When a little boy starts dreaming big of being a great athlete, I suspect he is still watching cartoons and tickled with the simple pleasures of life. I doubt his mind is genetically programmed to say, "I am going to violate any NCAA rule there is in order to make millions for me." At the same time there are adults circling above waiting for the time when crayons turn to touchdowns.

NCAA President Mark Emmert is paid substantial money to oversee and regulate the relationship between adults and the teenagers we call student-athletes. With 15 high profile football programs under investigation just this year, Emmert looked at who was influencing who and said the real problem is with the adults. His challenge to boosters, college presidents and sports administers was to change the risk-reward proposition of not the players – the adults.

Emmert, like college football fans throughout America thought they heard it all after 14 of the tall cotton colleges in the sport had enforcement problems. Then came the University of Miami. Miami was once so successful it became known as "the U" - the school that over a decade ago was the cream of the crop in college football.  After their fall from grace, they tried to get back to former prominence and seemed to takes some risks along the way.

Miami got caught, through a convicted Ponzi scheme felon of still undetermined veracity. More than 70 players were implicated. Several players were subsequently suspended by the school while the NCAA continues its investigation. But Miami does not have to give back the money made on the backs of those now-disgraced players. It does not have to return funds from gate receipts. It does not have to put electrodes to the brains and hearts of new found or reclaimed fans and make them go back to Miami apathy. Nor does it have to refund the millions annually received as royalties from sales of logoed merchandise.

Miami-gate would not have happened if the reward was not worth the risk, and money was not as revered as a means of access. The felon, Nevin Shapiro, gained access because he was willing to pledge $150,000 to the athletic program. He got access to the players he revered and a student-athlete lounge named after him. It's hard to imagine he could have the lounge for them to hang out and he not have the ability to hang with them. And what did he risk? If he is inclined to have a Ponzi investment scheme, he is certainly willing to live on his wits, and risk the most volatile aspects of a very volatile securities market. And he must have been willing to risk beyond his knowledge base – be it voluminous securities laws or voluminous NCAA rules.

Miami or other big time athletic programs could certainly and easily have a rule that rejects sums of over, say, $1,000 per donor.  Congress struggles with the same issue: when is too much money the equivalent of too much influence over the purpose of the law – the purpose to go good for American or in the case of the school its own student athletes. Either laudable cause, it is still lobbying for a more pernicious and pecuniary gain that is the enemy. Neither Congresspersons nor athletic programs have done a good job of resisting the wiles of the booster. And it appears they are losing the war of principalities.   

The NCAA, or the conferences, or the institutions could but have failed to establish an anti-lobbying rule with teeth. The lobbyist is either an individual or corporation. It matters little whether it is a student lounge or a luxury box. That is a matter of degree not of kind. The kind of transgression is the same. 

There are other adults to consider.  We have a group of well-intentioned decision makers that are old-styled corporate executives struggling to understand how to reach players that come from a culture and way of thinking with which they are unfamiliar. These decision makers have different titles, like NCAA executive committee members, conference and college presidents, commissioners, directors of athletics. But over 90 percent of them are older white males that are generationally challenged. Much like General Motors executives who could not understand and react to a changing marketplace, they are not the likely source for new ideas. I have been quite impressed with the ideas of a younger cross-cultural set of law students and young professionals. But they do not have a seat at the decision-making table. That is an analysis for another day.

And there is no final solution until the good grownups filter out the bad grownups that can have access to and prey upon at-risk teenagers. They have access primarily because they have money. Miami-gate is Exhibit A to the problem. Nevin Shapiro is a Ponzi schemer and now convicted felon because of it. But he was previously able to donate $150,000 to the Miami program and receive a student lounge named after him. He thereby gained access to the players. If he had not gained access he would not have had the opportunity to help over 72 players receive…shall we politely call…untoward recruiting favors.

So we can continue to heap more punishment on current players and colleges and coaches. But until we attack this problem from all its source points the root causes of the issues will still grow new infractions. Many of us will again simply blame the teenagers, claiming "they don't get it", when in fact the phrase is equally applicable to us.

 Previous installments of this series on how the NCAA can change itself:
Use technology to keep tabs on repeat offenders
Demand action from corporate entities
Set up a strong mentoring program