Buzz Bissinger vs. the NCAA

Like a whole lot of other serious bloggers, I didn't need much of an excuse to take a piece out of Buzz Bissinger in the aftermath of his infamous appearance on Costas Now with ex-Deadspin Editor Will Leitch. Since then, Bissinger has been making more positive noises about blogging.

Then again, after getting roasted the way he did online, I don't doubt that he might have come to the conclusion that bloggers could just as easily kill his next book as vault it to bestseller status. But today, I come not to bury Bissinger but to praise him. In particular, to praise him for standing up to the ninnies at the NCAA after they physically subdued Bissinger at the College World Series for -- wait for it -- trying to pass through the turnstiles while carrying a "professional grade" digital camera.

Apparently, Bissinger had been carrying said camera into Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium all week long without incident, until he was prevented from entering the stadium with the camera in tow, presumably to prevent him from taking shots of the action and selling them.

Bissinger, no shrinking violet as we all know, wasn't pleased with the seemingly capricious judgment being enforced upon him, which is when he started to argue and eventually triggered a physical altercation with the guard. Here's how Bissinger told the rest of the story in Saturday's New York Times:

Roughly half a dozen security officials tackled me and threw me face first into the concrete, causing an ugly gash on my leg and a silver dollar-sized bruise on my arm. My glasses broke. One put me in a chokehold while another handcuffed me, all of it occurring in front of my three sons. They were traumatized. I was traumatized. Over a camera. At a sporting event, a college sporting event that likes to think of itself as the ultimate family affair.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha is a public venue that was constructed with public tax dollars. That the NCAA believes that it can regulate what sort of camera equipment fans can carry into a stadium -- especially in an era when the distinction between professional and consumer electronics has been rendered essentially meaningless -- is an outrage only the ivory towers denizens of Indianapolis could come up with.

Further, and I can't quite believe I'm about to write this, but I'm not sure I want to live in a country where security guards feel free to provoke a confrontation with a private citizen and then physically subdue him over something as trivial as a potential copyright violation. What's worse, a bruised Bissinger and his sons were finally allowed to enter the stadium, only to sit beside another fan who was armed with -- you guessed -- a massive telephoto lens that would have been at home hanging off the end of any camera used by a "professional" sports photographer.

Granted, we don't have the other side of the story from the security guard, and Bissinger has a long track record of just being a jerk. Still, I'm not ready to let the NCAA off the hook so easily, not when they continually make the wrong choices when it comes to burgeoning digital technologies that are transforming the coverage of big time sporting events.

So as far as I'm concerned, this steaming pile of hooey belongs on top of the pile in NCAA potentate Myles Brand's inbox. So tell us "El Jefe", how does the NCAA, made up of member institutions dedicated to defending the right of individuals not to be offended by just about anything and everything, defend the physical beating of a man who wanted to do nothing more than take a couple of pictures of his kids at one of your sanctioned baseball game?

For those of you who believe this is an idle question, think again.