OTish: NCAA strikes again with Marcus Lattimore and South Carolina

Submitted by madmaxweb on

So NCAA struck again with a ruling against Lattimore:   

"The NCAA has stated that Lattimore cannot join Will Muschamp’s staff at USC due to Lattimore’s status as a former player and his presence through football camps and foundation. The NCAA considers it an unfair recruiting advantage."

 

 

Lattimore is able to help out but not get paid for it:

 

"So the NCAA isn't barring Lattimore from associating with the program and its players. It's just preventing him from getting paid by the school."

 

I'm guessing in some back room they decided that since they didn't profit enough from his playing days. 

 

Here's the link to the article: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/report--marcus-lat…

 

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M Go Dead

April 15th, 2016 at 10:05 PM ^

I had no idea that the NCAA could regulate who you hired as a coach. Whatever he is doing with camps and foundations I figured they would just say you need to step back before you are paid. Very dampening.

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Blueblood2991

April 15th, 2016 at 10:12 PM ^

It's a poorly written article.  If he was being hired as a coach it'd be a non-issue apparently.  The NCAA is rejecting him as a "non-coaching ambassador" for the team.  Either way, they had to have just made that rule up.

If I was Lattimore I'd sign on as a student assistant and finish my degree.  

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LJ

April 15th, 2016 at 10:59 PM ^

Don't ruin the fun by considering the facts and thinking critically.  Didn't you get the memo that you're supposed to just read the headline, assume the NCAA did something inspired by hades itself, and then write the most knee-jerk hyperbole you can think of?

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LSAClassOf2000

April 15th, 2016 at 10:10 PM ^

The SBNation article does point out something about this that I do find interesting - LINK

But he's also someone who runs football camps and outreach programs for young athletes in the Palmetto State, and having him on staff at South Carolina while also being active in the community would station Lattimore with one foot in college football and another in prep football. And while the Marcus Lattimore Foundation is mostly interested in preventing and helping athletes cope with injuries, it does seem to provide financial support to potential recruits, so it's not hard to see how that alone could credibly create the "unfair recruiting advantage" the NCAA is against even if Lattimore were not putting on camps.

I think the idea is that he would have to give up the foundation and the prep football ties to work at South Carolina. That might be where the hang-up in actually hiring Lattimore might be. 

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1VaBlue1

April 15th, 2016 at 10:30 PM ^

But isn't that same thing - minus the money - as what Blackwell is doing with MSU?  He founded and ran SMSB, which is where Dontania found him.  And he just explained earlier this week that he is still involved in running the camp.  Put the money thing aside, and Lattimore = Blackwell, so far as I can tell.  So maybe the money is the difference maker, which I could respect.

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goblue224

April 16th, 2016 at 10:05 AM ^

From what I can tell there are a few differences. Lattimore wasn't going to be hired as a coach, it was more of an ambassador role for the school/athletic department. The other thing that stands out is that while Blackwell ran SMSB for a profit, he didn't provide financial assistance to potential student-athletes. I think the financial aspect is clearly the difference maker here and it appears the NCAA got this one right.

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bronxblue

April 15th, 2016 at 10:22 PM ^

It has to suck for him.  Injured playing football to such a degree he wound up not really being able to hold up in the NFL.  So he wants to come back and coach at his alma mater, but is barred because he tried to work with kids through a foundation.  I know that there are foundations and outreach programs with shady characters involved and dubious intents, but this seems like a guy who just wanted to be involved with football.

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PopeLando

April 15th, 2016 at 10:43 PM ^

As I understand it, nobody's saying he can't coach there. They're saying that he actually has to be a full time employee of the school. And he can recruit kids, just not in his current position. Basically it would be like me running a hospital and "working part time" as an insurance salesman. Clearly an unfair situation. NCAA may not be in the right here, but they're a lot less wrong than they could have been.

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OC Alum91

April 15th, 2016 at 11:12 PM ^

as someone pointed out in comments of article.....Yet, USC can hire Lynn Swann as athletic director. Similarly, how is it that we can hire Harbaugh?

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Witz57

April 16th, 2016 at 12:07 AM ^

The NCAA is so dirty if it weren't for the fact that I love Michigan so much I'd probably have abandoned college football. As it is, I sometimes feel pretty aweful for helping perpetuate a group that just screws young people.

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Dailysportseditor

April 16th, 2016 at 3:41 AM ^

"Unfair Recruiting Advantage" means Lattimore (and his connections to camps) can't be used by South Carolina to help them recruit in their own state; but South Carolina and other SEC/ACC schools can pressure the NCAA to outlaw out-of-state competitors from holding camps in their territory? Huh?

It's obvious that colleges have a recruiting advantage when their camps are held geographically close to the best high school teams. In order to offset this advantage, the NCAA MUST PERMIT OUT-OF-STATE CAMPS! Otherwise, it's a combination in restraint of trade in violation of the Shernan Act.

Joined: 01/14/2012

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gobluerebirth

April 16th, 2016 at 4:11 AM ^

This whole system is a fucking house of cards. Hope they enjoy their bully pulpit while it lasts. O'Bannon was just the beginning. LET'S BURN THIS MOTHER-FUCKER DOWN!

Joined: 10/11/2009

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treetown

April 16th, 2016 at 10:16 AM ^

"The NCAA has stated that Lattimore cannot join Will Muschamp’s staff at USC due to Lattimore’s status as a former player and his presence through football camps and foundation. The NCAA considers it an unfair recruiting advantage." - the key point is buried. Lattimore runs a foundation that helps kids (i.e. football players in high school and younger) and so if he were a member of the U South Carolina staff as well it would be a conflict of interest. They can pay whatever they want but if he works for the school, he represents the school and is subject to the same recruiting rules - so this type of relationship and activity is not allowed.

That would be like a basketball program hiring as an advisor a guy who just happens to run  major junior and senior high school camps and tournaments. 

Some mentioned a medical example - there is actually such a type of law, the Stark law after congressman Pete Stark. Basically it prevents physicians having a financial stake in something that they might have a conflict of interest in - ex:pharmacies or imaging centers. Physicians then won't be tempted to refer their patients to those places.

The NCAA actually got it right here but totally bungled the press release.

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maizenblue92

April 16th, 2016 at 12:44 PM ^

SB Nation has a nice write up on this. http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/4/15/11441884/marcus-latt…

Soapbox moment: I feel we too often are ready to blindly bash the NCAA for their every move without fully understanding the rules or situation ourselves. The satallite camp thing is a good example. The NCAA didn't ban them. The conferences voted on an executive order proposed by the SEC. The conferences banned them, the NCAA doesn't have a say until later this month.

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cp4three2

April 16th, 2016 at 12:58 PM ^

Half the time we see complaints about SEC bag men every time we lose a recruit, NCAA says you can't pay people who runs camps to send them to your school and "NCAA strikes again"



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