Two reasons propel me to tackle head-on the reformation of intercollegiate athletics -- the need for game reduction and judicious game scheduling.

At first glance, the two may seem quite distinct, but in reality they are interrelated and cannot be easily separated. To date, no one seems to have recognized that a thorough reformation of college sports can serve to not only decrease the escalating costs of athletics, but simultaneously increase learning opportunities for student-athletes, as well.

I am, of course, heartened by recent attempts within the NCAA to begin addressing some of the problems confronting intercollegiate athletics at this time, especially those that threaten to undermine the authenticity of our educational institutions. Today's problems run the gamut from finding ways to control skyrocketing coaches' salaries to structuring the number of sports events in a manner that gives student-athletes more time for study.

The season maximum of 29 games means many midweek games have to be played, causing the away team to miss one or more days of class time each trip, and although the home team is not or should not be similarly affected, players of both teams are asked to turn their attention away from course work in midweek. If basketball coaches really are keen about wanting student-athletes to do well academically, and if the solution lies primarily in regular class attendance, it becomes evident that the answer is not allowing or disallowing a preseason event, but actually reducing the 29-game maximum.

A decrease in the number of basketball games and in competitiveness will of course mean less revenue for athletics departments, but then, too, there will be savings since teams would be travelling less, and arrangements could be made to keep play closer to home. None of this will eliminate basketball, but it will trim it to a level and shape appropriate to what we should expect of amateurs and of a game played in a nonprofessional setting.

Game reduction is only one aspect of what needs to be reformed. Judicious game scheduling also is integral to the process. Two examples from the Pacific-10 Conference illustrate this point. Pac-10 presidents recently agreed to pursue a conference postseason basketball tournament. I urged my university to vote against this, but to no avail. The chance of gaining greater exposure for Oregon and the promise of more revenue overruled sound academic reasoning. True, the Pac-10 agreed to eliminate one nonconference game to compensate for adding postseason play, but this adjustment does not recognize that teams not immediately eliminated end up playing more, thus forcing many players to stay longer out of the classroom.

But even more problematic than this -- and my principal reason for opposing the Pac-10 proposal -- is that for Oregon, which is on a quarter and not a semester system, some of the postseason play will take place during the week before finals, and some during finals week itself. This is a crucial time for all students. Here was a chance for the Oregon basketball program to act on its claim of being interested first and foremost in the education of its athletes. Regretfully, and all too characteristic of college sports today, the temptation of more exposure and higher revenues is too seductive to pass up.

The very same lack of understanding of how to promote an athlete's education afflicts Oregon's football program, as well. Recently, Oregon and its rival Oregon State University announced that their "civil war" game would be played not in mid-November, the traditional date, but on December 1, primarily because the television revenues would be greater then than earlier. To my knowledge, no one involved in intercollegiate athletics expressed concern that this was a poor time for conducting the most emotional game of the season. It turns out that the chosen date falls between the last day of fall term classes and the beginning of final exams.

Little wonder then that graduation rates for football players nationwide are declining. Cedric W. Dempsey, the president of the NCAA, recently stated that "we need to start looking at what some of the reasons might be for this decline." The principal reasons are perfectly evident and the problems fixable, but the question is whether the NCAA really has the courage to stop the academic bleeding when such action would threaten revenues.

Placing academics above athletics will no doubt mean a decline in revenue, one that might finally begin putting coaches on a par with full professors and even the presidents of their universities, another segment of the educational establishment that, on the whole, has not enjoyed the high pay of those in athletics.