NCAA Regulations NCAA Rulings and

NCAA Regulations NCAA Rulings and Jeremy Bloom Jeremy Bloom, a football player at the University of Colorado, was ruled ineligible to play for the team because he had accepted paid endorsements for professional skiing. The NCAA was the one that made the ruling, and they determined that anyone that is paid for their endorsements is not allowed to play in college sports.

There is some discussion and dissent as to whether this should be the ruling in cases like Bloom's, since the sport that he received paid endorsements for was distinctly and clearly separate from the sport that he played at the University of Colorado. There has been much discussion into this issue, because there are those that are very serious about whether this ruling was accurate, and there are two sides to the argument, both of which will be dealt with in this research.

Whether the NCAA was right or wrong in this issue is a topic for debate, but opinion is not enough to prove the issue. Instead, the topic must be analyzed and addressed because there are concerns that a trend could be started based on whether Bloom would win an appeal of the ruling. This trend could then allow other athletes to receive paid endorsements and still play in college athletic programs, although not in the same sport.

This appears to be a large area of concern for those that are diligently working to keep paid professional sports and college sports separate from one another as much as possible. Whether this should apply to different sports, or only to those that wish to play the same sport in both areas remains a matter of opinion, but it is clearly very important to the lives of the athletes that it affects now and the ones that it may affect in the future.

Jeremy Bloom worked very hard to be good at skiing, and he worked equally as hard to be good at football, and both meant a lot to him. The NCAA never said that he could not do both, but only that he could not receive monetary endorsements for his skiing because it caused conflict with him being a college athlete. The NCAA has had that ruling on the books for a long time, and they were not interested in changing it for Bloom.

Naturally, this is very important to Jeremy Bloom but there are bigger considerations as well. The ruling that the NCAA has regarding this type of paid endorsement and all of the other rulings that the NCAA has regarding college athletes affect not only Bloom but thousands of individuals that attend college across the United States and play sports as well.

Most of these individuals are not affected by this particular ruling because they are not competent in another sport to the point where they are being offered endorsement money for professional things. However, there are some others like Jeremy Bloom that have had to choose either between only playing one particular sport or between playing both sports but refusing the money that comes from endorsement.

This is often difficult to do as playing sports is relatively expensive and therefore someone like Jeremy Bloom needs the money that comes from those paid endorsements in order to be able to afford to go to college and afford to attend the events around the country and around the world that he will be asked to go to. Statement of the Problem such as this one has much significance in several areas. First, there is significance to the industry itself.

The ruling and the outcome of the appeal to that ruling could affect not only Jeremy Bloom but many other athletes in the future. Depending on what the ruling is, there may be some athletes that will decide not to play a sport in college because they would rather be compensated financially for their endorsement of something in another sport. There may also be athletes that will give up the idea of receiving these financial incentives in a particular sport because they would rather play on a particular college team.

However, winning his case would allow Bloom to continue to play football and still be paid for endorsements for skiing. It would also pave the way for more athletes to choose this path. The NCAA, however, feels that Bloom would be mixing the definitions of college athletics and professional athletics too much if he were allowed to do both of these things. Many predicted that Bloom would lose his case, and those individuals were not disappointed.

The NCAA ruling stood firm, and Bloom chose to continue receiving incentives for the endorsement of products and give up his college career on the football field. He did this with some regrets, but it was the choice that he made. Likely, he never really thought that he would be forced to choose at all, since the sports clearly had no relation to one another.

However, the real problem is not with Jeremy Bloom specifically, but with whether these college athletes should be allowed to receive paid endorsements in another sport without blurring the line between professional and college athletics. In the opinion of this researcher, the NCAA ruling was wrong, and Bloom should have been allowed to do both. The two sports in question had virtually nothing in common with each other and therefore it appears that the line between college and professional athletics was not affected.

This would have been different if Bloom was receiving paid endorsements for something related to football or the University of Colorado in any way, but this was not the case. As a purely academic concern, this is of great interest. This kind of ruling does not appear too often, and the fact that he appealed the ruling indicated that Jeremy Bloom was very serious about both sports, and about his education at the University of Colorado.

