Saint Mary's Appeals Penalties

Saint Mary's has appealed some of the penalties handed down by the NCAA, according to a story from the San Jose Mercury News. The school is neither disputing the findings nor asking for the ruling to be overturned. Simply, Saint Mary's is looking to have two specific penalties waived.

If the appeal is successful, the two year ban on skill instruction and the scholarship reduction for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons will be overturned. Why those two in particular? Saint Mary's Director of Media Relations, Mike McAlpin, told the Mercury News, "There was concern that those (penalties) impact the student athletes".  His concern is justified.

It's not hard to argue that any penalty imposed upon any program can impact student athletes. When the Connecticut men's basketball program was banned from the postseason this past year, this argument could have been made. The student athletes were impacted in that they would not be able to play in the postseason. However, in Saint Mary's case the argument can be made much more effectively.

I am going to address, in particular, the skill instruction ban. 

College is a place where people go to become enlightened and educated. On top of that noble purpose, it is also a place where people receive career-specific training. Chemists must be trained in chemistry, business administrators must understand business and basketball players must be able to play basketball.

Imagine a penalty like this imposed upon a chemistry department. Chemistry students are prohibited from interacting with professors in the chemistry department outside of scheduled class time. A student who wants to go above and beyond, be it for the love of learning or to gain a competitive advantage in his chosen field, can not meet with his professor and discuss chemistry topics after class. Say a student has a question about some homework. That student can only go to his peers for help.

This analogy can be applied to any area of study. Let's take business for example. Banning students from skill instruction with their business professors would directly impact their competitiveness in the cut throat business world.

The concern about these penalties affecting the student athletes is justified. This penalty will directly hurt the student athletes' athletic education. The Gaels' program has become an established producer of professional basketball players. Much like Northwestern with journalists or MIT with scientists.

The student athletes at Saint Mary's, much like the journalism students at Northwestern, chose to attend Saint Mary's because the school is good at making professional basketball players (the beautiful setting and the scholarship played a role too, I'm sure). These student athletes have a better shot at a professional career by attending Saint Mary's rather than say, Chicago State or Utah Valley. 

A postseason ban, like Connecticut's, or a ban on foreign tours, like the one Saint Mary's is not appealing, do not directly diminish the student athlete's education. When a pro scout looks at a player from Saint Mary's, he isn't looking at the player thinking "He would have better lateral quickness if he had been able to participate in a preseason tournament for two years of his career." That scout will see the skills that have been learned by the player, taught by the staff and put to use in a game. That is the player's resume. 



The Saint Mary's athletic department is right in this one, even if they did commit a wrong in the first place. The skill instruction penalty should be waived by the NCAA. Penalties against staff and program should affect the staff and the program, not the student athletes and their education.