McAlister suspension a joke

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Seth Doria

The Wildcats hadn't won up in Seattle in a decade and they were underdogs to a team that featured one of the deadliest passing attacks in the West.

So Arizona is getting ready. The coaches are setting strategies and just thanking God that they have a quality cornerback like Chris McAlister who can almost shut down half of the field all by himself.

And then the NCAA, the almighty rulers of all college athletics, piped up and said "no!"

They said McAlister had taken an inappropriate loan, and that as punishment his team would have to play without him against Washington.

It doesn't get much worse than that.

McAlister had taken out a loan so that he could get insurance. The point was if he gets hurt while playing college ball and can't go on to the NFL, he won't be stuck with only a family studies degree and nothing to do.

Ever since college athletes started leaving school early, NCAA officials have whined and moaned about how college athletics just can't compete with the big-time money of pro sports.

The NCAA even approved a rule change for this year, saying athletes on scholarship can work while going to school to help with expenses.

Not that any full-time athlete has the time to work at McDonald's 15 hours a week while going to practice and school, but at least the NCAA took a shot. Right?

So why then are they giving McAlister trouble for insuring himself for coming back to school?

McAlister would have been a first-round pick in last year's NFL Draft, but decided to come back and help out his team. And so far, it's all worked out - the Wildcats are 5-0 and rolling into a battle for the Rose Bowl (or the Fiesta Bowl, for those extremely optimistic people out there) when they face UCLA this Saturday.

But the NCAA has rules, they say. "You can't be a regular person and use banks if you're an athlete. Especially if you're good."

This is just another example of how the NCAA violates its own goal of keeping money and college sports separate by inanely adhering to the letter of an ambiguous law.

If the NCAA doesn't want financial concerns messing with the "purity" of their games, then why did they hold a crucial player from a crucial game because he happened to get a loan FROM A BANK?

And the bank is even charging him interest - 14.5 percent to be precise - not exactly a hot deal.

It's not like McAlister tried to hide anything.

He didn't get a car from Jim Click for 50 cents or even take out a loan from a booster-related bank.

Like Jim Livengood said, it's "grossly unfair," both for McAlister and the rest of the team, to have had him suspended from the Washington game.

And if it doesn't sound that important, imagine how important it would have been if we had lost on a last-second touchdown pass where McAlister would have been?

If the NCAA wants a pure game, they should stop needlessly messing with it just to make sure everyone remembers the rules still exist.

Seth Doria is a senior majoring in journalism. He can be reached via e-mail at Seth.Doria@wildcat.arizona.edu.