Bad Things Come In Threes: Arbitrary Officiating, Sexist Reporting, NCAA Cartel Edition

Thanks to Christina Pedersen’s Bush v. Gore-like work in the women’s football semifinal yesterday, the NYT profile of Lolo Jones is not the worst thing associated with the 2012 Olympics. But it’s terrible! By the way, Alyssa’s piece also contains more reasons to hate the NCAA:

Missy Franklin, meanwhile, is getting credit for turning down prize money and endorsement deals to preserve her college eligibility, which is wonderful, but also a product of the fact that her parents can afford to spend $100,000 a year to support her career. If Longman is disgusted by the sight of Jones or any other athlete on the hustle, he might consider the structural changes that would make access to the resources to support Olympic training more universally available.

Yet more evidence that the NCAA’s “amateur ideal” is 1)a feeble pretext for exploitation and class privilege and 2)there is no #2. Allow me to provide the following exhaustive list of the defensible justifications for a policy that prevents Missy Franklin or anyone else from accepting money from third party sponsors if she wants to maintain NCAA eligibility:

That’s all of them.