NCAA Basketball College Sports

ESPN's Outside the Lines did a long piece this morning on the Fresno State athletic department's treatment of its female employees, three of whom have taken the school to court and ended up with multimillion-dollar verdicts or settlements. Here's a look:

The focal point of today's Outside the Lines was former Fresno State women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, who says she was fired because she demanded equal treatment for the women's basketball program.

But Fresno State says that's not why she was fired. The school says it fired her for several reasons, the most serious of which is that she used her players to obtain prescription pain medication for her. Johnson-Klein admits to doing that, and in my book, that's an offense for which a coach deserves to get fired.

That's not the whole story, though. There's also former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas, who was awarded $5.85 million for a similar lawsuit. And there's the fact that the school agreed to pay $3.5 million to Diane Milutinovich, a former associate athletic director, to settle her lawsuit.

And there's the fact that most of what Johnson-Klein says about the way women within the Fresno State athletic department were treated as second-class citizens is completely believable. Overall, the hostility to females in the Fresno athletic department was absolutely disgraceful, which is why the women who have taken the school on are three-for-three in winning.

The whole Outside the Lines piece is worth a look. Fresno State alumni and fans -- and the taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook for these multimillion-dollar payouts -- should be outraged.

Northern Illinois University has announced that it has called off all sporting events through Sunday, February 24 after Thursday's campus shooting.

"At a time like this, it is critically important for us to focus on coming together as a university to overcome this terrible tragedy," Athletic Director Jim Phillips said. "To be certain, the welfare of our student-athletes is uppermost in the minds of our coaches and staff. Therefore, the appropriate date to return to the athletic fields will directly reflect the academic timeline announced by President [John] Peters on Saturday."

The school had previously announced the cancellation of this weekend's sporting events. The men's basketball team has a game at Toledo scheduled for Wednesday and a home game against Tennessee State on Sunday, Feb. 24. The women's basketball team was scheduled to play at Central Michigan on Tuesday and Toledo on Saturday.

The women's track and field, women's gymnastics, women's softball, men's and women's tennis, wrestling and men's golf teams all had road contests that they will not travel to this week. The school may reschedule some of those events.

Northern Illinois University has announced the cancellation of all athletics events, home and away, the Huskies were scheduled to compete in this weekend. The announcement came after a gunman entered a campus lecture hall Thursday and killed five students and himself.

The canceled events include a home women's basketball game against Ohio scheduled for Saturday at 2 p.m. and a home men's basketball game against Western Michigan scheduled for Sunday at 3 p.m. The Northern Illinois football team will also not have its planned Junior Day event Sunday.

The Northern Illinois women's track and field, women's gymnastics, men's and women's tennis, wrestling and men's golf teams have all canceled plans to travel to away games this weekend.

The NCAA has implemented a new policy about how often journalists who cover their sporting events can post online entries during games. Short answer, as reported at Boston Sports Media Watch: The NCAA will revoke your credentials if you post more than five times in a half; once at halftime; or twice in an overtime period.

Seems like a dumb rule to me, but whatever: Most people who want to live blog a college basketball game are sitting in front of their TVs, not on press row, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

But then check out these rules on how often journalists can post blog entries while covering other NCAA sports:

Field Hockey: Five times per half; one at halftime
Cross Country: Ten per day/session
Bowling: Ten per day/session
Women's Water Polo: Three per quarter – one at halftime
Rowing: Ten per day/session
Fencing: Ten per day/session
Skiing: Ten per day/session
Rifle:Ten per day/session

Really, NCAA? You want to place restrictions on how much coverage the media can devote to rowing, skiing or rifle? You really think it would be harmful if some journalist wanted to devote 11 posts to a cross country competition? This is ridiculous.

More commentary at The Big Lead.

In the ongoing discussion over live blogging events and exclusive broadcast rights brought on by Brian Bennett of the Louisville Courier-Journal being ejected from the press box for blogging the action of an NCAA Super Regional Baseball game, the one thing that has been made unclear to me is who demanded the enforcement?

The NCAA's own blogger, Josh Centor of Double A Zone definitely didn't agree with the policy or the contract, but implied that ESPN was the one who made it happen.

Due to the NCAA's broadcasting agreement with ESPN, bloggers are not permitted to update their sites with in-game coverage from the baseball press box. In-game updates include providing readers with the score, inning of the game, roster moves, etc. The policy was enacted at a baseball game, but applies to all NCAA championship events.

[Emphasis added.]

That's an interesting bit. Regular season NCAA basketball and football games are under broadcasting agreements by the various conferences. The Bowl Game broadcasts are also outside of the NCAA contracts. So, for example, beat writers from the Syracuse Post-Standard weren't violating the agreement with the NCAA and ESPN when they liveblogged the action from Syracuse basketball games and the Big East Tournament (whether it was a violation of the ESPN-Big East broadcast would be a different issue).

As noted by Michael David Smith, NCAA Basketball Tournament games were liveblogged from the press box. Of course, that was with CBS having broadcast rights. Maybe CBS chose not to enforce it or just didn't realize they could.

Another NCAA "championship" event was the NIT. The NIT broadcast contract was with ESPN and took place only three months ago. Once more the Syracuse beat writers liveblogged 'Cuse NIT games with impunity and without repercussions.

ESPN, however, would not let itself become the fall guy and source of ire (again) from bloggers.

An ESPN spokesman, Mike Humes, said: "To be honest, we didn't ask for it. They didn't consult us." Bearby, the N.C.A.A. lawyer, said the N.C.A.A. initiated the action because "the entertainment event or sporting event has the ability to limit access to who gets that firsthand account."

So, yes, it was all the NCAA that decided to enforce the contract terms for the first time, and without being requested by the potentially injured party -- the broadcast rights holders.

