By any number of important indicators, college basketball is the picture of health.

More NCAA member institutions sponsor the sport for both men and women than any other activity, and more than 30,000 student-athletes are participating in basketball at the NCAA collegiate level. The NCAA championships in all three divisions for both men and women attract hundreds of thousands of fans, and that number rises into the millions of those who watch televised games throughout the season. The Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships are among the premier sporting events annually and are the centerpieces for contracts with CBS and ESPN that go beyond TV rights to include marketing and the Internet. And the popularity of basketball at the scholastic and youth levels never has been greater.

And yet there are signs that not all is well in the world of collegiate hoops. Some of the game's most aggressive critics see the sport as a symbol of all that is wrong with intercollegiate athletics in general. They say there is too much emphasis on money and too little emphasis on education. Runaway commercialism and escalating coaches' salaries have swamped the amateur status of the sport. An expectation of year-round competition at youth levels in camps, traveling teams and extravagant tournaments has turned college recruiting into "meat markets." And the intrusion and influence of agents, runners and promoters have tarnished the game and the integrity of higher education. Even the milder critics -- including college presidents -- say there are too many games, too many prospects going to college for the wrong reasons and too much interference with student-athletes' educational requirements.

The concerns reached a crescendo in Division I men's basketball two years ago when the Board of Directors passed legislation that would have eliminated all summer evaluation of prospects in 2002. A standing committee charged with examining issues in college basketball and making recommendations to the Board quickly went to work and suggested a series of legislative proposals that were approved by the Board last November. Among other features, the new legislation:

The goals of the Board are to reduce the influence of corporate and promoter money in the recruiting process, strengthen the relationship between the college and high-school communities, and educate prospects on the value of higher education and the risks of allowing their lives to be governed by those looking for the next basketball superstar.

Frankly, the Board was less than overwhelmed with the package of legislation forwarded to it to remedy the problems of college basketball. In approving the proposals, the college presidents who serve on the Board made it clear that they perceived the package as a two-year pilot effort. If there are no significant and lasting changes in either the practices or perceptions surrounding the basketball recruiting environment, the Board could well return to its no-summer-evaluation stance.

The most glaring issue in college basketball today is the abysmal graduation rate of the participants. Because the report required by the federal government measures only student-athletes who are receiving athletically related financial aid, it is difficult to get much of an accurate reading for Divisions II and III. For the most visible Division I schools, however, the overall rate of men's basketball student-athletes is 32 percent and for Blacks on those same teams, it's 24 percent. And worst of all, at 36 institutions in Division I, the graduation rate of black male basketball players was zero.

More national legislation needs to be developed to address these concerns. And the National Association of Basketball Coaches should take a leadership role in assuring that basketball coaches are part of the solution and not adding to the problem. But it is just as clear that there are issues at the campus and conference levels that could, and should, be addressed if real and lasting change is to take place. The tough question is whether any campus has the ability to change on its own.

As a college president with pressures from all directions for your athletics program to recruit, build and win, it is difficult -- some would say impossible -- to address such issues for your institution when other institutions are not doing so. What we should be pursuing is balance in college basketball between the game and academic goals; between winning and assuring that student-athletes have the opportunity to participate fully in college life; and between appropriate financial funding and kowtowing to the market influence of commercial entities, including television.

But, the "golden egg" status of Division I basketball is also the greatest hurdle to any needed change. Even if there is the will to act, is it practical or even possible for campuses or conferences to take action even in those areas that most agree should be addressed?

In an earlier essay, we suggested that you bring together athletics administrators and coaches to examine issues around college sports on your campus. The state of health of college basketball is an area ripe for such a discussion. For example, here are a series of questions that campuses -- individually and collectively -- could consider:

There is no road so lonely as the path of unilateral reform. Before we can mend the ills of college basketball or seriously ask any college president individually to mandate change, higher education and intercollegiate athletics as a whole will have to answer this important question:

Is our primary interest to have our basketball programs in prime health...or on prime time?