Commentary: Expected NCAA ruling kills Hinkle event

By Andrew Smith,
HancockCountySports.com

A few years back, I grabbed a basketball, dribbled up to the lane, elevated on the springy Hinkle Fieldhouse floor, and fired a jump shot.

Swish. 


Bobby Plump hit a memorable shot from nearly that exact spot on that exact floor nearly 50 years before. I wanted to do the same.


Why was it possible?


Because our high school team had been invited to Hinkle to play in a basketball doubleheader.

It was an annual tradition -- there were a few dates we circled on the high school basketball calendar. Sure, Pike High -- where I attended -- had a powerhouse basketball program that was consistently ranked among the state's best, so we played a lot of big games. But there were always a few dates that stood out -- the annual Marion County Tournament, with the final four at Southport in mid-January, and the annual games against other powers like Muncie Central and Ben Davis among them.

But the biggest was our annual trip to Hinkle Fieldhouse, almost always to play the equally-powerful Lawrence North Wildcats. Another memory is playing the Hall of Fame Classic in front of a nearly-packed house at Assembly Hall against Bedford North Lawrence and some guy named Damon.


But according to an NCAA ruling from last month, those things can't happen anymore, as the NCAA has spiked "non-scholastic" events from taking place at college venues. We all remember the furor when the ruling led to the disbanding of a sextupleheader that was scheduled for the gym in early December on 24 hours' notice. It appears to have also killed the Hoosier Heritage Conference girls basketball shootout that was to have taken place at Hinkle that is scheduled for Jan. 21, as reported by both the Daily Reporter and Indianapolis Business Journal sports guru Anthony Schoettle.

Originally, the girls basketball shootout was not affected by the NCAA rule, which only applied to boys hoops. But the NCAA is set to meet and likely add girls programs to that. My guess is, football is probably next.

It's intended to keep some schools from getting a recruiting advantage over others.

What it's doing instead is taking away opportunities. At the risk of telling a "walking to school in the snow uphill both ways" story, it's a crime that today's student-athletes won't get to experience what thousands of Hoosiers have been able to experience.

When we got to play our annual game at Hinkle, it was a date in the "big-time." It was a great opportunity for our players, our fans, our community to be a part of an awesome venue. Yes, Hinkle belongs to Butler University, but since it was built in 1928, it has really belonged to the entire state. It was "ours" -- Mecca for high school hoops. Just about every big game in Indianapolis was played there. It was practically the home gym for Crispus Attucks in its 1950s heyday, and an Indianapolis school could go through the entire state tournament without ever stepping off of Butler's campus to play a tournament game.

It was even better if you caught a day game -- as Mt. Vernon did a couple of years ago when its boys and girls teams played Hamilton Heights at Hinkle -- and saw the blue seats awash in the sunlight pouring in through the windows. But Hinkle was a magical destination.

This is a case of the NCAA cutting off its nose to spite its face. The percentage of student-athletes who will play at a Div. I college is miniscule, and any perceived recruiting advantage is definitely miniscule.

Are there unscrupulous operators who would try to schedule "made-for-TV" events with tons of prospective recruits in a college's venue? Certainly. But those are few and far between, and legitimate operations like Ray Compton's Compton Strategies get sucked into the vortex. It's unfortunate that the many (people like Compton, who have long put on such events that enhance the student-athlete experience) get sucked into the issues with a few.

A sensible alternative would be to have the NCAA approve the operators of such "non-scholastic events" and make sure they don't have ties with agents, shoe companies, AAU teams or colleges themselves. Because, in most cases, these events are put on by well-meaning people who are providing the infrastructure to give high school students a memorable experience, not to gain any perceived recruiting advantage for a school.

After all, high school games have been played at Butler for more than 80 years. It's only been in the last two that Butler University has advanced to the NCAA title game -- in an era when the slate of high school games played at Hinkle was sharply reduced.

The other issue is that conferences like the HHC have long been proactive about giving their student-athletes good experiences. Every three years since 2003, the HHC has held a football quadrupleheader at either the RCA Dome or Lucas Oil Stadium. Given the limited number of opportunities at Lucas Oil next year, the 2012 event -- if it happens -- is slated to be played either there or at Ball State University's Scheumann Stadium. BSU's venue has also hosted numerous "conference days" for neighboring leagues, including the North Central and Mid-Indiana Conferences. The eventual plan was to make this Hinkle quadrupleheader a regular day for both boys and girls teams, giving more of the conference's student-athletes a chance to play a memorable, special game in a special venue. They started with a girls basketball event because all eight HHC schools were slated to play conference games on the weekend of Jan. 21.

All of that could be in jeopardy. The HHC does this as a conference -- a scholastic entity -- to enhance opportunities for its student-athletes. Have a handful gone on to play in college? Certainly, but the vast majority of HHC athletes -- like any high school athletes -- will hang up their tennis shoes or cleats the moment their last IHSAA tournament event ends their senior years.

In the zeal to protect a select few student-athletes from unscrupulous recruiters -- those select few student-athletes who are often influenced by shoe companies, boosters and other handlers and who would be highly unlikely to be influenced by playing one high school game at a college venue -- we deny the many student athletes the opportunity to step out of the normal high school venue and play a memorable game at an awesome venue. We've essentially locked the door and said "to play here, you must get a scholarship."

That's wrong. Well-intentioned, but still wrong.

The NCAA is denying the opportunity to provide outstanding experiences for the many because of the fear of a few. A memorable day and a great celebration of a conference's basketball teams will instead become another 1/20th of the high school basketball schedule.

It's time for the organization to do the right thing and allow approved "non-scholastic" operators like Compton Strategies, the folks running the Region Roundball Rumble (which was booted from Valpo University) and Super Hoops -- whose Jan. 7 all-day classic at Mackey Arena was also shelved -- to use college venues if they've been properly vetted and are proven to not have ties to the slimier elements of college recruiting, and give student-athletes great experiences while they're still in high school, rather than reserving them for the select few who are talented enough to garner a Div. I scholarship.

Until then, I'd implore the HHC to continue to seek out a legendary high school venue within the conference footprint that would work. The Muncie and New Castle Fieldhouses are both iconic venues which would be a great place to host high school hoops.


Programming note: Because of this event changing and the games likely reverting back to their originally-scheduled campus sites, we will have to make adjustments to our broadcast schedule. We were slated to broadcast the New Palestine vs. Rushville and Mt. Vernon vs. Greenfield-Central games that Saturday, in addition to the Eastern Hancock at Lapel boys game that Friday night and the Mt. Vernon vs. Knightstown boys game that Thursday. Several games -- and game dates -- might change due to his move, and therefore, we will significantly change the broadcast schedule. Please stay logged into here, our Twitter account, our Facebook account or our website for more info.