Deron Treadwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>This made me think of an example of just how silly things are sometimes in
>this area.  ... Catherine Gallant is a women's basketball
>player at UMaine.  She is also student teaching, at a middle school.  Now,
>she is an assistant coach for the women's basketball team [??????], but per
>NCAA rules she isn't allowed to go to any games, because the NCAA would view
>that as trying to "influence players" to attend UMaine.  Personally I think
>this is ridiculous, since she's simply volunteering her time to help some
>young girls learn the game.
 
Quite the contrary, I think this is anything but ridiculous. Who's to say
a university wouldn't have a player "volunteer" to help an interscholastic
team for the purpose of recruiting a standout player? If one player can
do it, then the other players will do it. Now people in the university
program start getting ideas.
 
>Also, one student of hers brought in brownie's as a small Christmas gesture
>to her teacher, and to Catherine because she's the student teacher.  The
>gesture was geninue by the student, and obviously not simply directed at
>Catherine, but at both Catherine and the teacher since they were both
>instructing them.  Catherine had to turn down the brownies from the student,
>probably hurting the feelings of the student.
 
I don't see why that would hurt the student's feelings if Gallant explained
why she couldn't accept the gift.
 
>I've leave it to the experts on the rules to relate the "reasons" but IMO
>these rules are rather extreme.
 
While these rules are extreme, they are not without unreasonable. If players
are allowed to receive some benefits, the question becomes: Where do we draw
the line? If the rules are changed to allow players to limit, say, the total
value of benefits received, then players would need to account for the
benefits they've accepted. ("Hold on a minute before you give me the can of
Coke; I need to write down the date, who gave it to me, and how much it's
worth!)
 
What starts out as a little thing can soon become a big thing. As a local
weekly newspaper sports columnist pointed out: It can start out innocently
enough. Your daughter is the girlfriend of a hockey player. He has dinner
with your family. Then you do him a favor by washing his laundry. Then you
loan him a few bucks extra cash at the store. Then you let him drive your
sports car around town. Chances are your daughter's boyfriend will mention
these insignificant perks to his hockey-playing buddies back home. Because
they know what nice fans there are in the school's area, the friends will
want to play for the school. Then other schools find out and their boosters
start organizing bigger, more formal benefits packages. Now you've got a
problem.
 
The desire to win a national championship can do strange things to some
people. No doubt, if there were no rules against it, Maine boosters
would proudly give money to recruits and players. Now the boosters have
turned the focus away from academics and turned it toward athletics.
_____________________________________________________________________
Ryan Robbins               "Nothing in fine print is ever good news."
University of Maine                                  -- Andy Rooney
_____________________________________________________________________
[log in to unmask] ____________________________________________
http://maine.maine.edu/~rrobbi32/____________________________________
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.