Rulebook 1, Justice 0

And now this voice pops up in my head ("Voices now? What's next with you?" you're saying), as the Alabama High School Athletic Association continues to steal Maori Davenport's senior basketball season. It is the voice of Gene Cato, legendary commish of Indiana's high school athletic association. And he is repeating the quote with which I will always associate him.

"The rules are clear," Gene the Machine used to say. "And the penalties severe."

He forgot to add, "Also occasionally stupid. And unjust. And a slave to process over simple fairness."

Which brings us back to Maori Davenport, and the AHSAA. She's one of the nation's top girls high school players, which is frankly irrelevant to this except that it landed her a summer playing for USA Basketball. It was a great honor, because not many high school players get to represent their country. Davenport did, and the team for which she played won a gold medal in a tournament in Mexico City.

Here's the rub: Like all the members of the team, she got a check from USA Basketball to cover her expenses. The check was for $857.20. That was well beyond what the AHSAA allows for participation in such activities. USA Basketball acknowledges this was its screwup -- it apparently never cleared this with the AHSAA -- and when Davenport learned of said screwup, she returned the check.

So no problem, right?

Wrong.

The AHSAA decided a rule was a rule, and stripped Davenport of her eligibility. Common sense, not to say common decency, would have dictated association officials acknowledge that she wasn't at fault, and that, since she'd made it right, no harm, no foul.

But, no.

Oh, the AHSAA officials did acknowledge this wasn't her fault, but that of the adults around her. No matter. A rule, they said, is a rule.

 "The stories and comments being circulated throughout the media and social networks are asking that an exception be made to the amateur rule because it was not the student's fault, the fact the money was repaid, and that the student is an exceptional athlete and will miss her senior year," said Johnny Hardin, president of the AHSAA's Central Board of Control.  "However, if exceptions are made, there would no longer be a need for an amateur rule. The rules are applied equally to ALL athletes."

You could probably find more cluelessness packed into three sentences somewhere. But you'd probably need search planes to do so.

OK, first off: Hardin's contention that the outcry is happening because Davenport is "an exceptional athlete" misses the point by a nautical mile. This has no bearing on the relevant issue, which is whether or not the rule is being applied fairly or is simply being applied with blind adherence. That would be the issue no matter who was the athlete in question.

And it's a damned legitimate issue.

The AHSAA comes down on the side of blind adherence, a position revealed by Hardin's assertion that "if exceptions were made, there would no longer be a need for an amateur rule." This is so absurd it beggars belief. Exceptions to rules get made all the time in the world beyond the AHSAA's blinders; no two individual situations are ever identical, and so the adjudication of such matters are regular features in American courts. And no exception to a rule, to my knowledge, has ever eliminated the need for that rule.

It's why there's the concept of a spirit of the law to balance its letter: Because without the former, the latter cannot truly be applied equally. One size might fit all in some alternate universe, but not in this one. Insisting it does is not only delusional but has the opposite effect intended by the rulebook to begin with.

And this doesn't even address the bizarre notion that Maori Davenport violated her amateur status even though she accepted no money.

The rules are clear, and the penalties severe.

You got the second part right, Gene. The first part could use some work.