Nutritional supplements

Wade Russell, head strength and conditioning coach
Ball State University
Indianapolis Star

"We have a basketball player who we'd like to get 10,000 calories per day. That's costly. Financially, he can't do it. ... In a perfect world, we wouldn't (use supplements). But I look at the demands we place on our athletes. A lot of them are here lifting (weights) in the morning and playing later in the day. They're at our facility three or four times a day, besides taking classes. It's naive to think they'll get proper nutrition just by eating, especially in-season."

Division affiliation

Dennis Farrell, commissioner
Big West Conference
Davis (California) Enterprise

"Any school that makes the move (from Division II to Division I) without a conference lined up to join is taking a major gamble. I don't think a school can survive as a Division I independent. You need access to Division I governance and access to Division I championships. If you make the move and don't have a conference, I just shake my head."

Chuck Brown, board of regents chair
Northern Kentucky University
Cincinnati Enquirer

Discussing the school's decision to postpone a move to Division
I-AA until a multiyear investment plan can be created:

"What we're most concerned about is how we can elevate our current activities with a focus on academics. We have capacity issues -- our enrollment is 14,000 students, and we need to be able to provide facilities to handle those students, especially from an academic standpoint. Anything we do that diverts us from that is getting us away from our core values."

Division III financial aid

Ray Smith, athletics director
Hope College
Grand Rapids Press

Discussing a new financial aid auditing process Division III launched in July that collects and analyzes financial aid data to ensure that student-athletes are being treated the same as other students on campus:

"It's not as if anybody is accusing a school or conference of cheating. But there has to be a way to level the playing field somewhat. Every school has certain awards that can be given out, and some are higher than others. But we have no real national standards or any way of comparing what one school does compared to another. ...

"There is always the feeling out in the public that if you are winning consistently, you have to be doing something dishonest. People think that we are tweaking the financial aid system. But in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, we've been self-reporting for a long time. All of the financial aid people get together in one room and lay their cards on the table."

Amateurism

Clyde Hart, director of track and field
Baylor University
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"There are plenty of foreign kids who come to the United States the right way. But most of the letters I receive are a joke. The names in newspaper articles are whited-out and replaced with the written name of a prospect who wants to come here. It's crazy. But the discouraging thing is that some coaches overlook it. Some of these kids get over here anyway and are winning NCAA championships."

Craig Tiley, former tennis coach
University of Illinois, Champaign
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"We get wrapped up in the fact that (coaches) say if they don't win, they're going to lose their job. But, in my years of coaching college tennis, I never knew anyone who lost their job because they weren't winning. I think that's a bit of a cop out.

"It's manifested itself a little bit in the fear that if they don't have foreign players, they're not going to be good enough."

Collegiate model

William Friday, president emeritus
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Richmond Times-Dispatch

"(College) Sports now is an entertainment industry. That's what it's become -- and we've let it happen. We have no one to blame but ourselves. The tragedy of it is everybody understands the value of college sports. Everybody enjoys them. But no one has the courage to raise his hand and say enough is enough, this is it. What saddens me is the lack of discipline when we all know better."