LOS ANGELES — An abundance of head-spinning minutiae drips from the 434 pages that form the NCAA rulebook. If one were to take the time to actually read it cover to cover — and who would? — it'd be hard not to notice all the archaic regulations that make little sense in today's modern society.
In 2009, for example, South Carolina men's basketball coach Darrin Horn had the audacity to provide his players with fruit or bagels at a time of day that fell outside the NCAA's pre-approved meal times of breakfast, lunch and dinner. The school was forced to report it to the NCAA as a secondary violation.
If Horn had given players butter, peanut butter, jelly or cream cheese with bagels, who knows what could have happened? Providing those spreads to student-athletes at any time of day was against NCAA rules. (Thankfully, this rule has since been updated.)
The number of ways to cause a rules infraction for providing "impermissible benefits" is astounding. Accept a sandwich from a booster as a player and find yourself incurring the wrath of an institution with a dictatorial authority.
This time of year, we are reminded of those especially stupid guidelines because the NCAA has a rule in place that goes against everything for which it claims to stand. During college football's posteason, players and coaches on bowl teams have full access to a gift suite worth up to $550.
Unlike taking a bagel with peanut butter, this is deemed a perfectly legal means for accepting gifts under NCAA rules. Given the type of punishments provided for lesser monetary rewards, it comes across as entirely hypocritical to allow such a practice.
Wisconsin and Stanford are in Los Angeles this week to play in the Rose Bowl. The two teams are among the 70 in college football reaping the benefits of a bowl game appearance. All Rose Bowl players received a Fossil watch, an Oakley backpack and a New Era 39Thirty hat courtesy of bowl sponsors.
Actual gift suite options included an Android tablet, a La-Z-Boy recliner, a Vizio flat screen television, headphones, luggage, a surround-sound stereo system or other electronics.
According to SportsBusiness Journal, the NCAA allows each bowl to award up to $550 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school. Schools also have the autonomy to buy additional packages they can distribute to participants beyond that 125 limit. Participants can receive an additional $400 in rewards from the school and up to $400 from the conference for postseason play, which covers the conference championship and any bowl game.
That's a $1,350 value right there for each player — more than it takes to land some programs on probation. Don't believe it? Here's an example:
A 1988 NCAA investigation determined that the University of Kansas provided prospective basketball player Vincent Askew with improper inducements worth at least $1,244 during the summer of 1986. Part of the violation was a $364 plane ticket then-Jayhawks coach Larry Brown purchased so Askew could visit his dying grandmother in Memphis.
When the NCAA completed its inquiry, it banned Kansas, the defending national champion, from postseason play for the 1988-89 season. It strongly considered giving the Jayhawks a one-year death penalty.
The punishments often are wildly different from one program to the next and show just how out of touch the NCAA really is. Look, we don't slaughter goats anymore like the Bible once suggested. We adapt and fit rules appropriate to our era.
This year, two Indiana basketball players were suspended nine games because their former AAU coach and legal guardian donated $185 to Indiana 20 years earlier, which rendered him a "booster for life."
Yet Georgia and Nebraska football players receive a $420 shopping trip to a local Best Buy as part of the Capital One Bowl this year with no penalty.
Examples of silly rules and inconsistent sanctions can be found every year, and it leaves the NCAA looking foolish, particularly when juxtaposed against the backdrop of bowl game gift suites.
In February 2012, the NCAA fined the University of Nebraska $38,000 because football players were given books their professors suggested would be helpful reading for their courses — in addition to the required reading. The NCAA does not allow student-athletes to accept anything more than the required reading under their scholarship terms.
What seems worse? Accepting an Ernest Hemingway book for an English Literature class to enhance an education or accepting a 37-inch Vizio television to enhance a player's apartment swag?
"They change it up a little bit every year," Wisconsin defensive end Brendan Kelly said Saturday morning of the gift suites. "You can get whatever you want. I've got two TVs from them now. I'm like, ‘OK, what else do I need?' I've got pretty much everything I could want."
Good thing he didn't want a bagel. Breakfast was already over and lunch hadn't started.
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