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GRIZ GRIT: Time for an Overhaul

By Beacon Staff

There is a sentiment strong as I can remember to make a college scholarship worth more than tuition and fees, room, board and books.

The recent rhetoric from NCAA President Mark Emmons seems to indicate that there’s reform in the wind, but whether that includes basically paying athletes for their services remains uncertain.

Reform is needed and significant changes are required. And with college athletics in what only can be described as a state of turmoil, as major institutions have come under scrutiny for rules violations, it seems plausible a move to change the scholarship model is being considered.

I agree that some additional scholarship money should be available to cover incidental expenses, but there is no cash cow that some people seem to believe exists in the nation’s athletic departments.

Where would the money come from?

Few programs operate in the black and any budgetary overage simply helps to finance the remainder of the so-called non-revenue sports.

I guess the bigger question might be this: Is there a group of schools that should move their football and basketball programs to an intermediary level between the college and professional ranks?

They could form their own governing organization, outside of the NCAA, with their own guidelines.

There are probably 50 to 60 schools at this level. One of the main challenges would be whether a player would be allowed, after attending or playing at the top level, a return to a lower level of competition after they have received money strictly for their play.

Any such change would create even more of a spread between the haves and the have-nots, but I’m just not so sure this mandate to clean up college athletics is even possible. So why not legalize all the outside influence?

But what about a more drastic change? Why do athletes have to attend college to play sports anyway?

Scrap the current system entirely, form town teams with corporate sponsors and pay the athletes according to their value.

Let them continue to hone their skills until the pros come calling and create a different level of competition that basically serves as a farm system.

If youngsters or families are not interested in providing for their future, let them do their thing and stop pretending it is a school’s job to educate them because they are of star quality.

It could start with each of eight regions having a team and eventually each state having a team playing a 14-game schedule with a national playoff. Go figure, a national champion.

Because of weather considerations, the season would start Aug. 1 with games scheduled at college fields during the season when the home team is on the road.

Sponsors would be plastered on the jerseys much like NASCAR and the pros could underwrite the operation and be allowed to pluck an athlete off their team at any time.

College sports is irreconcilably broken and the horse is already out of the barn and I can’t see any way going back. Penalizing current players and coaches doesn’t seem like the way to make a school or an administration act appropriately.

The “death penalty,” for example, at the University of Miami is not an option because of its effect on other schools’ schedules, media revenues and the like.

Punishing million-dollar coaches with six-figure penalties accomplishes little, although I could argue escalating multi-year suspensions might get their attention.

This will not be fixed tomorrow and a band-aid approach won’t work. So perhaps drastically overhauling the system is in order.