The NCAA sanctioned the University of Miami’s women’s basketball team because of a dinner.
As the learned men of college basketball figure out what men’s college basketball teams should be included in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Men’s Basketball Tournament amid much hoopla, it should be remembered that college basketball, whether it is men playing or women playing, is a big business. But it also should be remembered that the NCAA is run by small minded people who still cannot understand that both men and women athletes should be paid for their athletic endeavors which produces money for the NCAA, colleges and universities. The NCAA is not too happy that athletes can sell their faces and names to companies and make money from their names, images and likenesses. In the NCAA’s world of thought, these college age men and women should be grateful a scholarship comes their way.
The latest example of NCAA pettiness took place because of a dinner with a University of Miami booster and twins who would go onto play for the University of Miami on the women’s basketball team, Haley and Hanna Cavinder. It seems that the Cavinder twins and their parents went out to dinner with John Ruiz, a major University of Miami booster. The Cavinder twins wanted to transfer from Fresno State to another school. Ruiz provided a dinner for the Cavinder family which in the NCAA’s world is awful because it might lead to a player going to a school by being wined and dined. The Miami coach Katie Meier arranged the dinner and was suspended for three games. The University of Miami was also sanctioned with a fine and reduction of recruitment days. The Cavinders were not penalized. The NCAA would like to return to the 1950s world of the student-athlete when athletes had no rights. In 1995, Arnold Palmer bought Stanford golfer Tiger Woods dinner, a NCAA no-no. Woods quit the team thanks to the NCAA.
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