Myron Anthony, who left Kentucky for TCU, has created an interesting problem:
he's asked a friend to put
his NCAA ring up for auction on e-bay. The NCAA says that he can only
ask fair value, meaning what they paid for it, but he has put a reserve price of
10,000 dollars on the ring. Anthony is selling the ring, he says, because
his mother is in poor health, and had had cancer related surgery. Aside from all
else, it's his ring; he should be able to do what he wants with it.
This is one of those times when the NCAA should show some common sense:
assuming he's telling the truth, and there's no reason to doubt him and it would
be easy enough to check out, why not let him do this? Actually, one of the
smartest things the NCAA could do with their big money would be to set up some
type of family insurance for kids who have next to nothing. It would be
decent and good and would help some kids who otherwise have only their physical
talents to turn to. Basketball or football beats coal mining, but the career
span isn't as long, and, like boxing, only a tiny fraction make meaningful
money. This is something the NCAA could do that would help everyone involved,
not least of all the NCAA's reputation.