This is a good time for the NCAA to make an exception to its rules.

NCAA gives bureaucracy a bad name
By Ken Burger of Charleston, South Carolina's The Post and Courier

This is the kind of thing that gives pompous, overbearing, out-of-touch bureaucracies a bad name.

Here is a Clemson football player, Ray Ray McElrathbey, trying to do the right thing by gaining custody of his 11-year-old brother to rescue him from an undeserved fate in the hands of a mother battling drug addiction.

Bless and protect them, Lord.

Here is an athlete, willing to take in his kid brother and give him a place to live and let him go to school and grow up in civilized surroundings.

Here is a kid, just 19 years old himself, showing the world what it means to be a man and stand up for everything adults often say this generation isn't.

Here is a college student, giving up his freedom to take responsibility for someone less fortunate who needs a helping hand.

Here is an example of all the things we say we want our sons and daughters to learn to be in college.

Here are scores of people from all walks of life, different school loyalties, responding to the story, wanting to help McElrathbey do the right thing to help his kid brother.

But what do the powers-that-be in college athletics say when asked if we can help him along the way?

Not just no, but hell no.

Appalling audacity

That's the unfortunate sound of hypocrisy that's coming from the NCAA and the ACC when folks in the Clemson athletic department asked if people could raise some money and somehow help Ray Ray McElrathbey raise his little brother.

That's the word we hear from this billion-dollar entertainment/athletic industry that exploits young athletes for money in the name of higher education.

That's the kind of answer that literally drives rational people up the wall.
People who read in The Post and Courier nearly two weeks ago about McElrathbey's attemps to save his little brother from who knows what on the streets of Atlanta.

People who want to donate money to help these two brothers find housing and food and clothing.

People who are Tigers fans and Gamecocks fans and people who are simply fans of fairness and compassion and humankind.

All these people are infuriated by the response of the governing bodies.
The audacity of organizations such as these is appalling.

The outrage is palpable.

Surely there is something that can be done.

Common sense

The NCAA and its member conferences have reams of rules about what athletes and coaches and fans can and cannot do in the name of fairness.

They believe that to allow people the opportunity to reach out and help these unfortunate kids would be in violation of all things they hold sacred.

What they don't have, apparently, is a single paragraph somewhere in their tomes that relates to reality.

They have already warned coaches they can't give this kid a ride to school and wagged a finger at any efforts by individuals who want to set aside some kind of trust fund that would help Ray Ray and his brother, Fahmarr, get through this difficult time of their lives.

Unfortunately, while these bureaucracies are busy trying to rename school mascots in the name of political correctness and denying this makeshift family a chance to survive, we all see major crimes being committed by big-money football and basketball factories that go virtually ignored.

All people want from institutions like the NCAA and the ACC is a modicum of compassion and common sense.

If these high-and-mighty regulators had any of that rare commodity they would see that this is a perfect opportunity for them to step up, make the right decision and take credit for it.

With a simple change of attitude, they could turn a public relations disaster into a human interest story the world would embrace.

But apparently they don't see what we see.

Which is the problem with pompous, overbearing, out-of-touch bureaucracies.

Amen to all that, Brother.