Winning the game while losing your integrity

The permanent suspension of three UNC football players is not the climax of this embarrassing and depressing episode for my alma mater. Three of the most skilled players on the team are permanently barred from college football after the NCAA found they had taken illegal gifts from sports agents. Two of the players also lied to investigators, the NCAA said. Another 10 or so UNC players remain in limbo, either suspended for a defined number of games or still awaiting the consequences of investigations by the NCAA and the student honor court. More shock waves are no doubt in store for Tar Heel fans when the NCAA and honor court reach their conclusions about what went on within the football program and how severe the punishment will be.

It's a sordid sort of mess one would expect from the nation's football factories, but not from a respected state university with a history of stringent ethical standards, at least since the basketball point-shaving scandal of 1961, which hit colleges across the country. Losing your integrity is a lot worse than losing a ball game.

As someone who can remember what Kenan Stadium looked liked before the upper deck was added, I have not been a fan of the tree-destroying, field house-razing and charm-eliminating expansion of the venerable stadium in a hell-bent effort to duplicate the style of the football factories. "Bigger, hungrier, richer" is not an appropriate slogan for a college athletic program.

Colleges and universities have ignored the 20-year-old recommendations of the Knight Commission, which sought to put a bridle on runaway college sports. Now, with the addition of sports agents eager to cash in on the multi-million-dollar contracts a first-year professional football, basketball or baseball player can earn, the entire college sports establishment may have been hijacked by the professionals, agents, television and shoe companies. It seems doubtful that the universities, which have acquiesced to every demand of coaches, players, shoe suppliers and television, can retrieve the powerful stallion they have unleashed.

Years ago, I scoffed at the notion that college athletes should be paid for their services. They bring millions of dollars to their universities and get only a few thousand dollars' worth of scholarships and other services in return. With college sports behaving more and more like a private enterprise with only nominal ties to their academic namesakes, which exercise little real control over their sports programs, I'm rethinking my opposition to paying college players what they're worth. Until colleges once again field teams composed of students who occasionally play sports instead of athletes who occasionally attend classes, perhaps we should strip away the charade, admit that college players really are pros and pay them accordingly. Forget the NCAA rules, forget academic progress, forget graduation rates; just let 'em play and be the pros they are.

We're No. 1; No, we are!

Florida beat Oklahoma last night in the BCS championship game, so that makes Florida the national champions of college football, right? I'm not so sure, and I'm far from alone. Some people who watch a lot more college football and know a lot more about it than I are not convinced.

Utah had already defeated Alabama in a convincing fashion to complete its undefeated season. Anybody else got an undefeated season? Nope. That, it would seem, should make Utah the national champion. Or maybe not.

ESPN columnist Rick Reilly makes the argument for Utah being No. 1. He also argues for the Bowl Championship Series' monopoly on deciding who gets the most prestigious and most financially lucrative bowls to be declared illegal. The Utah attorney general has launched an investigation into the BCS. President-elect Obama has said he wants to see a collegiate football championship playoff system. Might the Obama Justice Department file suit against the BCS? My guess is that Obama has more pressing matters to contend with, but an anti-trust suit might not be out of the question.

The larger issue here is the predominance of intercollegiate sports over the higher education interests of colleges and universities. Television dictates when games are played (which is why so many college games are played at night during TV's primetime instead of on Saturday afternoon, as God intended), and athletic revenues and prestige have universities in a painful grip. The big-time football and basketball powers of the NCAA turn that sports publicity into increased donations and student applications. Sports exercise greater control over higher education than any chancellor or professor would want to admit, and the situation hasn't improved since the Knight Commission began its critique 10 years ago.

A federal lawsuit or indictment against the BCS might finally get the colleges', coaches' and TV networks' attention.