On Tuesday, presidential candidate Barack Obama scrimmaged with the UNC men’s basketball team as Roy Williams watched the event. NCAA rules carefully manage how coaches work with their teams out of season. Here, WRAL’s Barry Jacobs and Dane Huffman debate what happened and whether Carolina worked within NCAA rules. WRAL.com readers are welcome to weigh in below.
Huffman: Barry, as you know, the NCAA rules are set to prevent coaches from pushing athletes out of the season and coaches are supposed to work with their teams in only very limited circumstances. So it was jarring to see the whole Carolina team working out with Obama and Coach Williams watching from the sidelines. There were several of us here at WRAL who wondered if this violated NCAA policy.
An NCAA spokesman told me this was a “unique” situation and that it “wasn’t an NCAA issue.” But when I pressed to get the exact rule and to see if the NCAA didn’t see it as an issue because it didn’t want to make an issue over it, the spokesman refused to respond further. UNC spokesman Steve Kirschner did say the school believed it was working within NCAA parameters and Carolina senior associate athletic director Larry Gallo called to say the issue was “put to bed, dead, done, kaput.”
Still, I couldn’t get an interpretation from the ACC office or even from a rival ACC school, where the compliance officer begged off giving an opinion.
I still wonder if Carolina violated the spirit of the rule by having a coach watch the players in this situation but no one wants to push it. What did you think?
Jacobs: Somehow, I was not bothered to see Roy Williams attending a workout in UNC's facility involving his team and a man who quite possibly will be the next President of the United States. I would have wanted to be there too if I was the coach.
It's not as if this was a closed-door workout. Members of the media were on hand and cameras were allowed - unlike a real UNC practice - making the action little more than a glorified exhibition.
Should sports teams be involved in what might be construed as campaign events?
Probably not, but candidates have conflated themselves with popular sports for years, driving race cars, throwing out first pitches, and the like. Recently, White House celebrations of college and pro championships have grown to near-ludicrous proportions, too.
I think the NCAA limitation on coaches' access to out-of-season play is a good one. But I also think there are instances that require discretion in interpreting rules, from the allowed cruising speed on a highway to watching a very public event involving the UNC basketball squad. The NCAA often is characterized as callous, nitpicky, and inflexible; this time, an official shrug seemed fine to me.
Meanwhile, I eagerly await Hillary Clinton's workout with the UNC women's soccer team.
I would be more concerned about the "voluntary" nature of the pickup games. I have no reason to suspect Roy Williams forces players to participate. From what I understand he does not have team managers chart statistics in minute detail during pickup action, either, as did Dean Smith.
But, given NCAA limitations on mandatory time devoted to sports, mission creep of the sort that leads to workouts that are voluntary in name only is an issue worth pursuing. I suspect players at North Carolina and elsewhere say they would play anyway, and don't need a coach to tell them.
Huffman: I just believe Williams would have stayed more within the spirit of the law if he’d taken Obama on a tour of the UNC men’s basketball facilities and then not been on site when Obama played with the team. The issue, of course, is the coach being involved with the team in the offseason.
NCAA Rule 17.1.6.2.2 reads: "Prior to September 15 and after April 15, no more than four student-athletes from the same team may be involved in skill-related instruction with their coach(es) at any one time in any facility." So the question is, what constitutes skill-related instruction?
To follow your point on sports teams embracing political candidates, what was odd about Tuesday was you had a politician essentially being endorsed by Roy Williams.
Williams didn’t come right and say, Vote for Obama!, but he did in so many words. He allowed Obama to use the UNC basketball program to promote his candidacy.
Do you think that’s right?
And personally, I think Hillary Clinton should work out with the N.C. State men’s basketball team. They need someone who can play defense.
Jacobs: Clinton can certainly play defense, but she fouls too much.
Huffman: OK, but back to your point on voluntary workouts. Do you think this is abused? Do you think coaches put pressure on athletes to work out in the offseason?
Jacobs: I think there is a fine, often invisibly fine, distinction between a suggestion from a coach and a requirement, especially for athletes competing at the highest levels of college sports. Coaches have tremendous power, and athletes are conditioned to respond to authority by conforming.
So, yes, I think coaches put pressure on athletes, intensifying pressures that athletes already place on themselves. These are, after all, aspiring professionals who have heard all their lives the importance of hard work. A prescription for more hard work from a coach confirms a behavior they already believe is essential to success.
But pushing too hard for volunary workouts can have pitfalls apart from violating rules and making it difficult to justifiably put the word student into student-athlete.
If a workout is not mandatory or sanctioned, and injury occurs, is the athlete covered by team insurance?
That is no idle question. Issues related to compulsory attendance at a voluntary conditioning drill, and the inadequate availability of necessary medical resources, became the basis of a lawsuit against Northwestern University by the mother of football safety Rashidi Wheeler, who died of a brochial asthma attack in August 2001. Last I saw, Northwestern settled with Wheeler's mother for $16 million, but the case was on appeal.
