  Punishment levied on the S-As for a college administration policy error is wrong.  Like egregiously, offensively wrong.

I wish they had given them this year to sort it out. But regardless, you have to either take the aid away or take the students off the team. The one area I agree with the NCAA is they can't play while receiving aid based on athletics. That's not DIII any way you cut it, regardless of intention. As I said though, the timing is unacceptable to me.

I think that's the source of the issue.  IMO, there's a difference between receiving aid based on having participated in high school athletics and receiving aid as quid pro quo for playing a sport in college.  Those are two different things and I believe smart people can figure out which is which pretty easily, but the NCAA can't be bothered with nuance.  I got merit based aid thanks to all manner of extracurricular and very unathletic nerdery that I was involved in in high school.  I'm not sure why students who participated in a sport- which more often than not was a more intensive and impressive activity than most of my nerdery- shouldn't get similar recognition. 

For the same reason that you can't have a trustee pay for a kid's tuition when he's a football player. The trustee could pay for a kid's tuition if he wasn't a football player, that's a good samaritan, but if he happens to play football, that's an improper benefit. Sorry Susquehanna. The rules are written to keep D3 pretty simple and therefore pretty cheap and easy to manage. No money for athletics. You don't want to open the can of judgement required, and employee the bureaucracy, to start having to weigh intentions and parse the rules. It gets complicated and expensive in a hurry. And we don't want it to be expensive because then fewer schools will participate and there will be fewer opportunities for student athletes to play.

It's better to have a simple rule. No money for athletics. It's easy to understand, should be easy to follow, and easy to enforce.

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 04:04:23 PM
You don't want to open the can of judgement required, and employee the bureaucracy, to start having to weigh intentions and parse the rules.

I don't think it's that hard.  We can do it right here.  Did Kalamazoo award aid to football players as compensation for agreeing to play football at Kalamazoo? 

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 04:14:22 PM

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 04:04:23 PM
You don't want to open the can of judgement required, and employee the bureaucracy, to start having to weigh intentions and parse the rules.

I don't think it's that hard.  We can do it right here.  Did Kalamazoo award aid to football players as compensation for agreeing to play football at Kalamazoo?

Nope, but they may have gotten some players by offering more aid compared to other schools because they were calculating based on an illegal formula. Either way, not all cases will be as easy as this one. So make an easy rule and follow it. It's not hard. The point isn't the NCAA rule is wrong in my mind. D3 has agreed to abide by it. The point is K'zoo f'd up. Follow the simple rule and this isn't a problem. Mess up the simple rule and people start whining and complaining about how unfair it is. I'll whine and complain the NCAA is being unnecessarily harsh to the kids caught in this trap, but I won't whine and complain about D3 having an easy to follow, black and white rule. That just makes sense for the purposes of the division.

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 03:40:07 PM

Quote from: jknezek on August 17, 2016, 01:07:50 PM

Quote from: wally_wabash on August 17, 2016, 12:50:36 PM
That's hardly fair.  The school can award merit-based aid on extracurricular athletics activity in high school for everybody except the students that want to play in college?  That makes negative sense.  I remain of the opinion that there's a way for the NCAA and Kalamazoo to deal with the aid process that doesn't punish the current student-athletes.  Punishment levied on the S-As for a college administration policy error is wrong.  Like egregiously, offensively wrong.

I wish they had given them this year to sort it out. But regardless, you have to either take the aid away or take the students off the team. The one area I agree with the NCAA is they can't play while receiving aid based on athletics. That's not DIII any way you cut it, regardless of intention. As I said though, the timing is unacceptable to me.

I think that's the source of the issue.  IMO, there's a difference between receiving aid based on having participated in high school athletics and receiving aid as quid pro quo for playing a sport in college.

The NCAA's opinion on this is pretty well established, however.