So you want to change the culture of college basketball?

Well, you don't change a culture by being timid. You don't change a culture by tinkering. And you certainly cannot make meaningful change unless you recognize the culture that truly needs changing.

After two years of debate, the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues, charged with developing proposals to better serve student-athletes, and in particular, to protect them from unscrupulous AAU and summer league coaches, forwarded its recommendations to the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors for approval. As expected, the Board approved their recommendations: a series of rules changes. While the new rules address some areas where change is called for, frankly, none of them are significant enough to change much of anything about the culture of basketball or big-time college athletics. What we need is the courage to address the real cultural issues that need change: our own.

It is ironic that it is always "outside" influences that are cited as dire threats to the integrity of college athletics and student-athlete welfare. First, it was the influence of unsavory agents. Next it was the huge influx of sneaker company money, followed by the evil influence of gamblers. Now it is the grip that AAU coaches have on our unsuspecting and innocent student-athletes that threatens the integrity of the NCAA and college basketball. These problems, while significant, simply represent the symptoms of a larger cultural disease that exists within college athletics -- a culture we created and indeed, celebrate, and a culture that threatens the integrity of our nation's entire educational system. Until we straighten out our culture, the NCAA has no moral grounds to condemn or expect to change any other culture.

Forget about the proliferation of negative "outside" influences -- we need to look at our own culture, the one that college athletics has created, American higher education has tacitly endorsed and our society celebrates; a culture that accepts the notion that it is our responsibility to provide the very best in facilities, coaching, and support so elite athletes have every opportunity to develop their athletics abilities to the fullest.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to provide the resources and support to help an individual develop fully as an athlete, the problem is that that goal has become the primary purpose of the student-athlete's stay on campus. As a result of the primacy of this goal, the educational and personal development of the student-athlete has become an afterthought. It is as if we have come to believe that if during the student-athlete's years on campus, he or she happens to get an education, it is a bonus. This, as opposed to a culture and system that has as its central focus, to not only provide the best opportunity for, but to expect that, a young person develop fully academically, intellectually and personally while he or she happens to play athletics. It is the athletics development that must be a pleasant byproduct of the educational process, not the other way around.

We simply can no longer tolerate a system that demands athletics excellence but accepts educational mediocrity or less, for no matter how small a group of students.

The fact is, we need to look in the mirror. We need to be honest with ourselves. When we look into the mirror, we will see that while the NCAA has talked about academic integrity, even raised eligibility standards, we have seen little improvement in graduation rates. Institutions continue to admit student-athletes who are not prepared to perform college work, but nonetheless are required to devote an inordinate amount of time to athletically related activities. The fundamental conflict between the short-term, financial and athletics interests of coaches and athletics administrators and the long-term academic and personal interests of student-athletes remains. And, we continue to sell the false dream of athletics stardom to youth -- mostly black -- far too often at the expense of academic achievement and the development of personal responsibility. In short, the anti-intellectual culture that permeates the athletics establishment continues to undermine academic values and integrity.

A responsibility to lead

What we do to address this culture is tremendously important because the way in which higher education conducts its athletics programs greatly affects attitudes toward the relative value and importance of academics versus that of athletics in our high schools, grade schools and our culture as a whole. We live in a culture that glorifies athletics accomplishment far more than academic excellence. And we in higher education and college athletics have been, in large part, responsible for creating such a culture.

Perhaps it is unfair to place the burden for changing our cultural consensus regarding the relationship between athletics and education on the higher education community. After all, the professional leagues also bear some responsibility. Maybe so, but not nearly to the degree that we do. To think that professional athletics is even remotely interested in helping to address the issue is painfully naive. Professional leagues love the system as is. Colleges and universities serve as their minor-league system, not only training their future employees, but marketing them as well. And we cannot expect any help from the high schools because not only do they have enough problems of their own, but it is our athletics culture that has filtered down to them. If the culture is ever going to change, it is up to higher education and college athletics communities to initiate it. One of higher education's primary purposes is to provide educational leadership. Like the great athlete who must assume leadership responsibility to carry the team on his shoulders at crunch time, higher education and college athletics leaders must step forward. The time to lead is now.

