Kentucky Basketball: Does The Cam Newton Decision Give Hope To Kanter?

As virtually everyone knows right now, Cam Newton was declared ineligible by the NCAA, then ruled eligible by the reinstatement committee less than 24 hours later.

The reasoning, apparently, is that Cam Newton's father did all the "pay for play" negotiations behind his son's back.  Newton did not know about the scheme, ergo the NCAA feels that it is inequitable for him to be declared ineligible for his father's deliberate flouting of the rules.

In the Kanter case, the argument will be that not only did Dr. and Mrs. Mehmet Kanter not flout the rules, but they actively tried to comply with them within the limits of their understanding, applying his son's compensation to his education and cordoning off any excess money against possible NCAA problems.  It also seems likely that Enes Kanter, a minor, had no input into the disposition of the cash.

I think a person could make a good argument that the two cases have similarities in equity, if not in fact.

Discuss amongst yourselves.  I am entertaining a majority partner from the UK this week, so blogging will be irregular.  But we do have a familiar face returning to A Sea of Blue.  I'll let you guess who it is, and save it as a surprise.

UPDATE:  Just noticed this Mike DeCourcy article.  Here's a taste:

Enes Kanter might be permanently ineligible because his family, thousands of miles and a culture or two removed from NCAA regulations, did not properly interpret what their son would be allowed to accept from a club while he practiced and competed. Kanter was only 16 years old when all this began, and yet he is being held strictly liable for how his family managed his eligibility. He is derided by many in the media as a “professional,” the word pronounced as though spelled with entirely scarlet letters.

Read the whole thing.  It's gooood.

Glenn Logan

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