The NCAA has experienced consistent issues with the student athlete-amateurism debate, but rarely with a prospect like James Wiseman. The #1 overall high school basketball player in the nation was deemed ineligible right before the regular season started for his Memphis Tigers collegiate squad. Ineligibility issues hit athletes in multiple sports every single year. This is mainly due to the NCAA policies being strict about any sort of monetary gain a student athlete makes (includes gifts, meals, gas money, literally everything). You’re completely banned from making any money off of your likeness and personal brand. Considering we’re doing a case study, we want to examine both sides of this issue. It’s a different sort of political problem facing the NCAA, “traditionally” athletes aren’t able to be compensated in any form due to amateur status. Funding outside of school programming would result in an athlete being ineligible for an entire season.
However, there’s significant problems that the NCAA faces based on the exploitation of these student athletes, and the “oh it’s free education” argument isn’t as strong as it used to be. In James Wiseman’s case, it’s really a tale of how every adult present in this situation couldn’t have mucked it up any worse. Remaining as objective as possible, we’re going to TRY to address this case study in a form where you can make your own decisions at the end. It’s time for our bunk ass analysis.
The Story
Penny Hardaway is the current coach of the Memphis Tigers men’s college basketball team. He’s a former Memphis Tiger himself and a retired NBA legend, he’s always had a nice connection with the state of Memphis. He’s also always had love for the school, donating 1 million dollars to the school's athletics programs in 2008 as a "booster"(basically a donor). Penny started coaching East Memphis high school in 2015, and started recruiting James Wiseman to come play for this high school team in 2017. Wiseman is from Nashville, and Penny wanted him and his family to move out to Memphis for James' benefit. Penny believed James was a future #1 overall pick, and wanted the city of Memphis to be brought back to basketball glory. So he helped Wiseman’s family move to Memphis in the summer of 2017. The end goal of this move was for James to eventually play for University of Memphis. Penny followed James through this career path, landing the head coaching job at the University of Memphis in 2018 with an impressive coaching resume. The relationship between Penny and James made it obvious to us that there was no debate where the #1 overall recruit was heading.
The 2019-2020 recruiting class for Memphis was labeled the best in the nation, several of the ESPN top 100 high school players immediately committed after catching wind of James Wiseman’s announcement (Boogie Ellis, Precious Achiuwa). Before the start of the regular season, Memphis receives an order from the NCAA stating that James is ineligible to play this season due to his family receiving monetary help that violated their amateurism policies. Penny Hardaway provided $11,500 to James’ mother to help them move to Memphis back in 2017, all while James was still in high school. This was before Penny was head coach of Memphis, so what’s the issue? Well since he was a labeled booster for the program since 2008, you’re banned from making a personal financial exchange with a future recruit. Booster’s can only provide money/assets directly to the athletics programs.
Memphis calls the NCAA’s bluff, and plays James Wiseman in the first 3 games of their season during the suspension appeal process. The NCAA decides to slap a 12 game suspension on James, plus a mandatory donation of $11,500 to a charity of his choosing. James and his representatives waffle over this, and decide to withdraw from Memphis University to prepare Wiseman for the NBA Draft.
Immediate Problems
Ok so, there’s some pressing issues on both sides of this suspension. Firstly, The University of Memphis and Penny Hardaway either pretended he was never a booster for the school, or knew the fix was on. Hiring a former booster as your head coach has some hoops to jump through, especially with his prior relationship to James Wiseman. Memphis upon hiring Penny should have inquired about his past relationship with players and the school. A booster has never commonly become a head coach, it seems a little lazy for Penny to be able to jump into that role so easily. I’m not saying he’s under-qualified, but as someone who has already provided 1 million dollars to your institution, you need to understand the hurdles there. The NCAA famously goes “1984” on monitoring this shit over time, and Penny Hardaway being a former booster is public information. Nothing I’ve read states that Penny disclosed his $11,500 donation to James’ mother to the University of Memphis. That could have made it easier to work around, or fix before it inevitably hurts James’ collegiate career.
