Report: Pickup game with Foo Fighters leads to NCAA sanctions for Kentucky soccer players

This seems a very NCAA thing to do.

Several Kentucky men’s soccer players have been suspended from two supervised team activities, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.

Their offense? Playing pickup soccer with members of the Foo Fighters.

Well, technically the offense is playing with their coaches who were also playing with the Foo Fighters.

NCAA: Soccer with the Foos asking for trouble

The Courier-Journal reports that the rock band was in town for a May 1 show at Lexington’s Rupp Arena and decided to meet the soccer team and play a game with the team’s coaches.

As the Foos and the UK coaches played on one side of a field, UK players were having a game of their own on the other side.

Gassed Foos look to UK soccer players for relief

The Foos, not having quite the stamina of Dave Grohl’s early 90s Nirvana days, invited some of the UK players to join their game “as they were getting tired and wanted the energy level to be raised,” according to the Courier-Journal.

So they did. Because why not play soccer with the Foo Fighters?

The NCAA. That’s why.

The players who participated in the pickup game with the Foos violated an NCAA rule that prohibits student-athletes from organized activities with coaches so close to final exams, which were a week away at the time of the game. Kentucky self-reported the violation, according to the report

Good rule, poor application

It’s a good rule at its base. Student-athletes should be focused on the student part of their titles at that point of the school year.

But the application of the rule here is obtuse. And typical of the NCAA. What seemed a harmless, memorable experience for some UK students turned into a violation that punished the players.

Granted, the punishment, which will force the players to miss a pair of events like practice or meetings, isn’t much of a hardship.

It’s just not a good look to be the organization that comes down on college students for having good, clean fun with some rock legends.

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