Legal Commentary

If there was any doubt that college sports are now all about money, rather than students engaging in wholesome and character-building extracurricular activities, this week should put that to rest.  First, we had the spectacle of schools leaving their traditional rivals to get better deals with other conferences.  Nebraska is going to the Big 10 (Big 12 now?  It's available!), Colorado is going to the Pac-10, and -- in a move that would swamp all the others -- Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and OSU are rumored to be going to the Pac-10 too, with Texas A&M using their leverage with the SEC to sit on the fence.  The conference system is melting down in front of our eyes for one reason: TV contracts for football games.  That's it.  Of course, these changes will apply to all the other sports as well, so when OSU tennis players have to fly up to U-Dub for an early Saturday match, they can thank the football program.

The NCAA is bravely trying to maintain the amateur approach.  It issued severe sanctions against USC for rule infractions involving its football and basketball teams.  Of course, many of these sanctions will be prospective but result from the actions of coaches and players long gone.  (Other than the AD, who maintains that the sanctions "are nothing but a lot of envy.")  And what are the sanctions for?  College athletes trying to get a little money. professional representation, a house for their parents, a car to drive in.  It may sound like I'm condoning this behavior, which I'm not -- rules are rules.  But take a step back and look at the big picture.  Pete Caroll made $4.4 million as USC's coach before he left for professional sports.  Mack Brown is pulling in $5.1 million as UT's AD.  Buying a HUM-V seems kind of small in comparison.

The actions of those professional agents and their associates, with the knowledge and acquiescence of the athletes, struck at the heart of the NCAA's Principle of Amateurism, which states that participation in intercollegiate athletics should be "motivated primarily by education and by the physical, mental, and social benefits to be derived."

Of course, it said this with respect to the conference realignment:

Much has been and will be written regarding conference realignment. Some ?experts? have questioned where the NCAA is in this process. The answer is the NCAA is exactly where it should be?not directly in the discussion but standing ready to work with the conferences when realignment is finalized.

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The NCAA?s core mission ? to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of higher education and to ensure the student-athlete is at the forefront of everything we do remains unchanged. We believe that is a mission shared with conferences and our member institutions. As the conference landscape unfolds in the near future, the NCAA will be an active partner with our member schools and conferences to ensure maximum participation and education opportunities and a fair playing field for more than 400,000 student-athletes who compete in NCAA sports.

It's not just the conference system that's melting down -- it's the whole facade.  Football and basketball are no longer college sports; they are professional sports with strange and archaic restrictions on the compensation of their players.  The system is crashing down all around -- it's only a matter of time.