“An institution labels you a cheater & makes your family reimburse money that they never had to begin with & that (institution) won’t even take money from anyone else to allow a young man to play,” Williams tweeted Saturday morning. “Just hurting your own product. A business is only as good as (its) assets - Jay Williams
Alright so how does the NCAA handle this? Extremely poorly. This request for James to donate $11,500 to charity is vindictive and disgraceful. Memphis should not have played him during the appeal, because the NCAA will not hesitate to power trip if you call their bluff. Technically speaking, the NCAA has no power to stop him from playing those games, but they REALLY fucking hate it. The post-appeal 12 game suspension was initially constructed to be a game missed for every $1000 dollars James’ mother received for moving expenses. At least that has some form of math to it, what doesn’t have any math involved is making a clearly broke family pay $11,500 to charity? That’s disgusting. The revenue the NCAA would produce off of James Wiseman’s likeness would be in the millions. It also should be obvious that this took place in 2017, that money that the family received is long gone. Acting like James and his family can simply provide that money in a separate timeline is as dense. The suspension was also coincidentally right up until the “big money” part of the NCAA basketball season (January-March is lucrative). A time where a comeback from a suspension would generate media attention and maximum ad revenue. Here lies the bigger issue; The NCAA’s view on amateurism and student athletes is severely out of touch.
Analysis
The idea of maintaining amateurism in a revenue generated sport is a shitty outlook to have. There’s really no incentive anymore for top level freshmen to be committed to playing college basketball, several high level players have already gone around it (Lamelo Ball, RJ Hampton, Darius Bazley). The NCAA is trying to push ahead with a new policy that makes it mandatory for athletes to spend at least 2 years in school before turning pro. This rule would completely send us back in time and promote the idea of playing pro ball overseas to top level freshmen instead. Why? Well some of these kids are from lower-middle class families, making money is important to them. Your draft stock isn’t dependent on playing college basketball, James is still going to be a top 3 pick. The “2 years mandatory” ruling would promote the idea of avoiding college ball all together for most high level recruits.
Penny Hardaway shouldn’t have ever recruited James Wiseman to Memphis, and the University should be aware of the logistical issues with NCAA policy peering in the window. To this date, there has been no punishment handed out to the University of Memphis or Penny Hardaway...what?? So why are we punishing James Wiseman for something he really had no control of in the first place? Penny’s booster status should have immediately made him ineligible to coach. His prior relationship with Wiseman is already a bit of a red flag, he’s a millionaire former athlete who’s calling the shots for this kid. His over-involvement with James ultimately created a sad collegiate downfall for the #1 overall recruit out of high school.
James attempted to come up with $11,500, which is ridiculous to think about. Imagine you’re in your first year of university and your professor says “Hey pal, your dad fudged your grades to get into school so you owe us $11,500”. WHO HAS THAT TYPE OF MONEY AS A STUDENT? Like I mentioned, James’ family clearly already used up the moving funds provided by Penny.
The NCAA will continually face these “slave labor” tags about amateurism in University sport. It’s hard to ignore the amount of revenue generated off of these athletes, especially when it gets poured back into NCAA management and University personnel salaries. The consistent argument of “they’re receiving an education” doesn’t really work for me. Games are scheduled in prime-time slots during the week for college basketball and many other sports, these “students” are barely going to class at all. This schedule isn’t built to emphasize sustaining eligibility academically or giving you a proper education. Athletes who are failing classes due to this are put in something called “paper classes” during the summer months to fix their grades. “Paper Classes” usually consist of writing 1-2 papers over the entirety of the course, usually to a struggling student’s benefit. So when you think of the 4 year athletes planning on having a career outside of professional athletics, you aren’t exactly benefiting them either. I’d get into the education system deeper, but John Oliver covers it correctly in this edition of Last Week Tonight.
(If you have 20 minutes, it's worth it)
The NCAA’s track record doesn't help them in this scenario either, they’ve appeared ridiculously petty for a long time. Dez Bryant was suspended for the bulk of his 2009 collegiate football season for “hanging out" with Deion Sanders, there’s no actual monetary value attached to the suspension. University of Georgia got in trouble for having one of their assistant coaches in an Instagram picture with a recruit, a single picture. Bruce Pearl was suspended for 3 years for lying about having someone over for a barbecue...he’s a head coach. The stipulations under the NCAA policy combined with the allocation and dispersion of revenue generated looks corrupt upfront. Revenue should not be involved with amateur athletics. No discussion.