Eliminate athletics scholarships

To change the culture of college athletics, it must be absolutely clear, not just in our words, but in our everyday deeds, that the primary purpose of our educational institutions is to promote solid educational values rather than to produce elite athletes. For example, if you really want to change the culture, we should eliminate athletics scholarships, off-campus recruiting and out-of season practices, including spring practice in football, as well as make all freshmen ineligible for varsity competition. But in particular, we should eliminate athletics scholarships.

At first glance, eliminating athletics scholarships and placing student-athletes in the same financial aid pool as all other students would not appear to be in their best interests. However, if this proposal is judged on what is in the best interests of student-athletes for the next 50 years of their lives, rather than only the four or five years they are on campus, it becomes clear that it will contribute significantly to improving student-athletes' chances of obtaining a well-balanced academic, social and athletics experience while in college. The athletics scholarship provides coaches a tremendous amount of leverage over student-athletes, particularly as it applies to student-athletes' ability to explore or develop non-athletics interests. If, in the opinion of a coach, a student-athlete becomes too involved in "outside" interests, it is made abundantly clear that the athletics department signs the tuition check. The athletics scholarship is a powerful means of keeping student-athletes focused on athletics performance. Athletics scholarships make it too easy for athletics departments to view student-athletes as pieces of property, bought and paid for with athletics resources. Eliminating them would result in student-athletes feeling less beholden to the athletics departments and freer to explore the wide diversity of experiences that college has to offer.

The athletics scholarship also contributes to the alienation of student-athletes from the general student body. While some view them as heroes, most students view athletes not as classmates but as mercenaries, bought and paid for by the athletics department. Further, many faculty resent the awarding of financial aid to individuals who display only minimal interest in academic pursuits.

Coaches will argue that such a change will hurt the "quality of the game" as some of the best players will opt to go directly to the pros. So what? Those who are not interested in education enough that they will not play unless they receive a full scholarship should play elsewhere. In fact, college athletics' public appeal will grow as it is likely the public will actually enjoy watching competition between young people who they know are truly part of the student body rather than hired guns.

But won't eliminating athletics scholarships deny educational opportunities for thousands of young people, particularly black student-athletes? Let's be honest. An athletics scholarship is not an educational opportunity at all, but rather an athletics opportunity. Athletes are recruited based upon their athletics potential, with education an afterthought at best. This is true particularly in the case of Blacks in the sports of football and basketball. If athletics scholarships represented a real educational opportunity, why is it that athletics administrators constantly bemoan the fact that there are so few qualified Blacks to fill leadership, management and coaching positions today? Football and basketball programs have been recruiting Blacks for more than 40 years -- plenty of time to develop coaches and administrators to fill current positions. The fact is, we have recruited them and demanded athletics performance all while expecting less of them academically. The result is far too many of our former black student-athletes leave without the education and skills to perform in the real world because they have lived in a culture that rewarded them for their athletics accomplishments to the exclusion of all else. You reap what you sow.

And what about those who will lose out on the chance to hone their skills for an eventual pro career? Where will they go? Rest assured, they will find a place to play and be seen. The market will ensure it. If they can play, the pros will find them. Besides, is the purpose of our colleges and universities to develop professional athletes?

The issue is control. The fact that the athletics department "signs the check" makes certain that student-athletes' lives will remain consumed by their athletics responsibilities, but more important, it assures that they remain immersed in a culture that rewards athletics achievement, often at the expense of all else. Eliminating athletics scholarships will release student-athletes from excessive athletics department oversight and its cultural influence and allow them to begin to think and act for themselves. Further, in receiving institutional rather than athletics aid, student-athletes will be looked upon by other students and the rest of the academic community as students first, athletes second -- true student-athletes who are truly a part of the general student body.

Increased independence for student-athletes, coupled with a fundamental change in how they are perceived, will result in a radical change in the culture of college athletics. That was the goal, wasn't it?

In the final analysis, we once again have missed the forest of reform because of the trees. We have been trying to change the wrong culture all along. Rather than continuing to point fingers at "outside" influences, we should heed then-NCAA Executive Director Dick Schultz's assessment of the state of college athletics in his 1988 State of the Association address, which holds true today: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

John R. Gerdy is author of "The Successful College Athletic Program: The New Standard." His second book, "Sports in School: The Future of an Institution," will be released by Teachers College Press in August 2000. He has been a visiting professor at Ohio University and previously has worked for the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference.