Former UNC athlete blasts NCAA during U.S. Senate hearing
WASHINGTON (WTVD) -- A former UNC Chapel Hill running back blasted the NCAA on Capitol Hill Wednesday -- for short changing student-athletes of an education and worrying more about making money than educating.
"The NCAA as an institution no longer protects the student-athlete. They are more concerned with signage and profit margins," Devon Ramsay, a former running back for the Tar Heels, told a US Senate panel Wednesday afternoon.
The hearing -- focused on student-athletes and whether they're getting a fair shake at academics -- featured the NCAA president and a handful of amateur sports experts in addition to several other former student-athletes.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who led the panel, expressed early doubt that the NCAA was honoring its obligation.
"I think I'm just very skeptical that the NCAA can ever live up to the lofty mission that you constantly talk about," he said. "Nothing comes before education. It is always there, but the actions don't appear to be."
Ramsay was among 14 UNC players held out during the 2010-11 season as the NCAA launched a lengthy investigation into academic fraud. The alleged violations included plagiarism, tutors who broke rules, faculty who didn't offer oversight, unethical conduct by an assistant coach, and accusations players got perks from professional sports agents.
"After coming to the realization that UNC was more concerned with penalties and losses of scholarships than protecting one of its own, my mother and I set out to find lawyers that would hopefully have my best interest at heart," Ramsay testified.
Former NC Supreme Court justice Robert Orr convinced the NCAA Ramsay did nothing wrong. The NCAA reinstated him for the 2011 season before he suffered a career-ending knee injury.
Ramsay graduated with a public policy degree, but told the panel his counterparts, in similar situations, at smaller schools had more time for academic enrichment programs, which helped their transition into the job market. He also said NCAA requirements to receive scholarship stipends during the summer made it impossible for teammates to complete internships.
"I've seen several teammates attempt to manage school, summer workouts and their internship. Most of these athletes ended up quitting their internship because of the level of exhaustion experienced on an average day."
NCAA President Dr. Mark Emmert told lawmakers, he and presidents at more than 1,000 schools that make up the group, are working on a decision mechanism to make it easier to create changes in the future.
The changes include giving student-athletes lifetime scholarship, leading in health and safety -- which includes preventing sports-related concussions, and closing the gaps in insurance coverage for athletes. Emmert also says he'd like to see the NCAA find a way to give athletes time to take advantage of academic programs like internships.
The NCAA found UNC was "responsible for multiple violations, including academic fraud, impermissible agent benefits, ineligible participation, and a failure to monitor its football program." Penalties imposed by the association included a one-year postseason ban, a reduction of 15 football scholarships, vacation of records, and three years' probation.
Emmert agrees there are problems with balancing sports and academics, but says that's not the case with the majority of athletes, "While it can and should be modified, the collegiate model should in fact be preserved because of all of the good it provides for so many."