Those that deal with academics will likely want to study this issue and see if it can be determined exactly what made the NCAA feel that Bloom had crossed the line by accepting these endorsements and whether there are any conditions that could be put on something like this so that it would be found to be acceptable.

Naturally, those that want to receive paid endorsements in the sport that they play in college would be crossing the line between professional and college, but those that deal with two completely different sports are a different subject all together, and one that is sometimes puzzling to those in the academic community that have trouble understanding why there is such a concern about this type of thing and why the NCAA has chosen so strongly to forbid it.

From a career standpoint, there are different ways to look at the issue. Some would think that those that are interested in playing sports in college must give up any other, loftier, goals that they have. Others may feel that those loftier goals are more significant and therefore these individuals should give up their dreams of playing sports in college so that they do not run into any of the kinds of problems that Jeremy Bloom ran into.

If he would have simply chosen one or the other, there would have been no problem for him to face. However, both were important to him and therefore he fought for both. Whether he really should have fought for both remains a question for some from a strictly career standpoint. He did not plan to make a career out of football, and was only planning to play it in college.

He did plan to get on the Olympic skiing team someday and therefore was looking to make more of a career out of skiing. It might have been better if he would have remained strictly with skiing from the beginning, thus avoiding any ambiguities and other problems that surfaced later on. However, whether he should or should not is not strictly relevant for this discussion.

Those that are looking at this from a career standpoint, however, will likely form their own opinions about whether Jeremy Bloom should have stayed strictly with skiing instead of looking to branch out and play football as well. He could have, for example, sustained a serious injury on the football field that would have stopped him from skiing and potentially stopped him from making the Olympic team.

This would have been devastating for him in any kind of career sense, as his hopes would have been dashed and he would have lost those paid endorsements that he was receiving for the skiing that he was taking part in. Significance of the Problem As can be seen, the problem is very significant.

This is due to the fact that there are many differing opinions about whether Jeremy Bloom should have been allowed to participate in both facets of his life or whether the NCAA did the right thing by forcing him to choose one or the other. This ruling will affect many other athletes in the future, as there are quite a few athletes that play more than one sport, and coaches, parents, and others will all also be affected by the opinions and rulings of the NCAA.

Despite the mixed feelings of many on the issue, however, it seems as though Jeremy Bloom had his rights restricted very strongly by the NCAA, since there was no correlation between the football that he was playing at the University of Colorado and the skiing-related endorsements that he was receiving payment for. Bloom may have given up these rights when he enrolled in the University, but it is suspected that he was not aware that these rights were going to leave him.

He is not seen as a troublemaker that was simply trying to cause problems for the University, but as an honest and polite young man that wanted to play football and ski. It just so happens that he got paid for endorsements for one of these things, and was on a college team for the other.

It makes sense that college football players could not also play on professional teams, for example, but when two sports are so strongly unrelated as football and skiing, the issue takes on significance not just because of the NCAA ruling but because that ruling represents partial control over some aspect of the college student's life and it is likely that the students never really thought about this issue or whether they would have to give up certain things that they believed to be unrelated simply to play college sports.

Problems such as this one seldom stay small, and Bloom fought with the NCAA for over two years. Although he ultimately lost, he made his case very well. Still, however, this did not change the mind of the NCAA or of the judges that he appealed to. Likely, it only angered the NCAA when Bloom went over their heads and challenged them in court, instead of just simply accepting what their ruling was. That ruling, however, cost Bloom a lot of money in endorsements.

This is money that he could have used not only to fund the trips that he takes for skiing but also to fund his college education, purchase a vehicle, purchase a home, or do many other things that people of that age would want to do. Just because Bloom received money for these endorsements does not mean that he was greedy or that he was only interested in taking money for something that he was doing.

It is much more likely that he was interested in using this money to fund his college career and to set himself up so that he would be ready for life when he finished college. He was not only in college to play football but wanted to receive a degree as well and was interested in business and management as opposed to simply being on the football field.

