Nutritional supplements

Travis LaTendresse, football student-athlete
University of Utah
Salt Lake Tribune

Discussing the risks student-athletes take when ingesting over-the-counter supplements:

"It's a minefield. My personal experience is I don't want to mess with anything that can put my eligibility at risk. The best thing to do is have a good work ethic and work hard and not take any supplements."

Annabeth Eberle, gymnast
University of Utah
Salt Lake Tribune

"Guys tend to want to have results faster and get more caught up in that win-at-all-costs thing. Some guys want to put on more muscle or weight, but as a gymnast, it's a very weight-sensitive sport. I'd rather get my calories from good-tasting food."

Football issues

Joe Paterno, head football coach
Pennsylvania State University
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"It worries me that TV has that much say over when we play and how things work. You look at a fine program like Southern Mississippi, forced to play on Thursday nights, all the new combinations and leagues all directed toward TV, and what has it gotten us? Look at the difference between us and basketball. When you talk about the buildup to those NCAA tournament games, we can't even approach that with the BCS. I don't like the BCS."

Title IX

Julie Foudy, professional soccer athlete
San Jose Mercury News

Discussing a recent OCR clarification to Title IX that would permit institutions to survey students via e-mail to determine interest in sports participation opportunities:

"If you took a survey in the 1900s on whether women wanted the right to vote, we'd have a very different country right now. If you took a survey, before Arthur Ashe, if African-Americans wanted to play tennis, they probably would have said no. Participation comes with opportunity."

James Manning, assistant secretary
Office for Civil Rights
USA Today

"What we're hoping for is that schools will use (the model survey) as a vehicle to find out whether they're meeting the interest of their students. That's their obligation and I'm quite confident there will be schools that use the survey that will find there is unmet need and they will have to respond."

Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel
National Women's Law Center
USA Today

"Our experience is if you give schools an easy way out, they're likely to take it."

Reform in college sports

Thomas Hearn, chair
Knight Commission
USA Today

Discussing presidential control of intercollegiate athletics and whether CEOs have been instrumental in reform efforts since the Knight Commission was established in 1989:

"Control by the presidents is a very big and important idea. I think we have come a long way. We're not all the way there yet, and I've come to believe that as long as there is this pull between the entertainment-television culture and the academic culture of the university -- as long as there is this conflict going on -- then reform is going to be a constant matter. I don't believe there will be a time when we do something so dramatic and wonderful that it really changes the situation. I think it's going to be an ongoing issue."