Marine vs. the NCAA: MTSU’s Steven Rhodes cleared by NCAA

Former Marine Steven Rhodes will not have to sit out the 2013 season with the NCAA announcing Monday that it fully cleared him to play after reviewing his case. Rhodes will keep all four years of his eligibility.

Here is the statement released by Kevin Lennon, the NCAA’s vice president of academic and membership affairs:

Common sense and the NCAA aren’t typically associated, but in the case of a former Marine hoping to play football at Middle Tennessee State, there’s hope.

You may have read yesterday about Steven Rhodes, who served five years in the Marines and walked on for the Blue Raiders, with hopes of seeing the field as a tight end or defensive end, only to find out that the NCAA ruled him ineligible due to participation in a noncompetitive league while in the service. The ruling itself is galling, but the end result might not be so bad: he’s appealing the decision, and his school’s president thinks he’ll win, personally taking an interest in his school’s 25-year-old freshman.

We all know that the NCAA is pretty much the worst organization ever, for a variety of reasons, but it might have hit a new low: it’s considering forcing Steven Rhodes, a 25-year-old walk-on for Middle Tennessee State who just got back from active service in the Marines, to sit out a year as he tries to fulfill his dream of playing college football.

Rhodes, a 6’3, 250-pound tight end and defensive end, a sergeant who served five years in the Marines, and after coming back to the States, got in touch with MTSU’s staff about joining the team. He hadn’t played football since high school, but found a role with the team as they lacked depth at defensive end, with head coach Rick Stockstill speaking on how Rhodes could play on special teams and was an inspiration to his teammates.