In what was a truly tiresome piece of news, the NCAA announced Monday that it was reopening its investigation into academic irregularities at UNC.
It is highly unlikely that the top brass at the NCAA are interested in a just resolution to UNC’s problems. What is much more likely is that they want to win some rare flattering headlines for finally resolving some old business that has served as nothing but a black mark on their entire organization.
This is a time of great turmoil for the embattled organization.
The NCAA is currently awaiting the result of the Ed O’Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, which will likely be issued in August. According to some media accounts, the trial did not seem to go well for the college sports entity.
If the plaintiffs in the O’Bannon trial win the case, the NCAA could be forced to make massive structural changes. No matter what decision is handed down, a long process of appeals is likely. But the NCAA has already suffered a great deal of embarrassment from the trial.
The UNC scandal is just another embarrassment for the NCAA, and the organization has even been under fire from Rep. Tony Cardenas, a U.S. Congressman from California, for its handling of the matter.
Cardenas has previously threatened to call for congressional hearings and subpoena NCAA President Mark Emmert if he was not satisfied by their answers to his charges that the organization failed to hold UNC properly accountable for the scandal.
The leaders of the NCAA are sure to want to avoid yet another high profile media event in which the basic structure of their organization is questioned.
So the NCAA is pursuing what may seem like an obvious solution to its leadership: piggyback onto the Kenneth Wainstein investigation before imposing some heavy-handed sanctions on the University.
