The Curious Case of Clemson's Trevor Lawrence, The NCAA, and a GoFundMe Account
Clemson University star quarterback Trevor Lawrence and his girlfriend Marrisa Mowry wanted to do something to help the people and their families affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak that currently has most of the country locked down inside their homes with little going on around them in the rest of the country.
While Lawrence is the big name, his girlfriend is also an athlete at Clemson, so when the school's compliance office found out about the GoFundMe campaign, which was a violation of NCAA rules, they immediately ordered the young couple to stop their fundraising efforts.
Almost immediately when the news of Lawrence and Mowry's activities being stopped reached the news, the NCAA was labeled ti bad guys once again, although this time it seems that wasn't actually the case.
According to Lawrence, who posted about the issue on his personal Instagram page and a statement from the NCAA on the issue, the governing body of collegiate athletics was not behind the order to stop the campaign.
“Everyone has made them out to be the bad guy, but it was more of just the rules that have already been in place,” Lawrence said. “They have done a really good job of responding and actually allowing us to do it,” wrote Lawrence on the Instagram account.
“We just wanted to say that it was not necessarily the NCAA doing anything bad,” he said. “They were not trying to stop us from raising money for this cause. It was more of just the rules that are in place that (Clemson’s) compliance department was following just to make sure we were in the clear as an organization, that we were doing things the right way.
“We weren’t exactly going by the rules, so we had to take that down and we were just trying to make sure we were okay. But the NCAA … shout out to the NCAA. Thank y’all so much for granting a waiver. They are allowing us to raise money now, to continue to raise money for what we were doing originally.”
At this moment, there are currently no Vanderbilt student-athletes that are engaged in such activities so there is nothing to worry about for Commodores fans at this point, and given this "bending of the rules" by the NCAA in this crazy time, the rules like this one were made to be broken.
