Really this case was sort of a one off. They could very easily waive the rule and get the benefit of the good pr. But the NCAA staff doesn't decide what the rules are. They have to follow what is has been adopted by the NCAA member schools. Now in reality there are probably very few ex-military guys who come back and want to play college football at the D1 level, so its not really all that surprising that the NCAA didn't have a specific rule addressing that situation. They dealt with it in a reasonable way, it seems to me. On the other hand, they do have rules dealing with "international" students. How many times has a Facey situation come up? First time I've read about one. But let's also be honest. His isn't a situation of a kid who ended up in New York because his family moved here for work or a better life, or a better educational opportunity or any such thing. He came here to play basketball. Nothing wrong with that, but I think it also puts a bit of the onus on him, or at least his family/advisors to understand the rules and what he is getting into. Similarly, by the way, there is some onus on UConn to know those rules when it recruits so it can be prepared to deal with this stuff immediately rather than always playing catchup. That was a problem with our international recruiting while Calhoun/Hathaway and it seems to have continued under Ollie/Manuel. I'm not sure who is responsible for this, though I would think it should be the Athletic Department primarily. The coach needs to know when to ask the questions, though.
