COMMENTARY

By Matt Hayes

updated 12:38 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2004

Mike Williams isn't eligible to play college football this season.

Willie Williams is.

Jeremy Bloom isn't eligible to play college football this season.

Joshua Cribbs is.

At some point, this hypocritical carousel has to stop. At some point, the NCAA has to be held accountable for its wishy-washy, fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants way of governing. If there were ever any doubts, they are gone after a summer of discontent in college football.

The NCAA is the most foolish, phoniest organization on the planet.

Mike Williams was ruled ineligible to play this season by college football's governing body because he is no longer considered an amateur. He accepted money from an agent after the NFL said he was legally allowed to enter the 2004 draft. Once the league changed its mind days before the draft, Williams' future was laid in the lap of the boys in Indianapolis.

The smoke rose from the chimney Thursday at the corporate offices of the NCAA, where high and mighty president Myles Brand raised his arms, quieted the masses and declared the somber decision.

Meanwhile, Kent State quarterback Cribbs is preparing for his senior season after pleading to a lower count of possession of marijuana. He was arrested earlier this season for trafficking in marijuana, and sentencing on the plea agreement is pending.

Then there's Willie Williams, who, if he hadn't injured his knee in practice earlier this week, likely would've been a starting linebacker at Miami in his freshman season. He was only arrested 12 times before the Hurricanes allowed him to enroll.

How many other athletes are playing with felonies on their records? How many other stars get second and third and fourth chances after problems with the law? And yet, they're still amateurs, still the pure essence of college sports in the eyes of the NCAA.

A quick refresher for anyone who thinks the NCAA has a grasp on reality: Incoming freshmen are allowed to score 450 in the SAT — sign your name, lay your head down, earn a 450 — IF they have a 3.5 grade-point average in high school core curriculum classes.

This is the same organization that has proposed academic reform — when those same high school students enter college — by tying scholarships to academic progress. Those reforms go something like this: The more athletes that fail, the less scholarships for the school the following years.

This, ladies and gentleman, is a ripe recipe for academic fraud — not reform — that begins in high school and will carry over to college. And Myles Brand and the boys are worried about Jeremy Bloom getting a few endorsement bucks.

Someone, quick — stop this carousel. I need to puke.

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