Take a stand, NCAA -- don't clear Sidney to play

I'm with the NCAA on this one.

I hope it fights the Renardo Sidney case to the end.

And if it gets nasty, so be it.

I don't care.

Renardo Sidney's family said its finances are none of the NCAA's business. (Getty Images)

I just want the NCAA to fight because the alternative to fighting is to cave under a bright spotlight, and if the NCAA caves here then I'm not sure why any high-profile basketball player with a good lawyer would ever worry about his amateur status again. It's that simple to me. The L.A. Times has detailed all the questions surrounding the lifestyle the Sidney family has been living, and if the NCAA clears the McDonald's All-American without satisfactory answers to those questions -- most notably, "Hey, who paid for that house!?!" -- then the governing body will lose any credibility it still has in the discussion about whether our amateur student-athletes are truly amateur student-athletes.

Now I'm not saying Sidney is much different than a number of student-athletes, mind you.

Lots of prospects have been compensated for their talent.

I would never be silly enough to pretend otherwise.

But what makes Sidney's situation different is that he's essentially been caught, and it reminds me of a story about a speeding ticket I once received. I was driving faster than I should've been driving but not obviously faster than everybody else. So when I got pulled over I told the cop as much and explained how I didn't think it was right for me to get a ticket if everybody else wasn't getting a ticket.

"Son, I'm not here to catch everybody who is breaking the law," he said. "I'm just here to catch the people I can catch."

I wanted to punch that cop.

I hated him.

But I've never forgot what he said, and it sort of applies here. Sure, it would be great if the NCAA caught every prospect whose amateur status has been compromised, but that's just not possible. The NCAA doesn't have enough investigators to catch everybody. But what it can do -- what it must do -- is catch the people it can catch, which brings me back to Renardo Sidney.

He's caught.

Credit the L.A. Times.

It reported in June that the Sidney family had rented a million-dollar home for between $4,000 and $5,000 per month, and the NCAA is now eager to know how that bill was paid. Predictably, the Sidney family has no good explanation because, you know, there isn't one. Their response, more or less, is that how they pay rent is none of the NCAA's business.

The NCAA has countered by asking for tax returns.

The Sidney family has countered with an excitable lawyer.

"This investigation has required that two generations of an African-American family prove to the NCAA that they have the financial ability to support themselves," said Sidney's attorney, Don Jackson. He added that the investigation has "troubling racial overtones."

Let me say this: If my son ever grows up to be a basketball prospect with eligibility issues, I'm going to hire Don Jackson. He's good at what he does, wonderful at shifting the conversation. He randomly text-messages updates and is a friend of the media. In other words, I like the guy. But the problem in this case is that Jackson is on the wrong side of right, and it's difficult to take him seriously when he tries to avoid the merits of the investigation by levying claims of racism.

I mean, come on.

The NCAA is not scrutinizing Renardo Sidney because he's African-American.

(Most college basketball players are African-American, and most get cleared!)

Rather, the NCAA is scrutinizing Renardo Sidney because:

• He's been a national name since before he even played high school basketball.

• His father became an employee of a shoe company.

• His family moved from Mississippi to Los Angeles.

• His family rented a home for between $4,000 and $5,000 a month.

• UCLA and USC both refused to enroll him because of concerns about his amateurism.

If the NCAA can't scrutinize somebody with those bullet points attached to their name then it might as well go out of business. By living this way, the Sidney family was begging to be investigated, and now they're being investigated. Why this is a surprise to anybody is a mystery to me. But regardless, the bottom line is that before Sidney plays at Mississippi State the family is going to need to either explain how they lived such a glamorous lifestyle or jump in a time machine, go back five years and start over.

Those are the only ways out of this mess.

Unless, of course, the NCAA caves to the threat of a lawsuit.

That's where most industry sources believe this is ultimately headed.

Ask around, and the majority of people with knowledge of the situation believe the NCAA will pose questions, request documents, delay and delay some more before eventually clearing Sidney in November or December because the alternative (i.e., refusing to clear Sidney) will almost certainly lead to a high-profile lawsuit, and the NCAA doesn't like high-profile lawsuits. That's why you often see international students or lightly regarded prospects deal with eligibility issues, but almost never see an O.J. Mayo or Derrick Rose pushed aside. The high-profile guys at marquee schools have access to lawyers who will take their cases, and those cases will garner national headlines that the NCAA would rather avoid. So the NCAA typically caves in these matters and reduces itself to hoping controversy doesn't arise at a later date.

Sometimes that approach works.

In the case of Mayo and Rose, it did not.

But either way, now is the time for the NCAA to take a stand and fight because if the governing body is bullied on this stage, it'll send a message that it can be bullied anywhere by anybody with the means and celebrity to push back. It would be embarrassing, bordering on shameful considering -- and I can't stress this enough -- it's already been documented that, at the very least, the family rented a house for between $4,000 and $5,000 a month.

How was that possible?

That's among the questions the NCAA is asking.

And unless it gets a good answer, Renardo Sidney should not be cleared.