Nigel Hayes and his Wisconsin teammates have become the talk of the NCAA Tournament ever since they became enraptured with a stenographer after their opening win.
So, a bookstore near campus decided to have some fun with the occasion by producing a fantastic shirt. Which normally would be fine, but this is the NCAA we’re talking about.
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As expected, the T-shirt was a huge success. That is, until the bookstore took it off the shelves at Wisconsin’s request because the school feared it violated NCAA policies.
“The UW compliance office took steps to have the shirts removed from the off-campus retailer in order to avoid any potential violations down the road,” Patrick Herb, Wisconsin’s assistant director of athletic communications, told Yahoo! Sports. “The bookstore willingly cooperated. We are just looking to protect our student-athletes.”
To clarify, the bookstore is a third-party vendor, and Hayes’ name doesn’t appear anywhere on the T-shirt. Yet the school claims the words Hayes used to stump the stenographer could be construed as his “likeness,” thus violating the NCAA’s rule against the sale of merchandise promoting a player or his likeness.
It’s reasonable for the school to err on the side of caution, especially when its team is in the Final Four. Still, it’s a shame that such an awesome T-shirt had to be taken off shelves as a result of the NCAA’s often-vague policies.
Hayes, who didn’t even get his own shirt, seemed to agree.
“The fact that a shirt is being made and sold and has sold out is pretty egregious,” Hayes said, via Yahoo! Sports. “I’m not going to say I deserve any royalties or anything like that. That would be absurd. I’m an athletic student under the NCAA.”
