INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA just can’t seem to stay out of court room brawls.
College athletics’ governing body must be punch drunk from constantly losing motions to dismiss the growing number of cases being filed against it.
This time, U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson rejected the NCAA’s motion to dismiss a case brought by former college football player John Rock.
Rock claims that after playing three seasons of college football at Gardner-Webb, the new football coaching staff refused to renew his scholarship in July, 2011. The team captain and starting quarterback said he had to pay thousands of dollars out of his own pocket to earn a political science degree. The NCAA now allows schools to offer multi-year scholarships. It’s just another legal morass for the NCAA, which already is dealing with multi-million dollar legal cases around the country, ranging from Ed O’Bannon’s lawsuit in California to a concussion lawsuit in Chicago.
Rock contends that the scholarship limitations prevented him from receiving more scholarship offers. FBS teams are allowed 85 full scholarships, while FCS teams have a max of 63. NCAA lawyers contended Rock’s case should be thrown out because he could not show one-year scholarships or scholarship limits on football teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision created an anti-competitive effect.
In a 27-page ruling issued by the Southern District of Indiana, Magnus-Stinson wrote that, by law, she wrote was accepting Rock’s arguments as truthful and could not find anything in the NCAA’s arguments to prevent the case from going to trial. Magnus-Stinson did acknowledge, however, the standard of proof would be much higher for Rock — if the case actually goes to court.
At least, the NCAA had a moment of sanity yesterday in the Stephen Rhodes’ appeal, allowing the Marine Corps veteran walk on tight end to participate as a freshman for Middle Tennessee after initially ruling him ineligible because he had competed for a loosely organized football team on his base in California while on active duty. Rhodes b began a Twitter sensation overnight once the story hit the wires.
