Soap box - NCAA

We have heard it all concerning the NCAA and their rulings this year and the proposal for new rules for next year.  Yep, it reminds me of being a kid.  

Remember when we set up the rules for a game of backyard football?  First you had to find a ball.  Any ball would do as long you had one.  But as soon as a kid got a new one everybody wanted to use his.  Remember who got to pick teams?  (In case you forgot; the kid with new ball)  Remember who got the best kid on his team?  Then the kid always getting picked last went and asked Santa for a better ball.  The rules were constantly changing. 

Mixed in with the ball issue was setting up the boundaries of the field.  One end zone was from the driveway to the house.  The other was from the tree stump to old man Wilson’s wooden fence.  But as soon as someone tripped over the stump and misses the “it would have been touchdown” pass; the boundary changed.  Now instead of the stump it was to the old football a few feet inside the tree stump.  Then after somebody ran a little too wide of the side of house to avoid a tackle, there was an argument over the sideline.  The rules got changed again.

Once you settled on which ball to use and what the field boundaries were, typically all the good kids ended up on the same team and the game was not fun anymore.  

The rulings levied by the NCAA this year have reminded me of those days of backyard football.  Just a bunch of kids that can’t decide on the rules, so they change the rules, the more they change the rules the more trouble it causes, the more trouble it causes, the less fun the game becomes…yep sounds familiar.