Over the weekend, a bit of a brouhaha was stirred over a decision made by the NCAA regarding Marcus Lattimore.
The former South Carolina great was offered a paid position to be on Will Muschamp‘s USC football staff in a non-coaching capacity, one that he was ready to accept after he graduates from the school in May. Lattimore also wanted to continue working youth football camps across the state.
Unfortunately for Lattimore, the NCAA ruled, absolutely correctly, that continuing to run those camps and being a paid employee of USC football would be an unfair recruiting advantage. Thus, Lattimore had a choice to make: either the job or the camps; Lattimore chose the latter.
“The NCAA ruling is fair and I will fully comply,” Lattimore said in a statement.
In an interview with The State, Lattimore further expounded on what he called “a tough decision.”
“USC compliance tried to vet it as much as possible and do as much as they could to help me out, but I could either do only USC football camps as a USC employee, or do all of my football camps as a non-USC employee,” Lattimore, who’ll be able to continue his role as an unofficial ambassador of the university and its football program, said. “It was a tough decision but I wanted to be around as many kids as possible.”
More times than not, the NCAA is rightly and correctly criticized. In this case, at least as far as how the rules are currently written, The Association got it right and correct.