Comments on The CIS Blog: Editorializing: Bar has to be set higher after Bis...

Nice column Sager. Gwynne Dyer took a similar rou...

2009-11-05T13:30:40.559-05:00

Nice column Sager. Gwynne Dyer took a similar route when he came out with the book, Future Tense: the coming world order. In it he took issue with his profession for not questioning the rationale and motives behind the war in Iraq. Similarly, the tone and perspective of your article did a particularly nice job of pointing out the issue at hand without becoming holier-than-thou and grand standing to an extreme.

Compliance offices, by their very nature, are adversarial entities. Any CIS directed application to police athletic departments and eligibility criteria will create the us-versus-them mentality, there is no getting away from it. With that said though, I don't have a problem with an over-seeing body that would help to eliminate these types of embarrassments. The idea that any attention is good attention doesn’t really resonate or hold water this time.

I'm pretty certain that Hardy was grandfathere...

2009-11-04T13:24:30.353-05:00

I'm pretty certain that Hardy was grandfathered in by the old rule considering the 7 year rule was not in existence in 2001 CISunethical.

I agree with you sager you don't want to scare away quality applicants with harsh morality clauses. I also agree that this should not be placed on the shoulders of a Coach but rather someone within the Athletic Department itself.

And lastly I agree with your comment about the media watchdog sager which was in your post. It shouldn't be expected that hours of background research be necessary but the way eligibility has been handled this year it seems that's what is necessary!

Hopefully these incidents receiving so much media attention, thanks to being played in the media darling known as football, have been so embarrassing that schools will be extra diligent in checking their athletes from now on.

I have heard the "Seven year rule" which...

2009-11-04T13:07:47.126-05:00

I have heard the "Seven year rule" which states an athlete out of high school has 7 years to complete 5 years of eligibility.....Yet I do not see hard copy proof of this, just bantered around on cisfootball.org. I understand this rule is supposed to be in effect. I do not fault Mr. Hardy for enrolling in school and having the opportunity to play..he was not recruited. I would hold Manitoba responsible for not checking up on players (or at least inquire).

having said that, the CIS, Canada West conference look stupid in this. Yeah, where are those "CIS is holier than thou" supporters...I can't hear you.

It doesn't have to be adversarial ... if you p...

2009-11-04T09:15:13.772-05:00

It doesn't have to be adversarial ... if you put in terms of we're trying to grow the game and a brand and we all suffer when this happens, maybe people will come around. You might be attacking what's associated with something rather than what it actually is.

The one unintended consequence of having a morality clause (such a 20th-century term!) is you might scare away quality applicants. Honestly, if you at least beef up enforcement on a national and conference level, then there are no excuses for the Brian Dobies of the world when they get caught out like this.

The problem of having a CIS Enforcement Office is ...

2009-11-04T09:03:15.021-05:00

The problem of having a CIS Enforcement Office is it creates an advesarial environment between the CIS and the schools. So, instead of working togeather on the same side of the issue, they end up on different sides of the same table arguing intent.

It also leads to some schools, coaches and/or Admins taking the position of 'we'll bend the rules and lets see if we get caught' as I can see some schools leaving the question of eligability entierly up to the officer to decided (and if they are too busy - well that's not our (school's) fault - we provided the list).

If you want real enforcement, put it squarely on the shoulders of the coach, Staff and AD by making it a morality clause in their 'terms of employeement' which, if violated, is subject to immediate dismisal with cause (such a dismissal is not eligable for EI). This would encourage programs to be more diligent in screening/interviewing their athletes.

I should also add that I don't like how it loo...

2009-11-04T08:05:26.433-05:00

I should also add that I don't like how it looks like the Manitoba program is trying to protect the cause of this problem - Hardy.

What happened to personal responsibility? Hardy was legally an adult when he got nabbed in that doping test. Getting handed a four-year suspension is certainly something memorable in a young man's life - and the responsibility is on him to make that information clear to Manitoba when he starts playing football there, and to Day 1 he should be asking how long he will able to play for that team. Yes, the doping violation is humiliating, but you can't go forward in life pretending it never happened.

As for this last minute compassionate request by Manitoba to have Hardy's "sentence" reduced -- well they should have done that last year when he started with the team. I'm sorry Manitoba, too late, accept some blame and stop saying no one was at fault.

The simplest near-term solution, and followed by m...

2009-11-04T07:44:05.075-05:00

The simplest near-term solution, and followed by many CIS schools, is to make one person in the varsity athletics office resposible for all eligiblity checking. NOT A COACH. A coach can't help but give a player the benefit of the doubt if there is an eligiblity question because he wants the player in the game. An administrator should hopefully be more focused on getting it right. Ultimately it falls on the Athletic Director's shoulders -- it is his or her responsibility to make sure all student-athletes are properly vetted. The buck stops at the school.

The CIS has enough trouble getting a website working properly and dealing with schools wanting to defect to the NCAA. Do we want to make them the eligiblity police as well?

Nice work. The entire season has been nothing shor...

2009-11-04T00:24:02.819-05:00

Nice work. The entire season has been nothing short of a farce when it comes to this sort of thing. I have talked to a number of athletes over the course of this year, and when talking to them about their eligibility many have no clear idea of exactly how it works, and some aren't even sure where they stand personally. It's not solely on the athlete to know what their eligibility is - they have to be open and truthful in disclosing information, but it's not there job to know whether or not they can actually play. Programs have to be diligent and regardless of if it's easy or not to find out eligibility for players in unique situations, teams have to know where their players stand or risk this type of embarassment unfolding. It's not good enough to think a player is eligible, you have to be certain. In the end it falls on the coaches and administrators to do their homework and make sure their own teams don't make the mistakes SFU and Manitoba have made.

Sager this was posted on Oct 15th in the "SFU...

2009-11-03T23:40:14.706-05:00

Sager this was posted on Oct 15th in the "SFU decision... tick tock...." thread. Funny thing is Mr. Hardy was removed for the Oct 17th game. It seems to me that .org is a better site for eligibility info than a CIS team.

http://www.cisfootball.org/forums/showthread.php?p=79749#post79749

Very good editorial Neate. We were preparing a blo...

2009-11-03T22:33:57.771-05:00

Very good editorial Neate. We were preparing a blog post on that subject in the Q and your editorial makes a very nice conclusion of it...

Obviously we'll link it.

2009-11-03T22:33:10.024-05:00

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