College athletics have ben important to me since I was a young child. Growing up in Durham, North Carolina, I became a UNC fan. My first hero was football player Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice. When Carolina won the NCAA basketball championship in 1957, I was as excited as I’ve ever been about a game.
Later I switched allegiances, when I went to Duke, but switched back UNC because we had too many family members split, and I lived in Chapel Hill anyway. The Tar Heels became my team. I have gone to a lot of games. I’ve traveled to Bowl games and Final Fours. I’ve spent countless hours glued to the TV screen.
The reason that I’ve recounted this personal journey is because I have just about had enough of college athletics. The greed and the lying, the insistence that “it’s all for the student athletes,” is making me ill. Now we are faced with several sexual abuse scandals, which were covered up by schools to protect the programs (i.e. the money).
We need a new model for universities. Either sponsor teams with paid players, who don’t attend the schools, or revert to a inter-mural model more like the Ivy League, but less commercial.
The athletic tail is now wagging the educational dog. The schools have lost their way, and it’s starting to hurt their educational goals. In a time when budgets have been cut and tuition costs are going out of sight, it makes no sense to occupy college time and energy with a preoccupation on the business of athletics, which has nothing to do with education.

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