Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com recently was able to acquire some nice aerial photos of New TD Ameritrade Park where the College World Series will be held starting in 2011. I was in Omaha for the 2009 CWS and thought that the new location for the CWS was much better then Rosenblatt which is located in a neighborhood with very little parking. The new stadium is right across the street from the Qwest Center which is 18,300 seat arena with plenty of parking around it.

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Andrew Oliver and the NCAA have come to a settlement in their lawsuit for $750,000. Oliver had sued the NCAA for the right to have representation in his MLB contract negotiations out of high school. The NCAA became aware of him using a lawyer and suspended him at the beginning of the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Oliver brought the case to court and got an injunction so he could play during the 2009 season. The case continued throughout the season including a judge saying that the NCAA violated the law by not allowing representation of the players.

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If you have been following this site for over a year, then you have heard me talk about the Andrew Oliver case at least a few times. The main issue in the case is whether or not drafted players could use legal counsel to help them negotiate a contract. The NCAA has been very strict that these advisers violate the amateurism rule if they are paid like they were in the Oliver case. This is very interesting as MLB teams have lawyers helping negotiate contracts but the drafted player can’t? Don’t you think something is wrong there?

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The NCAA is currently looking into cracking down on the Advisers/Agents in the MLB Draft negotiations. The reason for this comes from the Andrew Oliver case where he was deemed ineligible because he had an advisor (agent) representing him out of high school during his negotiations. MLB is also not happy with the current situation with how drafted players are receiving outrageous money from some of the large market clubs.

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Myles Brand who served as the NCAA President since 2003 passed away from Pancreatic cancer on Wednesday. He was diagnosed in January and fought the disease with great effort but sadly passed away yesterday. He will be known nationally for firing legendary Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight when Brand was the President of Indiana. Knight choked one of his players during a practice which led to the firing. On the baseball side of things was a key component in keeping the NCAA baseball season at it’s current 56 game limit but currently we don’t know what the new president of the NCAA will do during their tenure.

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I reported on January 6th that West Virginia head coach Greg Van Zant made a proposal for a change to the RPI. (FULL STORY) It was discussed at the ABCA convention and recently was sent off to the NCAA Division 1 Baseball Committee where it will be reviewed again. Read the rest of this entry »

The NCAA seems to be reconsidering the decision to add a week to the beginning of the 2010 college baseball season. According to an article by the AP, over 100 complaints have come in from teams across the country. I would have to think that many of these complaints came from northern programs which a week added to the season would actually cost their school more money by having to travel down south again. Read the rest of this entry »

Keith Law of ESPN has an excellent article about the NCAA not following a court order that came in the Andrew Oliver case a few weeks ago. The court ruled back in February that agents could represent student-athletes during negotiations with MLB clubs. Read the rest of this entry »

I got an email today from Richard Johnson who is the attorney for Andrew Oliver in his case against the NCAA. He states in his email the the courts have dismissed the NCAA’s appeal of the declaratory judgment and permanent injunction against Andrew Oliver. The trial court on March 31st has set a trial date of October 19th to hear Andrew’s case against the NCAA for the remaining breach of contract and tortious interference with contract claims.

The interesting part of this email is the NCAA’s response to the injunction which was put into favor to let Andrew Oliver particpate in College Baseball. The NCAA states that the injuction has affected every single player in College Sports by having an agent represent them in negoations. You can check out the full PDF file by clicking here. I highly recommend it.

Andrew Oliver

Oklahoma State junior LHP Andrew Oliver won his case against the NCAA so he will be eligible for the 2009 season for the Cowboys. This is great news for Oklahoma State as Oliver is expected to be a first round pick and will be an excellent number 1 starter this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Aaron Fitt of Baseball America has an excellent article about how UT-Arlington and Centenary are facing Postseason bans for low APR scores. The NCAA has threaten these two schools to get their academics under control and if they don’t then the baseball programs at both schools will be banned from postseason play. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently saw that Myles Brand who is the NCAA President has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. He wrote the following letter to university presidents: Read the rest of this entry »