I know the subject's been circulating around for awhile now, but I just had
to throw in my tuppence (closest thing we have to $.02 over here).
 
It seems to me that, whether it be "Woody" Carville or Mike Ploszek who is
responsible for this latest round of mega-blunders, it's the student-athletes
at Maine who are suffering.  Let me now say that I personally know one of the
athletes who has recently lost eligibility -- indoor track athlete Allyson
Lowell, who was a year ahead of me in high school, and with whom I graduated
from UMaine last year.  The fact that she is still in Orono (which I did not
know until somebody posted a Boston Globe article last week) indicates that
she, like Tardif, is a graduate student who also happens to be an athlete.
This makes me ask, "Are all the student-athletes involved grad students?"
Well, if not, the only one we really need to worry about here is Tardif, so
let's continue, shall we?
 
The NCAA's rules about credit hours were designed to ensure that there were
no pseudo-students at Athletic State U taking one 1/2 credit course just to
maintain "full-time student" status while completing his/her four years of
eligibility in [insert sport of your choice here].  The problem in the Tardif
scenario is that we have a graduate student:  i.e., someone who has already
proven that he is an honest-to-goodness student (hell, he graduated in 3-1/2
years!) who is also an athlete.  (BTW, same goes for Lowell who was honor
roll all four years of high school and graduated from Orono with honors.) So,
what's the problem?  Well, it seems that the NCAA just loves making rules
whether they're warranted or not.  So, instead of sticking to the practice of
making sure that undergrads (unproven students) are actually studying,
they've stuck their collective nose in where it doesn't belong:  harrying
postgrads (proven students).  If the purpose of "full-time student"
regulations is to ensure that all college athletes are honestly studying,
then why should they have anything whatsoever to do with grad students,
people who have already proven that they can get the job done and participate
in sports at the same time?  IMO, the NCAA should have no rules regulating
the definition of "full-time student" for grad students.  As I believe Wayne
Smith, our beloved administrator, pointed out a couple days ago, some grad
student courses have a limit to the number of credit hours a student can take
which is lower than the NCAA's holy number eight.  In effect, computer
science postgrads at UMaine cannot participate in intercollegiate athletics.
The NCAA should realize that grad students are a different breed from their
undergraduate neighbors;  member institutions should be allowed to set their
own definitions of "full-time student" for postgrads.  It would seem to be
the only fair alternative to what is obviously an unfair system at present.
 
I hope the chief muck-a-mucks in the NCAA enjoy ruining the athletic careers
of innocent students as much as they seem to.
 
 
We now return you to your regularly scheduled (and perhaps less biased)
program.
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|   \   /   |
 |   \ /   |   Jason A. Pierce                      Black Bear Fan in Exile
 |M A I N E|   University of Maine, '93
 |B L A C K|   University of St Andrews, '94          [log in to unmask]
 |B E A R S|            (hopefully!)
 |  \   /  |
 |  |\ /|  |              M - A - I - N - E  Go... BLUE!!!
 |  | v |  |
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