Do away with athletic scholarships

The primary objections to such a concept come, as you'd expect, from the coaches, athletic directors and NCAA administrators. Essentially their complaints can be summed up under two headings: money and minority athletes.

To dismantle the existing structure, they say, would drastically cut down on revenues. Why would networks care whether the players were on scholarship or not? The money they pay out is based on ratings. And isn't the appeal of, say, the Ohio State and Michigan game that it's a duel between Ohio State's best and Michigan's best, regardless of whether or not the players got there on scholarship? Does anyone honestly think there would be empty seats at Miami-Florida State, Tennessee-Florida, Alabama-Auburn, Notre Dame-Southern Cal or any other college rivalry because the players weren't on scholarship?

And even if for some strange reason the revenues did decline and the networks paid less for games played by non-scholarship athletes, the schools would still be raking in big bucks, and with teams that cost a fraction of what they do now. For without athletic scholarships, schools wouldn't have to outfit 130 players -- or even 85, the current maximum number of scholarships the NCAA allows for football. (Why a college team needs to field more players than an NFL team has never been explained.)

The second objection is stickier: The elimination of athletic scholarships would mean fewer minority -- mostly black -- athletes. Though this would be true, at least for a while, it wouldn't necessarily mean fewer minority college students. There may be nothing that can be done about the vast sums of money NCAA sports are bringing in, but something can be done about how it's spent.

Most colleges funnel most of their basketball and football revenues right back into their ever-expanding basketball and football programs. Eliminate athletic scholarships, and the money saved could go toward putting minority students in school. In this case, though, the minority students given aid would be ones with aptitudes for math instead of for bench-pressing 500 pounds or for making 20-foot jump shots.

Then, the millions brought in by college students would at least benefit college students. Instead of sending thousands of uneducated ex-jocks out to face a hostile society every year, colleges would have the chance to send thousands of educated minority professionals out into a society that needs them badly. Is there anyone who wouldn't contend that after 20 years that wouldn't have an enormous impact -- for the better -- on society?

And just think, guys: All the time, you could be doing this while saving money. Now there's something to think about at that next big conference on the future of college sports.

With the possible exception of Charlie Pierce, I can't think of a sportswriter over the last two decades more worthy of having his work collected in one volume than William Nack. "My Turf -- Horses, Boxers, Blood Money, and The Sporting Life" (DaCapo Press, $26) is a collection of Nack's best pieces from Sports Illustrated that, like the collections of all really good writers, reads as if it was written in one long, torrid stretch. At his best, Nack always combined the savvy of an old time sportswriter -- nobody else among the moderns has covered the two dying sports, boxing and horse racing, with his skill and passion -- with a style and vocabulary that Hunter S. Thompson would have envied a quarter century ago.

"My Turf" takes Nack's best-known pieces, including an eye-opening look at Rocky Marciano, "The Rock," a study of baseball's great forgotten team, "The '29-'31 Philadelphia A's" and a fond remembrance of the star-crossed Heisman Trophy winner from Syracuse, Ernie Davis, "A Life Cut Short," among others. As a bonus, there are some great profiles of Bobby Fisher and A.J. Foyt (the latter of which hooked me with the opening sentence, "Three laps to go, floating out there in the middle of the high banking of turn three, Bobby Unser lost it."

I don't mean to make it sound like Bill Nack is past history. You can currently read him in GQ, from which we would hope there will be another collection within a few years.

OK, where to begin? I rewrote this week's column three times because I couldn't find a way to say this without sounding stupidly sentimental -- which, to be honest, is exactly how I feel. This is my last sports column for Salon. Starting this Sunday I will be a columnist for the Sunday edition of the New York Times. There's no way around admitting that for someone in my profession writing for the Times is like playing ball in Yankee Stadium. But to writers of my generation there is generally no higher aspiration than to write for what once was called "the alternative" press, which in my case meant moving from Birmingham, Ala., to New York to write for the Village Voice, which I did regularly for nearly nine years. I thought I would never again have that kind of freedom; I was wrong, because my truest expression, for better or worse, came in the nearly three years I wrote in this space for Salon.

I've worked with great editors before, but never a better bunch of people from top to bottom including David Talbot, Gary Kamiya, Joan Walsh, Laura Miller, and my sometimes editor and colleague, King Kaufman.

I was originally planning to talk about some of the pieces I wrote here that stirred the most reaction, such as the infamous "forced grief" column on the death of Dale Earnhardt, but it sounded too much like a greatest "hits" compilation. Let me just say that not only have the editors been great here, but I've never written for a publication that, if one can judge by the letters, attracted a classier readership. (And folks, there's no need for me to suck up to you, since I'm heading out the door.) If I have any regrets, the main one is that I haven't been able to answer more mail.

Let me part on this note. If you liked the stuff you read here, continue to support Salon.

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