Tom McMillen, member of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
USA Today

"The influence of money on college sports is every bit as pernicious as the money grab in politics, but it doesn't have to be so. A Rhodes scholar and former runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, Justice Byron White, provided the pathway to reform years ago.

"In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark decision NCAA v. Oklahoma, stripped the NCAA of its monopoly power over broadcasting rights to college athletics events. Justice White, in his dissent against the decision, supported the NCAA's right to monopoly power. White argued that the NCAA monopoly 'fosters the goal of amateurism by spreading revenues among various schools and reducing the financial incentives toward professionalism.

"Justice White wisely understood that the NCAA's loss of monopoly broadcast power would lead to an escalating competition for money among schools. White feared that 'no single institution could confidently enforce its own standards, since it could not trust its competitors to do the same.'

"The result: Coaches and athletics administrators are constantly pressured to spend more; to recruit successfully so they can win; to win so they can fill stadiums and go on television and to the playoffs; to make more money so that new, state-of-the-art arenas can be built, salaries can be raised and so on.

"Despite years of reform efforts, it is clear that the NCAA cannot adequately reform itself. In fact, it is losing power to the conferences that are chasing their own mega-television contracts."

Gender equity

Jessica Gavora, senior policy advisor
U.S. Department of Justice
Chronicle of Higher Education

"(I)n the deeply cynical belief that Title IX quotas will never threaten big-time football and men's basketball programs, the NCAA has left men's nonrevenue sports like wrestling and swimming to fend for themselves against Title IX quota cuts. It has not only looked the other way when men's programs are eliminated to meet Title IX gender quotas, it has acted to encourage those cuts. The NCAA's five-year-plan certification process unmistakably emphasizes proportionality. ...

"Like the Office for Civil Rights, the NCAA takes refuge in the defense that it doesn't 'require' cuts to men's programs to achieve gender equity. But the NCAA, again like the OCR, doesn't need to 'require' cuts officially in order to be complicit in losses to men's programs. As long as revenue-making sports like football and basketball are immune from cuts geared toward gender equity -- and for the time being, at least, it appears they are -- the NCAA has been content to allow all of the pressure that Title IX quotas place on athletics programs to be absorbed by the men's nonrevenue sports. But if it purports to represent all intercollegiate athletics -- and to place limits on their scholarships, recruiting and play -- the NCAA has a moral obligation to speak up for men's teams that are being hurt by its craven acquiescence in gender quotas."

Donna Lopiano, executive director
Women's Sports Foundation
New York Times

"(Cuts in men's nonrevenue sports) are not Title IX's fault -- it's chicken college presidents and athletics directors who won't bite the bullet on the irresponsible spending of their football programs. Their football programs are better funded than most professional sports. Football is pitting the victims against the victims. Until they wise up, men's minor sports will be crying the blues as football keeps laughing to the bank."

Marilyn McNeil, director of athletics
Monmouth University
New York Times

"Schools making cuts are saying that players No. 70 through 100 on the football team are more important than the entire wrestling or gymnastics team. We cannot afford the excesses created by players who virtually never get their uniform dirty in a game. And I'd love to see a study on the unbelievable, exorbitant amounts of money big-time sports waste on things that have nothing to do with the student-athletes."

Voluntary workouts

Michael Aguirre, chair
Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
Los Angeles Times

"We need the student-athlete to commit to the idea that if he doesn't feel well, it's OK to back off. I know that voluntary workouts have a mandatory nature to them. Even when we're told we don't have to work out, we think, 'I've got to, because UCLA is doing it, Stanford is doing it, and I don't want to get behind.' That kind of thinking is difficult to enforce."