In other words, Bloom was a well rounded individual and was looking at all aspects of the case and trying to determine what would be best for him. Whether he chose correctly is a point for opinion and discussion but there are really no right or wrong answers when it comes to what one chooses to do with one's own personal life. Bloom became a sort of advocate or spokesperson for going against the NCAA, which was not his intention.

He did not originally set out to go up against the NCAA or to argue with individuals regarding what is that he wanted to do with his life. Instead, he only wanted the ruling changed not just for him but for all of the other individuals out there that have opportunities such as his that were being taken away by what the NCAA ruled when it comes to college sports. The significance of a problem such as this therefore goes much deeper than just one individual.

Review of Related Literature Reviewing the literature in any study is very important, and this study is no exception. The literature must be looked at carefully, because there are many different feelings and opinions about this issue and therefore a great deal of literature has been written about it in many different magazines. Most of this is specific to the Jeremy Bloom case, and all of it deals with the NCAA and the kinds of rulings that they make regarding this particular issue.

Bloom did indeed leave football for skiing for a while, since skiing was his first love. There are still some articles out there that talk about him saying goodbye to football, but Bloom has stopped taking endorsement money from skiing so that he can remain on the football field. This does not mean that he has stopped skiing, but only that he has stopped taking some of the offered money that came with it. He started skiing when he was only three.

It is something that he has done all of his life, and although he hated to leave football, he couldn't let that stop him from going down the slopes and trying to win. Even though Bloom is not a big person, he is extremely good at football, and those on his team hated to see him leave to compete in skiing events.

He knew, however, that the NCAA appeal that he made was lost and therefore he had to choose between the two sports that he most wanted to be involved in. Instead of choosing one sport and completely dropping the other, Bloom simply left the endorsement money behind so that there would be no complaints from the NCAA about him remaining involved in both sports. At first, Bloom was bitter at the ruling of the NCAA.

He felt that they were being unfair in making him choose, and believed that their reasons were not sound and valid. However, he stated in one interview after a two-year battle in which he still lost, that the NCAA received too much attention of the negative sort over what they did, and that they actually taught him an important lesson about life.

He believes that what the NCAA taught him will make him a rich man someday, and he also says that the NCAA made decisions while he was in college that were intelligent for the most part, but there were some that he has trouble forgetting. One of these came from seeing a young man overcome brain cancer and succeed at this well enough to play varsity baseball. He also wrote a book.

When the book was published, it attached the young man's name to what the NCAA termed a "corporate product" and so the young man lost his eligibility and could no longer play baseball. In January of this year, Bloom said that he would challenge the NCAA again and would once again start accepting endorsements, but that he intended to play football as well.

He believed that he could win this time, and the NCAA would either be forced to look bad by forbidding him from playing football, or they would be forced to change the policy that they have about endorsement money While this sounds as though it would be the end of the story, in fact it is not. Earlier this year, Jeremy Bloom was ruled ineligible to play football because he repeatedly violated the NCAA rule against taking endorsements.

Apparently Bloom had asked the NCAA twice about endorsements and had been told 'no.' He then asked the courts twice, and was told the same thing. Allegedly, he still entered into contracts after those rulings that required him to endorse products, which was a clear violation of the rules that the NCAA sets out for student athletes.

Congressional testimony dealing with this very issue indicated that the belief was that Jeremy Bloom was not treated fairly and that the rulings given by the NCAA were not actually as fair and impartial as they claimed to be. The statements that Bloom made about his skiing and football concerns were found to be very important, but there was no change in what the NCAA would allow Bloom to do and no one forced the NCAA to change the rules that it had set out for student athletes.

At least for now, Jeremy Bloom will not be playing any football for the University of Colorado. In addition to the sources presented here there has also been much discussion of Jeremy Bloom in various newspapers. While newspapers are not really appropriate for a review of this type of literature it is interesting to note that many small towns and even some of the larger towns that have the bigger newspapers took an interest in Bloom's case and whether he would succeed before the NCAA.

