From: jewell@Data-IO.COM (Cal Jewell)
Subject: Re: Billy Joe Woes
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:30:07 GMT

In article <randall.721350957@seashore> randall@informix.com (Randall Rhea) writes:
#jewell@Data-IO.COM (Cal Jewell) writes:
#
#>Hell, even the article in the Seattle Times said this:
#
#>	Hobert said he told several Husky assistant coaches he planned
#>	to get a loan in the spring, but did not provide them with the
#>	name of the lender or amount of the loan. 
#
#>IMO, the coaching staff handled this situation properly. What should
#>the coaches have done? Forbidden Billy Joe to get a loan? 
#
#Not in my humble opinion.   They knew that it could be a violation of
#NCAA rules to receive "loans".  They should have told Hobert
#to keep them informed of the exact amount and source of the loan.

I don't believe that coaches should tell players how to run their
lives and I don't believe that coaches should have players report 
everything they do. When Hobert approached Woodruff (the Off. Coord.),
Woodruff told Hober to talk to Dick Baird (the Recruiting Director
and the guy that makes sure the UW complies with the NCAA rules).

Should Woodruff have followed up on Hobert. Maybe. Coaches have 
enough to worry about with out having to worry if a player follows
instructions. Consider: when a player is preparing for a game, the
coaches expect the player to know his assignments and be ready to
play. If a player blows off the preparation, or shows up to a game
in no condition to play, then he doesn't play. But the coaches can't
act until after the player has fucked up.

I stand by my statement that the coaches can be expected to go only
so far. After that, it's up to the player to follow through. Whould
it be nice if the coaches followed everything up? Sure, that's
obvious. But I don't think that coaches should be required to follow
up every possible rules violation.

Hell, coaches wouldn't know where to draw the line. Would coaches 
have to report players that show up to practice with a new earring,
or a new suit, or new shoes, or a new cellular phone, or.... 
Ultimatly, the responsibility falls upon the player, not the coaches.

There's no way 10 coaches can keep track of 130+ football players and
still do an adequate job of coaching.

#
#>Another quote from the article in the Seattle Times sums up Coach James'
#>atitude towards letting players live their own lives.
#
#>	"If he's violated rules, then there would be discipline," James 
#>	 said. "But I don't have any rules that say what the hell players
#>	 do with their lives. That's not my job. We have academic rules,
#>	 we have NCAA rules for eligibility, but I'm not a judge. There's
#>	 a lot of things that players do. I let them walk around with
#>	 cellular phones, wear earrings, which I don't particularly enjoy.
#>	 But I don't run their lives." 
#
#The NCAA rules are designed to prevent paying money to players.

Correct.

#Hobert accepted $50,000 from a friend, which is a huge sum of
#money.

Correct.

#The coaches knew about it [the loan].

Partially correct. The coaches knew about Hobert's intent to get a 
loan, but they didn't know about the amount or the timeframe. 

#It sounds like James
#is making excuses for not keeping track of his players' rules
#violations.

No, James is saying that you can't expect a coach to run a player;s
life. And I agree with him. It is unreasonable to expect a coach to
baby sit his players. College is all about learning and growing up. In
this case, Billy Hobert has hopefully learned a valuable lesson and
has grown up a little. I expect that he will get suspended, and 
possibly put on double-secret probation. He knows that he fucked up
and he admits it.

It seems that you are suggesting is that coaches run players lives.
And I think that's wrong. Do you expect the coaches to walk Billy to
Dick Baird's (the guy that knew the NCAA regs.) office and make him
talk to Baird? I don't. Billy should be responsible enough to do that
himself. If Billy doesn't (and he didn't) he should suffer the
consequences (and he probably will).

# If the NCAA lets UW get away with this one, what's
#to stop other players from getting "loans" from "friends" in the
#future?

As far as I know, the UW coaching staff has done nothing that is
in violation of NCAA regulations. They directed Billy's inquiry
to the guy that is knowledgable about NCAA rules. Billy screwed
up when he didn't fully disclose what he intended to do. 

Look for the NCAA to further ammend the rules this summer to
cover cases like this.

Disclaimer: this all becomes a moot point on Thursday when the
3-member committee issues it's recommendations on what to do.

Randall: perhaps we should take this to e-mail.

-- 
Cal...                        "Mountain Dew and doughnuts:
                               because breakfast is the most
jewell@Data-IO.COM             important meal of the day."