Jim Dunaway, president
Track and Field Writers Association
TAFWA Newsletter

"The concept of 'head-to-head' competition was endorsed by several coaches favoring the change to regionals; other regionals supporters deplored the current practice of 'running around the country trying to get marks to qualify,' part of which almost certainly was based on the fact that larger universities have more money to spend doing that kind of traveling.

"And those are not completely invalid points. But to me, they are weak compared to the negatives. One is the possibility of some of the country's best collegiate athletes not getting to the NCAAs because of injury or illness, bad racing luck or bad weather at the regionals. That doesn't happen under the current format, which almost guarantees that every top athlete in every event will be eligible for the NCAAs.

"Another negative is the fact that many athletes will have to have three all-out performances over a period as short as four weeks -- first at the conference level, then two weekends later at the regionals and another two weeks later at the NCAAs. That's not going to be too easy for most 19-, 20- or 21-year-olds. And if an athlete is injured at the conference meet, he or she will have to compete at the regional or probably miss the NCAAs. And if the injury recurs, that athlete will miss the NCAAs anyway."

Exempted contests

Billy Tubbs, men's basketball coach
Texas Christian University
The (TCU) Daily Skiff

Discussing Proposal No. 2000-106, which would eliminate institutions' ability to exempt games in basketball:

"I could call (Syracuse head coach Jim) Boeheim and ask him if he wants to play a home and home, and you know what he'll say? 'No.' In past years, we've played Connecticut, Auburn, Minnesota, Illinois and Syracuse, the kind of people we want to play (at tournaments). They don't play us otherwise. The Dukes, the Kentuckys, the North Carolinas will schedule bottom Division I opponents."

Player stipends

Loren Ledin, columnist
Ventura County Star

"The elite are going to move on. That's just the fact of life in college basketball now. But by issuing stipends to college players, we create a whole new set of complications. Mixing money and amateurs can, potentially at least, be bad news. Open the door and all semblance of integrity, propriety and amateurism may fly out the door. ...

"All this becomes a problem only when we value winning college basketball games, conference titles and NCAA championships above all else."

Title IX

Myriam Marquez, columnist
Sacramento Bee

"The problem is the laissez-faire attitude that coaches and campus administrators have adopted these last 30 years to comply barely with the law. If they had done their job of opening doors to women athletes -- aggressively recruiting players and hustling for money through corporate sponsors and boosters, as is done for many men's sports -- those administrators now wouldn't be having to shut doors to men."

Arms race

Jeffery P. Aper, professor
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Liberal Education

"The infatuation with winning, the allure of television contracts beyond the dreams of avarice, the dreams of glory and wealth that await athletes who become professionals place a grotesque twist on our urgent appeals to young people that education is their most precious asset. The best educated men and women are clearly not the most highly valued or rewarded, even in the city of knowledge, the university. Average faculty salaries at many major universities are less than 10 percent of the football or basketball coach's overall compensation. At some institutions, coaches make three to four times the president's salary, and there is no need to recite the cosmic numbers that appear in the contracts of professional athletes.

"Universities seem to have accepted the dictum of the market: 'what the most people will pay the most for' is emphasized and rewarded. Recent disputes over the role of sweatshop labor in producing university-sanctioned products illustrates the tension between market-driven and value-driven policy. Universities have long asserted that there is more to what they do than a simple agoraphilia -- that is, love for the marketplace -- but the lure of the market's rewards have shaped institutional behavior over the years, and it is likely that this influence will continue, even as strategic planners sharpen their knives over programs not in tune with the market."