National Collegiate Athletic Association rules say athletes who have accepted prize money beyond their expenses in any tournament or who have played for a professional team in a sport cannot compete collegiately in that sport. But many such tennis players from other countries do anyway so many that dozens of college coaches over the past 12 years have complained to the N.C.A.A. about scores of athletes who they contend are professionals. The coaches have had little success. Although the N.C.A.A. has long proclaimed amateurism as a "bedrock principle," it has declared only three of these international athletes ineligible since 2003, and it has granted exemptions in case after case. Some colleges, emboldened because the N.C.A.A. leaves it to them to police their athletes, have interpreted the principle of amateurism loosely. (Thomas W. Fallon, December 2004)
The result, these coaches say, is that many international players competing in college are failed professionals. They say such players are older and more experienced than college players from the United States and it is unfair that they are being given scholarships at the expense of true amateurs. The coaches also express frustration with the N.C.A.A., which they say is overwhelmed with trying to enforce the rules in big-money sports like football and basketball while a win-at-all-costs mentality seeps into low-revenue sports like theirs. Last year, in the N.C.A.A. individual championship tournament, international players filled 38 of the 64 men's slots and 33 of the 64 women's berths. Many of those players had no professional experience, but as many as half did, according to 10 coaches interviewed by The New York Times. "No one is anti-international," Geoff Macdonald, Vanderbilt's women's coach, said. "We're ant professional.".....
