For once, It’s time to pull for the NCAA

By Bart Doan  |   Tuesday, March 03, 2009  |  Comments( 3 )

College Football
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The curious case of Bryce Brown has finally caught the attention of the NCAA. Yes, the nation’s No. 1 running back has officially this week displaced any other contenders for the most controversial recruit of all time, with the NCAA finally choosing to investigate Brian Butler -- Brown's mentor and agent.

The Butler-Brown marriage has been mentioned on this site beforehand, but it has adopted plenty of twists and turns recently. Among them is the previously refuted report that Miami was no longer recruiting Brown, mostly because it was sick of Butler. That one happens to be true. A Miami official mentioned last week that, despite having his brother on the roster, the school’s scholarship offer to Brown, whose brother is on the roster, was a onetime thing and would not come again.

The NCAA now appears to be following suit. Mike DeCesare, the director of the NCAA’s amateurism certification, is doing the leg work on Butler. He met this past week with one of Brown’s former clients, offensive tackle Colby Duranleau -- who recently signed to play football at Coffeyville Community College after ironically turning down earlier scholarship offers from four-year schools. Though Duranleau will not elaborate on why he no longer works with Butler, he made it known that his severing of the relationship was nothing sanctimonious and that the NCAA was particularly interested in that version of his story. Though Duranleau has been keeping his mouth shut with regards to the details on what the NCAA wanted, the writing appears to be on the wall. The 18-year-old is playing it smart, though, not flaming the contriving Butler in public.

To be honest, the NCAA receives its fair share of criticism from those who cover any realm of sports that it governs. So, this statement may come as a shock: The NCAA is absolutely in the right with this investigation. It cannot risk college football becoming anything like the seedy world of college basketball, where players are sometimes offered scholarships in eighth grade.

The certification branch was created in 2007, and it must be noted that it is different from the enforcement area of the NCAA. Most of the time, because is not an immediate professional outlet for high school football players, people like DeCesare rarely deal with college football issues. Butler’s insistence that seems to be dying of Brown plying his trade craft for a stipend in the Canadian Football League likely brought on part of this investigation. To Butler’s credit, he’s playing the line that he welcomes the NCAA talking with him and maintains that nothing about what he is doing is illegal. Though Duranleau will neither confirm nor deny the nature of his departure, reports linger that it stems from Butler’s decision to start charging the families of the athletes he was training after doing so out of the goodness of his heart prior to that.

Part of the college football fan wants the NCAA to turn something up. It would be nice to see someone made an example of before this gets out of hand. Whether he’s doing anything illegal or not, there is a slippery slope when it comes to making money off high school athletes. Butler, who previously was a rapper and cell phone call center manager, has finally found his golden ticket in life.

Regardless, this man is clearly in it for the money and the prestige. And now, there seems to be evidence that is the case and proof that he’s negatively affecting the players under his tutelage. Duranleau might turn out to be a better now that he's going to a community college, but he might get hurt and end up being unable to pay his way through a college education. Brown might go to LSU or any other of the dwindling schools recruiting him, but he lost out on an opportunity to play with his brother at a big-time football program.

Sadly, Brown thinks Butler is doing what is right for him when Butler is really concerned about his own bank account. It may be awhile before it happens again, but it sounds like a good idea to pull for the NCAA this time around.
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About Bart Doan

Bart has been with Realfootball365.com for about six months and thoroughly enjoys writing for the site. He has been featured for his writings on college football in The Sporting News, The Indianapolis Star, Sports Illustrated, and on CBS Sportsline.com. When he's not drowning himself in the...
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