Friday, Jul 4, 2008
If it really wants to clean up the corrupt mess that is college athletics, the NCAA has to be prepared to go all the way. Plus: A goodbye.
Mar 15, 2003 | "Of the making of reforms," Confucius is said to have said, "there is no end." With regard to college sports, he might have added: especially when the reforms are halfhearted.
Myles Brand, the new president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, says, "Academic reform in athletics is now a (college) presidential issue. Presidents are leading the way in making the decisions." John Walda, the chairman of the board of directors of the Association of Governing Boards, says, "We can't say 'Leave it to the athletic directors to fix' because it has been years and years and they haven't been fixed." And as we go to press, California state Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, announced that on April 9 he will be holding an "International Hearing on College Athletics" which will feature representatives from not only the NCAA but, dig this, the recently formed College Athletes Coalition. The winds of change are in the air.
If the academic folk within the NCAA are serious about making reforms in college sports, let them consider going all the way. There's one sweeping measure that is simple, fair and economically advantageous: Do away with athletic scholarships. And while we're at it, do away with special athletic dorms designed to set athletes apart from the rest of college life.
Now, I know no one thinks this is going to happen in their lifetime, but let me outline the advantages so we can get the program started.
Consider, first, that scarcely a week goes by without news of some fresh scandal involving the football and basketball programs at our major schools. Steroids, falsified grades, under-the-table gifts from boosters, and, of course, the vice that the NCAA was formed to eradicate in the first place, of gambling. My favorite new transgression was committed by 12 Villanova basketball players suspended for making unauthorized long-distance calls. I mean, where's Catherine Zeta-Jones when you really need her? The off-campus activities of Florida schools alone could have supplied enough material for a revival of "Miami Vice."
And how serious is the NCAA about solving these problems? The NCAA's usual response, when it gets around to taking action, is to punish thousands of students and student athletes by barring their schools' teams from TV and postseason competition. Of course students and student athletes are easier to punish than coaches and administrators; they have no rights.
It has been suggested that a return to one-platoon football would cut the average school's athletic budget by nearly 25 percent. Why not go a step further? Since we now know that the overwhelming percentage of America's athletic departments lose money anyway, and largely because of football, why not save everyone a lot more money by eliminating athletic scholarships entirely?
The barrels of cash college sports bring in is a fact that can't be disregarded so long as millions of alumni and fans are willing to pay for tickets and turn on their TVs. What's to be done short of turning 18-year-olds into legitimate professionals?
For starters, colleges can get out of the business of being a cost-free minor league for the National Basketball Association and National Football League. The elimination of athletic scholarships would mean that football and basketball players would be ill-prepared for pro sports. But why should that concern colleges?
Colleges would be forced to try something new: to field teams comprised of college students, not future pro draft picks. There would be no more preferential treatment for "scholar-athletes." Nevertheless, more athletes would graduate because they would be entering college as students, not athletes. Without athletic scholarships, we'd really find out if students from Miami and Ohio State play football better than students at Stanford and Northwestern.
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