The National College Athletic Association

The NCAA, or the National College Athletic Association, is composed of over 1,281 different entities, both individuals and organizations. These entities organize and regulate most sports programs in colleges in America and Canada. The NCAA organizes the following sports: baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s bowling, men’s cross country, women’s cross country, fencing, field hockey, football, men’s golf, women’s golf, men’s gymnastics, women’s gymnastics, men’s ice hockey, women’s ice hockey, men’s indoor track and field, women’s indoor track and field, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, men’s outdoor track, women’s outdoor track and field, rifle, rowing, skiing, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball, men’s water polo, women’s water polo, and wrestling.

The NCAA sets guidelines and restrictions on teams under its jurisdiction and enforces them with immediate investigations and strict penalties. Without exception these penalties are harsh and can drastically affect the individuals, teams, or schools that they are applied to. They vary from fines to probation to essentially black listing coaches and players who break the rules of fair conduct or conduct themselves in an immoral fashion. In the most extreme of situations, the NCAA can ban a school from participating in events but such actions are rarely taken and only under the most extreme of circumstances such as a school pushing for its athletics team to take performance enhancing drugs to out compete other NCAA teams. The NCAA cannot actually stop players from playing, coaches from coaching, or schools from having athletics departments and teams but they can restrict them from NCAA sanctioned events and bring heavy stigma to any organization that allows them in, essentially enforcing their policies through shame and control of the major events. There are three divisions for every sports team under the NCAA: division 1 which is compromised of the top players and the best teams, division 2 which is for mid-level play, and division 3 for remaining teams. Divisions are established to keep play fair and mostly even. No one division three team should absolutely dominate the other division three teams, for example, rather teams of that caliber will be moved into higher divisions to compete on a more even level.

The NCAA has taken a lot of flack over how strict it is with its rules, regulations as well as how profitable it has become, and their recruiting practices. College level sports bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, if not more, annually yet very little of that money is seen by colleges and none of it by the student athletes competing. The bulk of the profits go to the NCAA. It is very easy to see why there is criticism surrounding this practice. Many also think that the punishments meted out by the NCAA are far too harsh and far too easily acquired. Any degree of showboating or excessive individuality can garner you a fine or suspension. Finally, when dealing with recruiting a player, the NCAA used to be allowed to offer any amount that they wished in scholarships and incentives to potential players to get them into the college of their choosing and to force them to play athletically there. More or less, there are purposefully putting players into games that should not have been and paying them in an incredibly underhanded manner. This issue has been addressed in court but is far from resolved.