Baylor RB Silas Nacita says NCAA ruled him ineligible, but the story has holes

Baylor walk-on running back Silas Nacita has been dismissed from the Baylor football team after he claimed the NCAA ruled he took an impermissible benefit.

His benefit?

Taking permanent lodging from a friend instead of sleeping on various apartment floors.

Nacita, who detailed his ordeal with the NCAA on Twitter, said he was homeless when he enrolled at Baylor and was staying on the floors of various friends. He said a longtime family friend took him in, gave him a place to live, and that the NCAA deemed that impermissible benefit and ruled him ineligible.

All I wanted to do was go to school and play the game I loved. pic.twitter.com/zYQ0HTaz05 — Silas Nacita (@Salsa_Nacho) February 25, 2015

It’s easy to point the finger at the NCAA and even at Baylor in this instance, but that might not be the right thing to do.

The NCAA said in a tweet that it did not declare Nacita ineligible as previously stated.

The NCAA did not declare Silas Nacita ineligible and Baylor has not requested a waiver for him. — NCAA (@NCAA) February 25, 2015

According to David Smoak, who works for an ESPN station in Central Texas that profiled Nacita during the 2014 season, Nacita was given options to relieve his homelessness and stay within NCAA rules and might not have taken advantage of them.

There are methods in place to help student-athletes in the position like @Salsa_Nacho, he chose to ignore them, NCAA or Baylor not at fault. — David Smoak (@DavidSmoak) February 25, 2015

Smoak also noted that Nacita was told of potential housing options prior to accepting housing from a friend.

Calls and emails to Chad Jackson, Baylor’s associate AD for compliance, were not immediately returned. However, Baylor’s Campus Living and Learning said it was not aware of subsidized housing for homeless students or students whose scholarships did not cover housing. The call was directed to financial aid.

Baylor athletics director Ian McCaw released a statement regarding Nacita’s eligibility and appeared to be shutting the door on a possible return.

“Silas Nacita will not be a part of the football program moving forward due to rules violations that impact his eligibility. We appreciate his contributions to Baylor football and wish him well as he completes his studies.”

However, coach Art Briles said he would have no problem welcoming Nacita back to the team if his eligibility — eligibility Baylor took away in the first place — were restored.

"If he's eligible, he'll be back. This is out of our control, it isn't our problem with him." -Briles on Silas Nacita — Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) February 25, 2015

Nacita’s incredible journey from a homeless high school football player and wrestler in Bakersfield, Calif., to a scholar-athlete at Cornell to homeless vagabond, community college and ultimately Baylor was documented in a Sports Illustrated piece last December. It detailed Nacita’s broken relationship with his mother and his decision to forgo a scholarship at Cornell after a year to come to Baylor. It also chronicles his journey from Cornell to Bakersfield, which included hitchhiking and sleeping in ditches, as well as his attempts to enroll in Baylor before finally earning enough scholarship money to pay for school and walk onto the team.

There are, however, holes in the initial Sports Illustrated story, including a part that says Nacita had earned scholarship money from a community college and acquired a federal loan to get enough funds to rent an apartment and buy a moped prior to joining Baylor for summer workouts in 2014.

This is the same time period that Nacita tells the Sports Illustrated writer he was homeless and sleeping on the floors of friends' houses.

Also, Baylor did not set up the interview with Sports Illustrated. Nacita sought it out.

It's worth noting that for Nacita to be declared ineligible by the university he would have had to have taken the apartment from a Baylor booster or someone with ties to the university, not just a plain-old family friend.

The fact is that Baylor dismissing Nacita and the NCAA debunking Nacita’s tweet raises major questions about the validity of this story in the first place. It’s unfortunate that we can’t take what appears to be good, heartfelt and inspiring stories at face value anymore; Manti Te’o’s fictitious girlfriend saw to that.

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