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[ OUR OPINION ]


Give UH athletes
lesson in contract law


THE ISSUE

The NCAA has stripped the UH men's volleyball team of its 2002 national championship because of a player's eligibility violations.

THE loss of the University of Hawaii's only national sports championship is being appealed within the NCAA, and the outcome will depend upon the association's sympathy. The 2002 volleyball team's top player, Costa Theocharidis, was ineligible because he had played on a professional team in his native Greece, and UH was responsible under NCAA rules for knowing that, even though it had no effective way of becoming aware of it.

In order to prevent the NCAA sanction from happening again, UH should begin giving athletic scholarships the same hard-nosed regard as the courts have -- as contracts. The university should not shirk from taking legal action to impress upon foreign student athletes the importance of contract law and the consequences of contract fraud in America.

NCAA rules are unnecessarily harsh, arbitrary and inconsistent, prohibiting collegiate athletes from ever having played on a professional team, even without getting paid. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Michelle Wie is not jeopardizing her future golf scholarship by competing in professional tournaments, because she is doing so without being eligible for prize money and as an individual, not as a pro team member. What is the essential difference?

The rules also require the college or university to police the amateurism requirement and don't hold the violating athlete accountable. In imposing the penalty, the NCAA judged it to be a secondary violation because the UH athletic department had no way of knowing or even suspecting that Theocharidis had played 22 games for a pro team. The university said Theocharidis was "less than forthcoming" about having played with pros.

Amateurs often play with professional teams in Europe, which has become a prime recruiting area for UH men's volleyball and basketball teams. This is not the first time the university has been sanctioned for violating the amateurism rule through the participation of European players. The university was forced to sit out former basketball standouts Predrag Savovic of Montenegro for seven games and Haim Shimonovich of Israel for 22 games for their having played for pro teams in their homelands. In the NCAA case against UH, those are called prior offenses.

Foreign players have brought a distinct flavor and fan appreciation to the basketball and volleyball teams. Savovic dubbed the basketball squad the "United Nations team." Theocharidis was a four-time All-American and twice national player of the year -- an important if not decisive factor in UH winning the national title and, thus, a burden in its appeal of the NCAA decision. His teammates came from such places as Serbia, Cuba, Canada, Israel and Puerto Rico.

The NCAA's stripping of the national title from the volleyball team should not discourage the university from continuing to recruit top student athletes from afar. It should prompt athletic department officials to make clear to potential Rainbow Warriors that being "less than forthcoming" about their pasts will not be tolerated.

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Oahu Publications, Inc. publishes the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, MidWeek and military newspapers

David Black, Dan Case, Larry Johnson,
Duane Kurisu, Warren Luke, Colbert
Matsumoto, Jeffrey Watanabe,
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Frank Bridgewater, Editor, 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, Assistant Editor, 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor, 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com

Mary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4748; mpoole@starbulletin.com

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