Editorial: NCAA should get their house in order

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 9:36 a.m.

ANY shame UNLV basketball players Keon Clark and Kevin Simmons may have felt on being punished by the NCAA for unwittingly breaking the collegiate sanctioning body's rule regarding the acceptance of "extra benefits" should have turned to outrage by now.

Clark, the Rebels' NBA-bound center, and Simmons, a transfer from the University of California at Irvine, who also was projected to play a key role in UNLV's quest to return to the NCAA Tournament this season, recently received harsh suspensions of 11 and 14 games, respectively, for accepting a trip to Orlando, Fla., during the past Spring Break from a pair of registered sports agents.

The players have remained reticent since being sentenced to spending virtually half of the upcoming season on the sidelines. But they soon should be screaming "foul" against their judge and jury.

The NCAA is under attack (again) this week, as a six-piece investigative report running in the Kansas City (Mo.) Times casts it as an ineffectual, hypocritical organization that cottons to its executives more than its athletes.

Among the more damaging of the Star's revelations -- and the one that should have the UNLV players scratching their heads -- is that NCAA Executive Director Cedric Dempsey accepted a trip to the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway, from CBS, which just happens to own the rights to one of the biggest bonanzas in televised sports, the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

In addition to drawing a $440,000 annual salary, Dempsey, according to the Star report, also received a $450,000 mortgage at below-market interest rates on his Kansas City home while the NCAA purchased his previous home in Tucson, Ariz. (and later sold at a loss of $120,000).

The Star also revealed that in 1989, Dempsey's predecessor Dick Schultz used the NCAA's tax-exempt Learjet to cart then University of Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles and two Kansas City area businessmen to Augusta National Golf Club for a two-day junket.

Perhaps Bob Knight was right. The embattled Indiana basketball coach, whose disdain for the NCAA probably only is surpassed by former UNLV coach Jerry Takanian's, marked his 700th career win last year by suggesting, "The (NCAA) Tournament Committee is still playing golf on my $30,000." That was in reference to a fine Knight received following a postgame diatribe in Boise, Idaho, a couple of seasons before.

NCAA President Gene Corrigan told USA Today that he doesn't have a problem with Dempsey's salary or, for that matter, any of the Star's allegations.

"It doesn't bother me at all," Corrigan said during yet another fit of NCAA arrogance.

Well, Gene, perhaps it should. It should concern you that the organization for which you work, which bills itself as a bastion of intelligence and integrity, has one set of rules for its executives, another for its coaches (name the last point guard to command a six-figure sneaker contract at the NCAA level) and a third, more rigid set of guidelines by which its athletes must abide.

It's high time for the NCAA to practice what it preaches. Or make that a violation, too.