Twitter Bashes NCAA President On Live Radio: NCAA Basketball Tournament Changes Rule That Keeps Players "Starving"
The NCAA has been the spotlight of scrutiny the last several years as several college athletes, both current and graduated, have come out to criticize the non-profit organization's rules and regulations.
Critics of the NCAA argue that it treats college athletes unfairly as the organization is known for raking in billions of dollars annually on media contracts, but it doesn't give any money to players and also implements harsh bylaws regarding buying food for athletes. Following his team's victory for the NCAA championship, UConn player Shabazz Napier told reporters that he would often times be "starving." Earlier this week, the NCAA's legislative council voted to strike down the previous restrictions on food for players, ESPN reported.
On Friday NCAA President Mark Emmert took to the airwaves to speak with ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike. He called the food restrictions absurd and said he was glad the pressure put on the organization regarding the regulations is off now.
"The biggest problem was, the NCAA has historically had all kinds of, I don't know how to describe it -- dumb rules about food," Emmert said. "The infamous one is you can provide between meals a snack, but you can't provide a meal. Well, then you got to define what's the difference between a snack and a meal. So it was literally the case that a bagel was defined as a snack -- unless you put cream cheese on it. Now it becomes a meal."
Emmert, however, claimed that the NCAA didn't change the rules because of Napier's remarks. He said it was a difficult task of enforcing and monitoring the rule.
"If UConn wants to feed Shabazz breakfast in bed every day they can," Emmert said. "We wind up having to enforce the stupid rule, which means you have to have someone watching if someone is putting cream cheese on a bagel."
Prior to Emmert's appearance on the morning talk show, the show's Twitter account asked listeners and Twitter users to tweet questions for Emmert with the hashtag "AskEmmert." What ensued was a slew of scathing remarks and tough-to-answer questions.
One question read, "what's it like to rule a organization of thousands of schools and millions of student athletes using 'because I said so' as logic,"
Meanwhile, another asked, "hey do you think we're stupid, or do you really believe this stuff you say?"
Some were crafty: "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck profited off the work of unpaid labor under the guide of amateurism?"
While another seemed to be the basic question of the day: "Why do athletic directors and coaches get bonuses based on player performance while the player gets nothing?"
The NCAA president didn't answer the questions, but he did say that with the upcoming vote at Northwestern University on whether or not to unionize the school's football team, the recent change in food restriction and an upcoming decision regarding the gap between scholarship aid and cost of attendance, 2014 will be a progressive year for the organization and college athletics.
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