'Tis the season...

Yup, it's Bowl Time, which means that 56% of eligible teams get to play in January. It must be Lake Wobegon, because all of our teams are better than average.

Nonetheless, with all of the money changing hands it would be irresponsible for the NCAA to take time off from controversy, this time involving the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Seems that the community of Akron wanted to hold a fundraiser to help pay air fair for the families of four tOSU members, so that they could see their sons play in the "National Championship Game Sponsored by Tostitos, with no actual money going to the people playing". Well, as you can guess, that may be a violation; families are not allowed to receive benefits either, and athletes are not allowed to attend these types of events.

I can understand this. Really, I can. You wouldn't want an athlete's parents to be profiting off of their son or daughter when that person was supposed to be an amateur. It would be easy for coaches or boosters to 'help' out someone's parents in order to influence them to come to a particular school.

So, the players left the event; the money was channelled instead to an Akron Pop-Warner league, and all (hopefully) is right. But if it's not, if the #1 team in the nation is without it's running backs because someone wanted to throw a spaghetti dinner while the NC2A makes a ton of money on the bowls, then that's just ridiculous. But I'm sure that Mile Brand and pals don't have anything else more important to focus on.

Not that we should expect anything less.

UPDATE: Like I said, all is fine. But it seems that I'm not the only one who sees the hypocrisy from the NCAA in all of this- great quotes from Dispatch writer Todd Jones:

Although suspensions aren’t expected to come out of the Scarlet-and-Gray Spaghetti Scandal, the incident does remind us of the hypocrisy inherent in the NCAA, which pays no taxes on its annual revenue of $7.8 billion because it’s billed as an educational, nonprofit organization.

While OSU and Florida are each set to earn $17 million Bowl Championship Series paydays for participating in the national title game, people in Akron were cobbling together a benefit dinner in a high school cafeteria to help the families of players afford to attend that game in Arizona. The NCAA says, how dare anyone be benevolent toward the families of the amateur players in regard to a national title game that Fox paid $320 million to televise from 2007 through 2009?

Pittman is supposed to be happy with his BCS gift, a satellite radio receiver set, and the likewise NCAA-approved $65 meal and incidental bowl per diem, while his coach, Jim Tressel, earns a $200,000 contractual bonus for OSU appearing in the national championship game.

Pittman is supposed to understand why OSU, expecting to earn more than $8 million in merchandise fees from this football season if the Buckeyes win the national title, is allowed to sell his No. 25 jersey while his family can’t benefit from a fundraising dinner so they can see him play in person.

As Walter Byers, executive director of the NCAA for 36 years, once wrote: "Collegiate amateurism is not a moral issue. It is an economic camouflage for monopoly practice."