Discussion of Source Materials There is actually not a great deal to say about the source material used for this research. Much of it comes from information in sporting magazines and therefore there seems to be a certain bias that is seen in that many of those that write about the issue seem to hint at the idea that Jeremy Bloom should be allowed to continue playing football and accepting endorsements for his skiing.

None of the source materials actually come out and state this, but the general, unspoken idea seems to be there. Source materials that delve more deeply into this issue could not be located, and therefore the researcher was required to rely on the information at hand, which may not have given as much insight into the issue as one would have liked to see.

However, the sources that the information came from were reliable and valid, and they also showed the timeline that Bloom went through; from fighting with the NCAA to saying he would not take any more endorsements to fighting the NCAA again to ultimately being ruled ineligible to play. Bloom wanted to force the NCAA to make him ineligible or change their rules, and the NCAA chose not to change any of the rules that they currently had in place regarding this issue.

Instead, they voted the other way and ruled that Bloom was definitely ineligible to play football. Many of the media reports were conflicted, and this is largely thought to be why the NCAA actually issued a press release about Bloom and the situation, so as to avoid further confusion and misunderstandings where the issue of whether Bloom could play college football and still ski was concerned. It would have been convenient if there were more scholarly sources that examined this issue, but there do not appear to be any.

Likewise, there do not appear to be books that discuss the issue, either. Much of this likely comes from the fact that the issue has just recently been resolved and there has not been enough time to study it thoroughly and then write about what was discovered. Also possible is that writing has been done about the issue but the publication of that writing simply has not occurred yet.

With more scholarly sources it would be possible to get into this issue much further and analyze more information regarding the NCAA ruling that stopped Jeremy Bloom from playing college football and still receiving paid endorsements for his skiing career. However, without being able to locate those types of things the information that was collected for the literature review was restricted largely to popular magazines.

The congressional testimony that was included, however, did give some insight into what other types of issues might be brought to light and some of the feelings of other individuals that are not as intimately involved in sports.

In other words, when Bloom does an interview for Sports Illustrated the individual writing the article is much more likely to have a sports mindset and a strong opinion based on sports related beliefs as opposed to a member of Congress that is hearing testimony regarding the NCAA ruling and whether it is deemed to be fair and just for all individuals.

The issue at the congressional level then becomes not one of sports but one of equality and respect for all human beings, and one of fairness and justice, which is often looked at quite differently from a simple argument over a sports related issue.

Body of the Report The main body of the report is important, as it shows the researcher's understanding of what has been seen in the source materials and allows the researchers to tie this into the various areas that would be involved in studying something of this nature. The ruling that was given is important not just to Jeremy Bloom but to many other up-and-coming college athletes as well.

It is also a concern from the standpoint of the industry and for internships and other issues that take place within college life. On an industry-wide level the NCAA ruling is very important based on the fact that many different individuals will be affected by it. Those that play college sports and those that manage college sports teams must look at this very carefully because much of what has been determined regarding Bloom indicates that the NCAA will not be interested in changing any of their regulations any time soon.

This is what Jeremy Bloom was challenging them to do and instead he was forced out of college football because the NCAA was not willing to make a distinction between sports in its ruling that an individual that played on a college team could not receive compensated financial endorsement for a sport. Even though skiing and football are almost as far apart as one can possibly get the NCAA does not see it that way.

Instead all sports are as one sport when it comes to the dividing line between college sports and professional sports. In other words, an individual that plays sports in college cannot receive any type of endorsement for any other sport for any reason. Jeremy Bloom could have certainly continued skiing and continue playing college football without any trouble from the NCAA but when he chose to accept money for the endorsements that he was doing for skiing he effectively ended his career as a college football player.

This is unfortunate because he showed great promise in both areas. However, from the standpoint of the industry it is also very unfortunate because it means that other athletes are going to have this same problem. If an athlete is extremely competent and proficient in two different sports that athlete will have to determine which one of those sports he or she wishes to play if there is any hint of any kind of endorsement that will be taking place.

