Winston-Salem State Athletic Director Responds To Viral Video Of Grounds Crew Worker Caught Casually Eyeballing Distance Between Yard Lines

DII football programs tend to have access to fewer resources than the teams that compete at the top level of the sport. However, they’re still expected to adhere to a certain set of standards established by the NCAA, which Winston-Salem State failed to do during a recent game thanks to an employee who couldn’t be bothered to properly measure the yard lines.

The NCAA has seen its power and influence take a massive hit since the start of the NIL Era, but the governing body is still responsible for establishing and enforcing the rules of the 24 different sports it sanctions.

There are currently more than 1,100 schools across the country that compete in at least one of those sports, including 665 that sponsor a football team that plays at either the Division I, Division II, or Division III level.

The level of talent may vary from program to program, but every single game is played under the same set of rules. That includes a standardized list of regulations dictating the design of the field where they’re played, which was recently ignored by one DII team in North Carolina.

The athletic director at Winston-Salem State apologized after an employee was filmed eyeballing the yard markers on the sidelines ahead of a football game

Winston-Salem State University is an HBCU located in the North Carolina city it takes its name from. It’s aligned with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and currently sponsors eight different teams that compete in six NCAA-sanctioned sports at the DII level.

The school has fielded a football team since 1940, and they played for a DII championship in 2012. However, they’ve regressed over the past 15 years or so and have seen things take a serious turn for the worse since Tory Woodbury was tapped to replace Robert Massey as their head coach ahead of the 2026 season.

On Saturday, October 10th, the Rams fell to 0-6 on the season with a 21-0 loss to Bowie State. That game was played on a field that featured some questionable markers on the sidelines, as someone captured an employee who could not be bothered to pull out a yardstick before spray-painting lines that did not meet NCAA regulations ahead of the contest.

Per NCAA rules, those markers need to be separated from the sidelines by four inches, measure the same width across, and extend 24 inches. It sort of goes without saying they also need to be exactly one yard apart from each other, but that was not the case last weekend.

The markers didn’t look particularly egregious when filmed from the sideline, although they appeared to be a bit more standardized during a showdown with Joseph C. Smith at Bowman Gray Stadium in September.

The clip came to the attention of Eric Burns, the Director of Athletics at Winston-Salem State, who pledged the school was taking corrective steps to ensure the field is marked how it should be moving forward.

We’ll get to see if that ends up being the case when the Rams host Bluefield State University this Saturday.