Possible Solutions
James Wiseman was 16 when his mother accepted that money from Penny Hardaway. Every adult involved in the entire process failed James, in every aspect. The kid is crying trying to get his eligibility back and scramble up $11,500 while the NCAA pisses themselves laughing, and no one else involved receives punishment (yet). If there’s anyone to pity, it’s him.
The concept of amateurism needs to be updated in the NCAA's book of satanism. It’s really evident to me that no one on a management level with the NCAA has experienced being a student athlete, the disconnect is appalling. Playing stupid can only last so long, changes need to be made on a revenue or financial aid scale. If you’re really committed to this idea of “students shouldn’t be paid”, don’t make any money off of them. Games and other relevant events can be scheduled in an ACTUAL favorable manner for students if they really wanted too, you just won’t get that prime-time revenue. Everything the NCAA has stood by represents the idea that viewership and money comes first, so this is unlikely to change.
Ok so why don’t we allow them to build a brand? You’ll keep digging a grave if you take away the 1-and-done athletes and expect them to lose out on money/freedom, instead of playing pro early. Revenue goes down, viewership goes elsewhere, NCAA keeps declining. I’m assuming this isn’t what they’d want, so I suggest a system that California has already approved.
California passed a state law to allow student athletes to make money off of their likeness starting in 2023. How are they allowed to do this? The NCAA doesn’t have a subpoena over any sort of government body, states can back this law and pass it without any interference from the evil empire. Chicago is looking at doing the same thing as soon as possible, and reportedly 12-15 other states have expressed significant interest. The NCAA continually fires back on this legislation, even though it’s possibly the only thing that saves their future revenue numbers. This isn’t even transferring any of the NCAA revenue over to student athletes, it just means they can have like a monetized YouTube Channel, maybe have some merchandise, hire an agent, things like that. The NCAA revenue gets put back into the University's athletics staff mostly, which is why some of those salaries are ridiculously high. That money also gets funneled into a bunch of useless shit (see John Oliver video). Schools have to find ways to use all of that revenue, and it results in some amazing purchases. Some athletes don’t even know when they’re going to eat next, but they have a water-slide at the team pool.
This is especially beneficial for female athletes who are being marginalized on the professional athletics scene, they aren’t making any sort of money at the next level anyhow (changing soon). They deserve to be financially afloat during their university tenure.
I used to think this issue was going to become politically discordant on a national scale, but all interested states unanimously agreed to move forward with the self-funding of student athletes. Both Republicans and Democrats came to that conclusion, with the current U.S political divisiveness, that's extremely encouraging. So what’s the purpose or end-goal? Well if the NCAA doesn’t eventually call the raise California just made, their policies will cease to exist anyways. The California law passing was meant to put pressure on the NCAA to make some changes, and they’ll at least have to do SOMETHING in the next 3 years.
In conclusion, the NCAA’s track record is slowly catching up with them. James was a victim of every single party involved in his eligibility case, recognizing correct action and discipline isn’t the NCAA’s strongest quality, and his personal relationships set him up for failure. James will be fine, he just went through hell for nothing he did himself. Amateur athletics should never have revenue generated for management positions unrelated to the product on the court/field/rink. On a surface level, that’s technically a form of slavery. On a shallow level, it’s an unpaid internship with a bare minimum benefit for future pros. On the deepest level, It’s a significant problem that the NCAA needs to finally address. Eliminating 1-and-done athletes is an ass backwards way of addressing this, change of policy and change of revenue distribution is the bare minimum expectations they need to meet. If they don’t, so be it, that’s really the silver lining. States gradually passing this law will corner the NCAA, what happens after that is completely on them. Eventual cease of existence, or a rule change, your call.
Just Google "Twitter reacts to James Wiseman suspension" if you wanted to see more fireworks.