If there are no professional endorsements and the athlete simply plays two different types of sports for college the NCAA will have no objection to this and there will be no issue. However, the industry is affected by what the NCAA decides and in this case there are many that feel that Bloom should have been allowed to play both sports and receive his endorsements because the sports were radically different from one another.

On a smaller level that does not involve the entire industry the careers and hopes and dreams of many individuals in this country may be somewhat curtailed by the NCAA ruling and its unwillingness to re-examine at the issue based on the difference in the sports. These individuals will often be stopped from doing what it is that they love or at least getting paid for it because they have to make a choice between their college career in a particular sport and a professional career in another sport.

It is very hard for an individual to deal with a professional sport such as Jeremy Bloom and his skiing without getting paid. This in no way implies that Bloom was greedy at all, but rather implies the fact that going to skiing events around the country and around the world can get very expensive. The NCAA does not pay for Jeremy Bloom's college education and therefore he must pay for it himself.

He also must pay for his skiing trips himself if the NCAA refuses to allow him to be compensated as an endorser for various products while he skis. This is what the NCAA has ruled and the decision that they have made and therefore Bloom must finance his own way in the world of competitive skiing. This is often very expensive because there are many different countries that he must travel to and much equipment that he needs to have at all times.

This naturally effects what he does in terms of playing football and the kind of grades that he makes as well as the amount of money that he has for other things. His parents help to fund his ski trips but eventually that money will run out as well.

Had the NCAA simply allowed him to continue making money as a paid endorser in skiing and continue playing college football as well that would not have been a problem for this young man and he would have continued on both paths quite happily. Whether Bloom will continue to appeal the NCAA ruling and the court's ruling remains to be seen.

It is possible that he will simply give up the career that he has had in college football and turn his back on it in order to remain a professional skier and a receiver of the paid endorsements that he is so often given. It is also possible, although not as likely, that he will give up the skiing and the endorsements entirely in order to go on and play college football.

This would be the least likely scenario because, even though Bloom clearly enjoys playing football, skiing is something that he has been doing since he was three years old and he was winning tournaments and competitions at a very young age. It is something that he clearly has a natural talent for and something that he also clearly enjoys doing a great deal.

With this type of combination and the added additional fact that he can make a great deal of money at this type of work, it would be very difficult to understand why Bloom would want to do anything else. However, the real issue is not what Bloom is going to do but whether the NCAA is correct in the types of rulings that they make. There are naturally many that believe that the NCAA chose correctly because it is wrong to mix college sports programs and professional sports programs.

Many believe that this could be dangerous to the individuals involved in these programs because they often have difficulty then distinguishing between the two. Many of them may feel as though they are worth a great deal monetarily because they get paid for the endorsements that they make and therefore this sometimes makes them appear as though they feel they should be paid for their college careers as well.

Naturally, it is possible that some of these individuals do deserve to be paid for the college careers that they involve themselves in, but that is not the way that college sports programs work. However, it is much more likely that most of these individuals do not need or likely deserve the kind of money that they are asking for, both for college careers and for endorsements as well.

Because of this, these individuals get angry and do not perform as well as they should in their college careers, or they leave their college careers entirely and not only do not play on college teams but do not receive a college education as well. The assumption that many of these individuals would make would be that they are making enough money as paid endorsers for the sport that they are involved and a college education is not something that is necessary.

They certainly do not need that college degree to go out and get a good job and support themselves. However, most individuals that play competitive sports cannot continue to do this forever. Their body simply will not allow them to do this and as they get more tired and as they get older they have more trouble competing. Often they can still remain in the sport but they will not continue to be competitive and younger individuals will begin to win the tournaments and competitions at a much higher rate.

Some of these individuals that get older in a sport still make a good living endorsing some products but many of these individuals simply fade away over time and when this happens they do not have anything to fall back on and make money from at a later date. A college degree would help them at that point but they never received it because they left college for a professional career. Whether the NCAA is hurting the individuals by forcing them to choose is also a consideration.

It is not just the aggravation that these individuals feel when they are forced to choose one sport.