OK, so you wrote the following:

“In general, countability is all about who starts something. If a coach is present, if a coach gives the workout a structure without being asked, if a coach checks up on it and who was there or not, or if a coach collects data on it, the activity ceases to be voluntary, even if students were principally in charge of what went on. If an athlete asks for guidance, records the training in their own (private) log and then talks about it, or if they do stuff on their own, including pressuring/guiding their teammates, that’s all good and voluntary. So while it’s seems gray, it’s all about who initiates something, just like dating. Did you ask them out, or did they ask you out?”

But what about if a coach isn’t present, but a “quality control” person is? What if that “quality control” person is taking attendance? What if the “quality control” persons are calling athletes whenever they miss a voluntary workout and telling them they’re expected to be there?

Given your example, what if you have the captains or the strength coach tell kids that they won’t make the team unless they put in those extra hours every week?

Those are areas where I see the gray.

In all of these professions, there are many shades of gray, and those who are willing to accept the benefits must also be willing to accept the risk for staying on the right side of some very fuzzy lines.

If a coach doesn’t know the rules he/she isn’t doing their job.

After all, if they were employees, they would be paid, especially since their labor brings millions in revenues to the university.

Instead, colleges and universities maintain the fiction that these are students and athletes at the sametime. But stories such as the Free Press’ shows where the football players’ responsibilities really are.

Most won’t earn a dime in the NFL. And while they may be just as smart and capable as any other U-M student — so as to avoid an arguement I wouldn’t sugges anything different –they wouldn’t have had exposure to the same academic options as any other student, potentially limiting their career choices. And that’s too bad.

Second, I have had several “water cooler” conversations about this issue at the office, and the prevailing opinion is none too sympathetic with those who are trying to portray this as a scandal — rather it seems to be that the football players are simply getting a taste of what real life is like.

My company is in the type of business (small and rapidly growing company, competitive industry), where the only way to be successful is to go the extra mile, and make sure the boss notices. Colleagues who limit their efforts to the minimum requirements are far less likely to be rewarded with promotions, career opportunities, pay raises, etc. compared to colleagues who do these things. As a former boss used to like to say during job interviews: we feature “unlimited casual overtime”.

People in the business world don’t spend much time fretting about whether a task is “mandatory” or “voluntary” — if it needs to get done, they do it.

But I must disagree with you. Like all people who’ve coached under the NCAA, I’ve had to take the NCAA rules exams. I disagree that it’s all that gray; the rules about countable hours in the book are, in general, pretty clear in my experience, and where they’re not clear, there are reams and reams of interpretations. A good coach asks the compliance folks about these interpretations before they do something.

The challenge is that the vast majority of the interpretations, in my reckoning, are there for football and basketball, the two sports where NCAA coaches have routinely pushed the envelope. If there’s a way to get away with something, it’s my colleagues in those two sports (not at Michigan, but in general) who will try to do just that. (Then again, they are also the ones who are under the most pressure and scrutiny about their success.)

In general, countability is all about who starts something. If a coach is present, if a coach gives the workout a structure without being asked, if a coach checks up on it and who was there or not, or if a coach collects data on it, the activity ceases to be voluntary, even if students were principally in charge of what went on. If an athlete asks for guidance, records the training in their own (private) log and then talks about it, or if they do stuff on their own, including pressuring/guiding their teammates, that’s all good and voluntary. So while it’s seems gray, it’s all about who initiates something, just like dating. Did you ask them out, or did they ask you out?

For example, we tell our athletes they need a minimum of 600 minutes of rowing training a week to be competitive nationally. In an 8-hour week, that’s 10 hours of training. Now, we’re not an NCAA governed sport on the men’s side at Michigan, but we have followed the general rules, so clearly, there’s a deficit between what we can assign and what they need to do for part of the winter. If the guys want to win (and they do,) they’ll find the other time to put in (and they do), and if they want to be competitive on a competitive squad, they have to, because there are guys who are going to do it. But, we don’t schedule it, don’t tell them what to do, don’t collect the data, and most importantly, don’t ask who was there, or what they did, nor do we select lineups based on that. And it’s just not that hard to get right.

In the end, coaches have to trust their athletes and build a culture of trust and respect on their teams; and that’s truly what’s at issue here.

John and I have disagreed on more than a few things related to athletics, but what he’s clearly doing here is pointing out that this is a gray area, one that hinges on whether the NCAA will interpret an activity as mandatory or not mandatory. If coaches took attendance at “voluntary” activities and called players to ask why they were absent from such activities, it will be difficult to term them as truly voluntary. If those things didn’t happen, again, it’s a very gray area.

This apologia for slimy practices appears to be an attempt to persuade the reader that the rules are just too “messy,” “tricky,” and “confusing” to expect U of M coaches to understand and correctly apply. Maybe the coaches need some remedial reading classes too.

As for the term “student-athlete,” I use it three times, each time in direct reference to NCAA rules. It is actually the NCAA’s term, not the University’s, just as it’s the NCAA’s rulebook, not Michigan’s. When I’m speaking generally in this piece, I never use “student-athlete,” opting instead for “player” all four times.

-John U. Bacon