Newton, Selby allowed to play, but Kanter is still ineligible?

Newton, Selby allowed to play, but Kanter is still ineligible?

By LARRY VAUGHT larry@amnews.com

9:05 a.m. EST, December 15, 2010



Auburn quarterback Cam Newton’s father was soliciting $180,000 for his son to sign with a school, yet he not only remained eligible at Auburn this year, he has led his team into the national title game and easily won the Heisman Trophy.
Kansas freshman Josh Selby was found to have accepted impermissible benefits of $5,757.68 from his family’s association with Robert Frazier, the business manager for Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, yet he will make his collegiate debut Saturday.
Kentucky freshman Enes Kanter refused to sign a professional contract, and his parents used some money a Turkish club team gave them to pay to send the teen-ager to school and put the other money they did not need in an escrow account to protect his eligibility, yet he’s been ruled “permanently ineligible” by the NCAA.
His case is going to be heard again — or maybe it already has — but indications are the best case scenario for him is that he’ll be declared ineligible this season and then allowed to play next year if he doesn’t opt to go to the NBA.
Is it just me, or does something seem a little out of kilter here?
Newton maintained he didn’t know what his father was doing. Auburn said the same thing. So Newton gets to keep playing.
Selby’s mother maintained that Frazier was someone she had known since grade school and that he only helped the family through the difficult recruiting process as a friendly adviser. Selby maintains he did nothing wrong. So he gets to keep playing.
Kanter left Turkey to play at a prep school in the United States for one year before starting his college career to make sure he did nothing wrong in Turkey. His parents maintain they thought they followed all rules to secure his eligibility. Yet he can’t play.
“I do think I’m lucky,” Selby told The Associated Press. “But God does things for a reason and I’m just thankful God gave me the opportunity to play the game in college. I never thought about leaving Kansas because they put so much work into this situation, and they never gave up on me so I was never thinking about giving up on them.”
Lucky? Compared to Kanter, you better believe it. God does things for a reason? That doesn’t sound quite right here, but then again Newton’s father is a preacher, and maybe there is a NCAA exemption for ministers to ask for money and not be penalized for breaking a rule when they are caught.
Maybe it’s the Christmas season that just has me even more disenchanted with the NCAA than ever before. Maybe it’s the way the NCAA flaunts its authority with arbitrary rulings that have no consistency and lack common sense.
Whatever the reason, it’s just impossible based on what I know to see how Newton and Selby can be playing and Kanter can’t play now, and may never be able to play for UK.

http://www.centralkynews.com/amnews/sports/amn-vaughts-views-newton-selby-all-121510,0,2730896.story