That makes NCAA, not "arcane," as Josh Centor described his employers' actions, but more like bullies. Selectively acting to toss reporters from the press box for violating a clause in the broadcast contract (by construing it in a possibly overbroad manner) that the potentially injured party did not even request enforced.

Previously at FanHouse:
Shocking Confession: Sportswriter Admits Live Blogging College Basketball
NCAA Violating Common Sense, if Not First Amendment
When Dealing With Online Rights, Bloggers Are in a Gray Area
NCAA Clashes With Louisville Paper on Baseball Blog
NCAA Kicks Blogger Out of Baseball Game

Louisville Courier-Journal sports writer Brian Bennett was kicked out of an NCAA baseball game on Sunday because he was blogging about the game live, which the NCAA says is a violation of its policies.

But now it turns out that this horrible trend of journalists using the Internets to provide fans with information about NCAA sporting events is more widespread than previously known. One of Bennett's colleagues at the Courier-Journal, Eric Crawford, confesses today that he blogged during the NCAA basketball tournament's three Lexington regional games.

I know ignorance is no excuse, but that's what I'm pleading. I was naive enough to think that the NCAA actually wanted exposure for college sports.

Yes, that is pretty naive. I hope someone at the NCAA reads what Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune has to say, as Johnson makes a point that is probably obvious to everyone except the NCAA:

Bennett's writing was in no way competition to the official telecast or radio cast. No college baseball fan would choose reading a blog over watching or listening to the thing itself.

You'd think that would go without saying, but you get the feeling that the NCAA will need to hear it said many times before the message gets through.

Previously at FanHouse:
NCAA Violating Common Sense, if Not First Amendment
When Dealing With Online Rights, Bloggers Are in a Gray Area
NCAA Clashes With Louisville Paper on Baseball Blog
NCAA Kicks Blogger Out of Baseball Game

Duke alum and best selling author John Feinstein took another stab at Joe Alleva, the current AD at Duke. Over the years, Feinstein has had no problem ripping into Alleva ... and has really had a platform to voice his displeasure during this whole lacrosse fiasco.

In a column he wrote in the Washington Post, Feinstein unloaded once again:

Here's what's wrong with all this: No one at Duke is ever wrong. Duke's last president, Nan Keohane, made a terrible choice when she selected Alleva as athletic director in 1998. Everyone at Duke knew that Alleva was a pleasant man whose next original idea would be his first, someone whose main asset when applying for the job was the fact that his racquetball partner was Mike Krzyzewski.

Wow. Duke haters must love that shot. In the article he brings up how Alleva mishandled the entire lacrosse incident, chastises the football program and how everyone rides Coach K to the piles of money. He even touched on Duke's down season in men's hoops and how the women's team choked and watched their greatest coach bolt for Texas. But then he drops this bomb:

But, the apologists argue, everybody graduates. Trust me when I tell you graduating from Duke isn't all that hard. What's hard is graduating AND representing the school well. The lacrosse team represented the school poorly off-the-field and the football team is an embarrassment on the field.

The gist of the entire article is how the shotcallers at Duke cannot admit to any mistakes [he even likens them to the stubborn ways of Dubya and Cheney].

Hat tip: ACC Now

This is a couple weeks old, but the Friday before a long weekend feels like the right time to post it. The Sporting Orange has carefully studied the relative attractiveness of the female student-athletes at SEC schools and pronounced Kentucky the No. 1 school in the conference.

The Sporting Orange looked at every female student-athlete at every SEC school, so this was an arduous task. Kentucky's softball, swimming, and golf teams are the ones that put the school over the top. Alabama came in second and Florida third. At the bottom of the list were Mississippi State in 11th place and Ole Miss in 12th.

Ashley Judd really has nothing to do with this story, other than, you know, she's hot and she's a Kentucky graduate. I am not aware of any such lists of the hotness of male student-athletes, but if I find one I will gladly post it.

Hat tip: Deadspin.

It's been a year since that whole drama went down about Duke's lacrosse team [for info on that entire deal, check out Wikipedia's rundown of events]. But it is better late than never for the men's basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, to finally put in his two cents on the ordeal.

Coach K was interviewed for a segment on HBO's Costas Now, which returned from hiatus last night. The show was dedicated to college athletics with a variety of subject matter, which the portion with Coach K being the signature moment.

"The one thing that I wish we would have done is just out, publicly say, 'Look, those are our kids. And we're gonna support 'em, because they're still our kids.' That's what I wish we would have done," Krzyzewski told Bob Costas, a sports commentator who has a television show on HBO. "And I'm not sure that we did -- I don't think we did a good job of that."

What a bit of a hypocrite. He's reams the university for not having the students' backs ... which he's correct about ... but then never points the finger back at him. Sure, basketball and lacrosse rarely have anything to do with each other, but Krzyzewski is the face of Duke athletics and he never was vocal about backing the students either. Not only that, but K went on to criticize the university for blasting the athletic department:

"We had almost 100 professors come out publicly against certain things in athletics," Krzyzewski told Costas, "and I was a little bit shocked at that. But it shows that there's a latent hostility or whatever you want to say towards sports on campus. I thought it was inappropriate, to be quite frank with you."

I understand the belief that people want to get all the information first before making decisions, and in this situation, Coach K did a better job of letting the smoke clear before making his judgment on this deal than the academic faculty did. But if you are going to attack the university for not backing the lacrosse players, then you have to take some blame yourself, because the biggest person at the university, media wise, said nothing either way. In the article, Krzyzewski [who also is a 'special assistant' to the Duke president] says that he told Duke president Dick Brodhead [you can't make a name like that up] didn't want K involved.