Columnist Dean Juipe: Cheating is widespread and blatant

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003 | 9:57 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The perception is rigidly formed in each and every one of our minds: The NCAA has its rules and regulations, and is one tough customer for those who violate its precepts.

Experience tells us that a collegiate athlete need only accept a free meal at a restaurant to create an "extra benefit" and bring NCAA enforcers running. As transgressions are documented, suspensions and forfeits routinely follow.

And yet, as the Sun has learned and as you'll see later this spring when we give this subject the treatment it deserves, the NCAA is downright foolhardy in how it handles a few of its sports. Amazingly, it chooses to allow professional athletes to compete in a number of "minor" collegiate sports, most particularly men's tennis.

Women's tennis, soccer and track are also given free rein to recruit athletes from professional backgrounds, and, in many cases, disguise the incomes those athletes receive (or received) while playing for pay; many of these athletes are coming from Europe.

And you and I thought all college athletes were amateurs. Well, we were naive and the NCAA -- if not the Mountain West Conference that includes UNLV as a member -- ought to do something about it.

The unlevel playing field that exists in men's tennis is the result of a "gentleman's agreement" among the coaches to keep the violations quiet. And with the NCAA unwilling to pry into the situation on its own, abuses -- both blatant and technical -- abound.

Within the Mountain West, San Diego State and BYU appear to be the greatest offenders, with UNLV and Air Force at the other end of the spectrum. In the Rebels' case, the need to be "clean" in the NCAA's eyes is a university-wide requirement that puts the team at a competitive disadvantage.

A number of West Coast teams are stocked with pro players, with Stanford -- and its ability to attract the truly elite -- a notable exception. Nationwide, recruiting pro players is a regular practice, with teams from the Southeastern Conference known to be major offenders.

For reasons both contrived and ridiculous, the NCAA does allow collegiate tennis players to compete in pro events and retain their eligibility so long as the money they win does not exceed their expenses. But the reality of the situation is that a number of college players routinely exceed those vague financial limits, yet they not only suffer no penalty but go on to excel and win events at the collegiate level.

From all appearances, the NCAA is not enforcing its own rules. Out of complacency, it permits widespread rules violations and does nothing more than turn the other cheek in spite of the inherent unfairness of a situation that frequently results in a pro-stocked team making mincemeat of a purely amateur opponent.

This isn't right and shouldn't be tolerated.

The NCAA (and the Mountain West) can be vigilant when it wants to. But we're not asking for vigilance here, per se. We're just looking for the typical student-athlete to be treated fairly, and for all sports -- and not just football, basketball, baseball and golf -- to adhere to a strict interpretation of the rules.

Failing that, at or before the MWC tennis tournament April 24-26 in Provo, it seems appropriate to begin naming names.