You make some good points about progression and accountability in administering the rules. Another key element to getting support for administration, though, is to examine each incident individually and make sure you know exactly what the offense is and the circumstances surrounding it before recommending punishment.
Just to say "Northwestern, practices out of season--hey no biggie" doesn't really give an accurate representation of what happened. According to the reports I've read, there is room to debate the legality of some NW players participating in what was a Discoveries practice, not a Northwestern practice. Here's how I read the situation, with the limited information available:
-NW coach works with an outside club team in the off season (legal). -Said team contains some NW players, but fewer than the 75% rule allows (legal). -Practice takes place on property that according to the paper was possessed by rental agreement by the outside club (legal). -The club's landolord in this case was the school district (Illegal? Questionable?).
Everything about the club team scenario fits within the rules except for the rule against a coach using school facilities to coach an outside team, and there is room to argue whether, in the presence of a legal rental contract or other formal agreement, the facilities in question would be considered "school facilities" while being rented out as Discoveries facilities. I'm just guessing like almost everyone else; I don't know if this was the rationale for the executive committee's decision, but I do know if I were to pitch an appeal in this case, that would be the argument I would make.
I don't have a dog in the fight; I'm just speculating. I'd like to make sense of this as much as anyone, for all of our sakes. I hope the League lets all of the teams and athletes in question participate this year--there was very little to find fault with in any of the cases except just the LOCATION of the club practices, not the substance of them...which is a silly thing to ruin someone's season over.
