The New York Times' Joe Nocera will speak at UNC about the NCAA

Joe Nocera is a columnist for The New York Times and financial expert who has focused his writing on reforming the NCAA.

He will speak about big-time college sports and universities from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. tonight in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center Theater.

Daily Tar Heel: When did you develop an interest in examining the work of the NCAA? Why?

Joe Nocera: Too much of the “scandal” is stuff that is perfectly acceptable in every other part of American life. So last fall I was assigned an article by The New York Times Magazine to write about a scheme to pay players. In the course of that I started to learn more and more about how the NCAA operates. And the more I learned, the more offended I became at how un-American so much of what they do is. I mean, they’re basically worse than the East Germans in the era of communism with the degree to which they control athletes … So once that article came out I decided I was going to keep writing about this, and the more I’ve written about it the more apparent it is that the NCAA needs to be either reformed or blown up.

DTH: Your talk is timely here with the NCAA punishments to the UNC football program just the other day. What was your reaction to those punishments?

JN: I don’t have a strong opinion about what happened at UNC. I know that in the one case I wrote about, Devon Ramsay, it was very clear that the NCAA was accusing him of something he hadn’t done with basically no knowledge. And I did notice that his particular case was kept out.

I’ve already gotten emails from people from Carolina saying that this shows how arbitrary the NCAA’s system of punishment is, and if Auburn had done these things, they would have gotten a slap on the wrist.

DTH: Do you think there is a discrepancy with how the NCAA punishes different schools?

JN: I don’t know enough about this particular case to say if that was true of North Carolina but I do generally think that’s true.

DTH: Why has reforming college athletics become such an important issue right now?

JN: There’s no particular reason that this is an issue now and not years ago. I also think there’s a lot more critical voices out there now and a lot more cynicism about how the NCAA operates. One of the interesting things about UNC … it has become a little hotbed for reform. It’s important not because it’s about sports but because it’s about human rights and civil rights. And there’s something just wrong about athletes having to give up all sorts of rights to play a sport — rights of privacy, rights of free association, right to be judged by an honor court and so on. Rights of due process — athletes have no rights of due process.

DTH: When do you think we can expect a change to occur with the NCAA or athletics in general?

JN: Who knows. The problem anyone trying to reform the system faces is that the system works beautifully for everybody making money off the backs of the unpaid players. The system will change either through a lawsuit or when university presidents, who have been the biggest cowards, finally stand up and say enough is enough.

DTH: What should university administrators be doing now to change the system?

JN: There’s nothing any individual administrator can do on their own. What I really think should happen is that university presidents should basically confront the NCAA and say a lot of your arbitrary, unofficial, unfair rules need to stop and to change.

DTH: What do you think UNC’s next steps should be in reform?

JN: I’d love to see UNC being an advocate for reform. They’ve got a new athletic director, a new football coach, a faculty who are really interested in this … I would love it if UNC decided to be an advocate for giving athletes the same rights as other students.
I think that would be a gigantic step forward.

Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.