Quinnipiac College

USA Today

"Why should a black, inner-city teenager be stigmatized because he has no desire or aptitude for college-level schoolwork when countless white, black and Latino athletes go from high school to the minor leagues, and no one cries foul?

"When a minor league player's dream fails to pan out after several years, no one says the player wasted his chance at a meaningful future. He has earned a decent living for someone in his 20s, and he can always go to college if he desires.

"With (the Continental Basketball League and the National Rookie League), the sham that is big-time college basketball is likely to end. The superstar jock will be happy in his world. The NBA is likely to get more fully prepared players than the ones who now leap to the NBA from high school. And there should be enough above-average basketball players, both black and white, who also are serious students, to fill out the rosters of most Division I teams and maintain the college game's box-office appeal."

Gender equity

Christine Brennan, columnist

USA Today

Discussing men's nonrevenue programs recently being dropped at NCAA schools:

"Don't blame Title IX. It's here to stay, as it should be.

"No, blame the conferences and athletics directors who can't or won't stand up to their football coaches and say, simply, it's time to cut back. It's time to scale down to, say, 70 scholarships. Coaches won't admit it, because they've been spoiled, but a football game can actually be played without 120 kids standing on the sideline in uniform.

"If football scholarships were decreased, there would be two fascinating results: More of college football's have-nots would get a chance to compete with the behemoths in Division I-A, which would make for more interesting games. And of course, freeing up 15 scholarships on the men's side could save a men's swimming program or two."

Jim Scherr, executive director

Discussing an assertion in a recently published article that wrestling programs are being dropped because of a "lack of interest":

"The statement that athletics directors and college presidents have dropped wrestling programs due to 'a lack of interest' is not accurate in most cases. More often, college administrators directly cite Title IX as the reason that wrestling programs are eliminated. Reviews of the press releases published by universities that have announced the elimination of wrestling in recent years indicate that 'gender equity' is a major cause for the decision. It is not a question of interest; it boils down to financial challenges and federal mandates."

Division I-A football playoff

Richard M. Bay, director of athletics

San Diego State University

Division I-A Athletics Directors' Association Newsletter

"I must say that while I can understand the motives of some conference commissioners and athletics directors in wanting to reserve as much revenue as they can for their own causes, I am mystified by the complacent attitudes of many football coaches. I am disappointed that the American Football Coaches Association seems always to approach the debate about a playoff from the negative, when it should be demonstrating imaginative leadership in bringing about a plan that contributes to the growth and proliferation of Division I-A football -- a plan that would give more value to every conference race (playoff access to league champions) and provide reasonable revenue distribution for the good of all college athletics.

"Many of these are are the same coaches who bemoaned the NCAA limits on coaching staffs and scholarships because fewer men would experience the wonders of major college football. Now they appear to be endorsing a system in the form of the BCS, which is an elitist approach that could eventually find major college football shrinking to the size of the NFL. Ironic, indeed, since the competitive strength of the NFL is rooted in the equal sharing of its television money.

"Division I-A athletics directors should be working to increase opportunities for a wide range of young people at the highest intercollegiate level by working for an expanded Division I-A (which playoff revenue can make possible), not threaten to reduce its numbers by reserving new revenue sources for less than 60 percent of its football-playing members."

Gambling

Daniel L. Ritchie, president

University of Denver

Higher Education and National Affairs

"Despite the well-publicized problems involving college sports, the significance of the (proposed federal legislation that would ban gambling on college and amateur sports) and the NCAA's strong support for the measure should not be overlooked.

"Gambling on amateur sports -- particularly college sports -- has unfortunately become socially acceptable. Even though gambling on college sports is only legal in Nevada, many people maintain that if it is OK in Nevada, it should be OK everywhere. Some say that every campus has a student bookmaker and that every president of a Division I institution fears that a point-shaving scandal will erupt on their campus.

"So the (proposed legislation) may not entirely eliminate the problem of illegal gambling, but it will move in the right direction. The social costs of gambling are too high and well-documented.

"If higher education institutions are serious about educating students for lives of civic engagement, they should stand up and support the ban on betting on college sports -- it's a small, yet progressive, move in the right direction."