Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White entered the fray on day three of the Vols’ newest battle with the NCAA.
Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde reported on Tuesday that the NCAA was investigating Tennessee for NIL related violations. That’s when chaos erupted. Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman ripped the NCAA in an email to NCAA President Charlie Baker, the State of Tennessee and Commonwealth of Virginia filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and the NCAA responded to the lawsuit on Wednesday.
White joined Tennessee’s brass in ripping the NCAA on Thursday, particularly for leaking information about the investigation to the media.
“The NCAA generally does not comment on infractions cases because there is a rule against it; however, that has not stopped them in the past from leaking information to the media as they have this week about us,” White said in a statement. “Their actions made this ill-conceived investigation public and forced us to defend ourselves.”
In its Wednesday statement responding to the lawsuit, the NCAA stated that it was just trying to enforce the rules that its member institutions agreed upon, particularly regarding NIL.
“It is important to remember that NCAA member schools and conferences not only make the rules but routinely call for greater enforcement of those rules holding violators accountable,” the NCAA stated. “In recent years, this has been especially true as it relates to establishing and enforcing a consistent set of national rules intended to manage name, image and likeness environment.”
Tennessee’s third-year athletic director ripped that notion in his statement while also highlighting a major disconnect between the NCAA’s case and the Vols’ NIL stance.
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That disconnect is on whether boosters contributing to a NIL collective is the same thing as boosters directly giving impermissible benefits to student-athletes and prospective student-athletes.
“It is clear that the NCAA staff does not understand what is happening at the campus level all over our country in the NIL space,” White wrote. “After reviewing thousands of Tennessee coaches and personal phone records, NCAA investigators didn’t find a single NIL violation, so they moved the goalpost to fit a predetermined outcome. They are stating the nebulous, contradictory NIL guidelines (written by the NCAA not the membership) don’t matter and applying the old booster bylaws to collectives. If that’s the case, then 100% of major programs in college athletics have significant violations. This is obviously silly and not productive, as is blaming the membership whenever they are challenged.
“We need to be spending our time and energy on solutions to better organize college athletics in the NIL era — something that NCAA leadership failed to do back in 2021. Student-athletes, prospective student-athletes, coaches, and administrators across the country deserve better, and I refuse to allow the NCAA to irrationally use Tennessee as an example for their own agendas.”
The NCAA retroactively enforcing rules that were not originally in place at the start of NIL was one of Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman’s biggest complaints in her email to NCAA President Charlie Baker earlier this week.
“Regrettably, in this chaotic environment, the NCAA enforcement staff is trying to retroactively apply unclear guidance to punish and make an example of our institution and others,” Plowman stated in the email.
White’s statement ended with a broader call to improve the organization of college athletics in the ever changing NIL and transfer portal landscape. Many pundits have pinpointed the State of Tennessee and Commonwealth of Virginia’s lawsuit against NCAA as a potential inflection point in the college sports’ governing body’s control over college football.
One Response
Why am I not surprised. As the young man pointed out, business is business. His allegiance is to himself. He left Florida. He now left Tennessee. He will also leave Kentucky. As for coming back to Knoxville on November 2, it will not be a pleasant reunion. I am beginning to believe, we need to refine the title VFL. In Mincey‘s case, it was VFN (VOL For Now).