The NCAA Wasn't Going to Let Leonard Fournette Auction off His Jersey for South Carolina Flood Victims

After LSU's 45-24 win over South Carolina, which was played in Baton Rouge because the game could not be played in South Carolina as originally scheduled due to massive flooding in the region last week, Leonard Fournette said he was going to auction his jersey off and donate the proceeds to the flood relief effort. Fournette finished the day with 158 yards and one touchdown—an 87 yard run—and he became the quickest player to reach 1,000 rushing yards in LSU history. Amazingly, it was his least productive game as a Tiger.

After the game he read from a note he prepared offering his support to South Carolinians, noting his similar experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and said he would be auctioning off the jersey he wore during the game to the highest bidder. As we've established, that's a pretty good bit of memorabilia: the jersey Heisman candidate Leonard Fournette wore when he became the quickest LSU player to rush for 1,000 yards since 1893. Not so fast, my friend.

Almost immediately, the conversation went from "man, what a cool thing Fournette just did," to "Wait, can he do that?" Which is just the saddest thing in the world. What a time to be alive, when random acts of kindness need to be vetted through the NCAA because they somehow stand in the way of the organization's vaunted ideal of the student athlete.

#LSU RB Leonard Fournette says the NCAA will not allow him to auction his jersey for the SC flooding relief. "Violation," he said.
— Ross Dellenger (@DellengerAdv) October 10, 2015

The backlash was predictably swift and the NCAA re-response was uncharacteristically swifter.

Leonard Fournette can auction his jersey for SC flood victims.
— NCAA (@NCAA) October 11, 2015

This is ridiculous for a lot of reasons, spelled out nicely here, but it's the immediate doubt we all felt after first processing Fournette's statement that should stay with you. A gifted, unpaid athlete wanted to do something nice and all we could think about was whether he'd get in trouble with the NCAA. This wasn't some unreasonable reaction from the public either; "great idea, but can he do it?" was simply the next logical step in the story because we know how the NCAA operates.

And it operates like this: the NCAA had to affirmatively state that, yes, Leonard Fournette could auction off his own property and donate the proceeds to charity. The NCAA had to do that because it exists to find, in its own arcane bylaws, a justification to not allow Leonard Fournette to auction off his jersey for charity. We know this from our prior dealings with the organization. The NCAA knows we know this. All, of course, for the sake of the student athletes.