As I developed this collection of essays, I have contemplated the final piece. It seemed appropriate to conclude with sage advice about the great advances coming our way and how they will impact higher education and intercollegiate athletics. Maybe I could assume the role of the futurist and provide enlightened predictions about the course of college sports. The truth is, I'm no better at predicting the future with accuracy than anyone else.

This I know, however. Hundreds of thousands of young men and women have benefited from the self-discipline, teamwork and life lessons that intercollegiate athletics teaches. They have done so within the environs of higher education and, in the vast majority of cases, have fulfilled the ancient Greek concept of testing mind and body. That is an ideal that has uniquely set intercollegiate athletics in the United States apart from all other sports models around the world. It is a system worthy of continued support.

I spoke recently to the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, and I discussed a phrase that embodies all the NCAA is about -- the will of the membership. Like all associations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association exists because its members can accomplish as an organization what no individual member could do acting alone, a "greater good" that serves student-athletes in their test of mind and body.

Exercising this will of the membership has guided the Association through nearly a century of evolution. From creation of the organization in 1906 to creation of the national office in 1952 to creation of the current governance structure in 1997, the will of the membership -- sometimes expressed by as narrow a margin as one vote -- has superseded the agendas and special interests of individual institutions.

Throughout this Will to Act series, you have been encouraged to exercise your will on intercollegiate athletics at the campus level, also. In an earlier commentary, I wrote that there is no road so lonely as the path of unilateral reform. And yet, the "greater good" must also be served campus by campus. Many of the problems we face seem nearly insurmountable because we are so divided on the proper solution. We have resorted to a "bible" of rules that in truth is probably 10 percent sound policy and 90 percent closing loopholes. At times, it appears that our efforts at creating new borders for our behavior are exceeded only by our violation of the spirit in which those borders were established. We already have called into question in the minds of our colleagues on campus, our student-athletes, the media and the public whether the ideal of testing mind and body will prevail or whether we will give in to our instincts to merely build temples to sports management.

In all likelihood, intercollegiate athletics and the NCAA will "keep on keeping on." The gap between the "haves" and "have nots" will continue to widen, and yet the will of the membership will provide enough of a level playing field that broad segments of the membership can compete against one another. Intercollegiate athletics has "succeeded" beyond the wildest imagination of those 13 college presidents who signed articles of confederation 96 years ago to create the NCAA. Our events dominate calendars, fill the media and are the envy of the nonprofessional sports world.

When I spoke to NACDA earlier in the summer of 2002, I related a personal story about the role of intercollegiate athletics in my life. As a youth, I was shy and reluctant to even try to fit in, and it was athletics that first gave me a sense of self-worth. In fact, it was a playground experience that was my rite of passage from awkward youth to athlete and to a life in athletics. At the age of 12, I moved with my family from the small Illinois town of Equality to the big city of Detroit, and my natural shyness kept me from joining any school activities. Finally one day, the kids were choosing up sides for a sandlot game of football -- in which we were using a softball for the football. The sides were uneven, and I was the last chosen to square up the two teams. My great moment came when I made a one-handed catch in the end zone for the winning touchdown. And from that moment forward, I knew where I belonged and how I would fit in.

The future of intercollegiate athletics should be as simple as that. You teach. You provide opportunities for young people to test mind and body. You give them a chance to fit in.

The future of the NCAA and college sports rests with you. You must exercise the will of the membership for the greater good -- the welfare and best interests of student-athletes. That should guide your will to act.