But then, as someone said, more laws often mean less justice
A few days ago – despite all the problems going on in this country - Senators Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) introduced the “Protect College Sports Act,” a bill intended to bring government regulation to college sports.
Remember former President Ronald Reagan’s “nine most terrifying words in the English language”? “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” But such is the complete chaos that college athletics has fallen into that NCAA presidents seem to actually want government to solve their problem (which usually is a problem in itself).
It’s true that college athletics is no longer “amateur,” by any stretch (and believe me, the definition of that word has always been stretched in college athletics).
The intent is for the power of the United States Government to lay down some rules to which all universities, and coaches, will adhere.
Yeah, sure.
Way back when the NCAA actually had a rule book and tried to enforce it, I would routinely have coaches and school administrators and boosters and fans complain about how big and complicated the NCAA rule book was (and it was).
I always pointed out however that it was their own fault. Every time some coach or “fan” did something to gain an unfair advantage over the competition and got caught (“getting caught” being the operative phrase), NCAA officials would get together and make another rule. Most of the rules were clarifications or addendums to existing rules, because people, being people, were always looking for the loopholes.
For example, there was a period when coaches contacting prospects had gotten so out of hand that the NCAA instituted a “dead period,” when coaches were not allowed to visit with prospects face-to-face. But there was nothing in the rule that said they couldn’t call prospects, and they called so often that some top prospects’ families had to get separate phone lines just to be able to make and receive routine family-related phone calls.
There was no rule against accidently running into a prospect. A coach couldn’t be penalized if he happened to be at the 7-Eleven pumping gas and the stud prospect happened to pull up at the same time. It was known as the “bump rule” – you could accidently bump into an athlete you were recruiting. Only then coaches took to “accidently” being at all sorts of places that athletes might show up. I know of a coach who hung out at the water fountain at a prospects’ local public gym, knowing the kid would at some point come get a drink.
Then there was the enterprising coach who combined the rule with the exception. He would drive to the prospects’ neighborhood, park his car across the street – so he wasn’t on the prospects’ family property – get out and call the prospect while leaning against his car. During the course of the conversation, the coach would get the prospect to look out the window where he’d see the coach. That was supposed to show how much this coach cared about this recruit.
And so, the NCAA had to keep adding more rules for every time smart coaches found a loophole. A lot of my friends said this was just coaches being smart – and it was, but these coaches also knew they were violating the spirit of the rule. They knew the intent of the law, and they figured a way around it.
I’d tell my friends in the NCAA that there really only needed to be one rule: don’t cheat. But it was just too tempting to parse what “cheat” actually meant.
Now they want the federal government to make actual federal laws to do what university presidents are afraid to do.
Some famous historian-philosopher once said, “More laws, less justice.” There is something to be said for that idea.
That got me to thinking about laws, and a remarkable phrase the Apostle Paul uses in his letter to the Galatians. He lists a series of characteristics he calls the “fruit of the Spirit” - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Then he says something interesting: “Against such things there is no law.”
I think most of us like the characteristics in Paul’s list, even if we’re not Christians. I’d say we’d all want our wives or husbands, friends, bosses or co-workers, to embody those traits (as I’m sure they’d like to see us do as well).
And who would pass a law against any of that? I don’t know any government that would outlaw patience. I can see an issue with impatience. If I’m at the bank and it’s closed, and I’m impatient so I break in and take some money – even if I leave a note saying “this is my account number; I just took what was mine” – the law is going to come after me. But not if I’m patient.
Being kind? Being gentle? Self-control? I can’t imagine who would even think to make those qualities illegal, punishable by fine or imprisonment.
Oh, you could cross a legal boundary with how you practice those traits. The Jewish Rabbis turned an already complicated 613 (more or less) Old Testament “Law of Moses” into thousands of interpretations, codicils, modifications and explanations that made it so complicated it was almost impossible to not break the law as, in their zeal, they interpreted it.
And then we have Jesus, who takes all those hundreds of words and breaks it down to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it? Like “don’t cheat.” Yet, if you’ve actually tried to live that way, you realize just how difficult that can be, how we can’t help but find ourselves in situations where we say, “Yeah, but this is different.”
I recently heard about a lady in my community who is so conscious of not wanting to be even tempted to sin that she makes it a point to drive 5 miles per hour below the posted speed limit, so that she doesn’t accidently break the law.
That’s convicting. Not to say I’m going to adjust my driving, but I get her point.
And I’d hate to be stuck behind her on a one-lane road.
But in saying that, I’m showing my lack of patience. My frustration with being behind someone driving the speed limit – much less 5 mph slower – shows my lack of gentleness, kindness, goodness, maybe even of self-control … and the fruit of the spirit flies past me like a billboard on the interstate, acknowledged but only with a passing glance.
I had the pleasure of getting to spend a little time with John Paul, a successful race car driver who competed in IMSA and Trans-Am race back in the 1970s and ‘80s, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. His son, John Paul Jr., often raced with him and was successful on a variety of levels. Unfortunately, both men had serious issues outside of racing that led to well-documented trouble.
John Paul had a shop outside of Lawrenceville, Ga., where I worked at the time, where he built his race cars. One time, we got into a conversation about driving and he told me he would often drive from Lawrenceville, just north of Atlanta, to Daytona, Fla., in less than three hours, less than half the time it should take for a roughly 450-mile trip. But then, he would drive his own modified Porsche and might run 200 mph on the interstate because, he told me, “These interstates are made for high speeds and I’m qualified to drive at that speed.”
I asked him about state troopers, and he told me that when they saw what he was driving and how fast, they didn’t even try. If they did try to stop him, they couldn’t catch him.
The story reminded me of another lesson from another Paul, the Apostle, who said in 1 Corinthians, “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable; all things are lawful, but not all things edify.”
In other words, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
But then, to paraphrase James Madison, if men were angels, no rules would be necessary. But we are not angels.
As many of us – including the NCAA - has found out, much to our chagrin.
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