The PGA, The NHL, The XFL, Now, I Take On The NCAA

NOTE: After the runaway success of my take over of the NHL, PGA and even the XFL, it's time to turn my eye towards the colleges. It's long, it's wordy, but bear with it. Please. For the kids.

It's that time of year again. College hoops loom on the horizon, and with them a barrage of preseason magazines, from Athlon to Street and Smith. Most recycle the same format year after year. Brief run-down of team, praise or bury the coach, slap a ranking and move on to the next.

Imagine my surprise when someone went off course a bit. No less than Sports Illustrated! The magazine recently better known for John Rocker rants and Heidi Klum's naughty bits ventured into ethics and sports.

They added a new wrinkle, which made me think of a few of my own.

They assigned each school a letter grade on their program's real-life standings. Graduation rates, DWIs and booster programs were all factored in. There were some surprises, like USC getting a low grade, but most were as expected, namely Duke pulling an A.

While SI is to be commended, I am nothing if not a thief of good ideas.

I think college sports should be returned to the scholar athletes. Most all would agree that from top to bottom, college athletics are rotten to the core. Schools use the athletes who in turn use the schools. Find me a big-time program and I'll show you a fistful of NCAA violations waiting to happen. Ask yourself how it is whenever ESPN reports about an athlete being pulled over, it invariably throws in that the car driven was a late model SUV. Go down to the campus computer lab and shout out "Who left their Navigator's lights on?" Cue the chirping crickets. Now go down to the football team's weight room. Odds are you'll need to break it down by model year and rim size.

The NCAA has spent countless hours and millions trying to force these programs into shape via sanctions and probations for naught. They tend to focus on the types of offenses that strike the public as petty or at the worst, bizarre. Teams have been put on probation for a coach buying lunch for a player. Now, the NCAA will insist that what the public sees as petty is simply them keeping collegiate sports clean. Here's where I come in with the plan that will revolutionize athletics, keep our nations streets clean and bring the nation's intelligence level up tenfold. (I have a tendency to oversell. I apologize, but it is a great idea.)

Here's where it starts. If you are a talented athlete, you are noticed early. Nike alone spends millions in camps and clinics for athletes in their early teens. There are scouts whose whole job is to scour the junior high schools looking for the next Shaq or Kobe. If you've got their attention, that means the boosters aren't far behind. Letter of Intent day is now televised and broken down more extensively than the NFL draft. Once you pick that school, the next step is to use the national exposure to get yourself in a high draft position. After your year or two in college, you sign with the agent and both pull in some real coin.

My proposal is to eliminate the middleman, in this case the university. I don't mean have the athletes skip school and go straight to the pros. I'm advocating the creation of a new school, funded by the agents and shoe manufacturers with tuition paid from future earning and bonuses. Now before you scoff, here me out.

The school would admit only those athletes considered to have real professional potential. The university would field athletic teams of course. Naturally, the NCAA would not allow them the accreditation necessary to fill a schedule or place them in a conference. I am certain the team could play a barnstorming schedule and fill a stadium or two along the way. What jaded alumni would pass up the chance to see how his beloved Cornhuskers would fare against the crème de la crème?

The on-field experience would serve the students two-fold. First, the chance to practice and play against the very best week in and out would be invaluable. Secondly, many would learn humility.

Most of their lives would have been spent as Top Dawgs. First one picked, cheerleader on each arm, and capped teeth. But that was usually built on the backs of the lesser. The rep was earned by playing against other high school kids, most who have accepted their futures do not lie on the playing field.

Lining up every day against those other BMOCs may help prevent a future first-round bust. How many of those bonus babies end up pumping gas because they couldn't accept the fact that the Earth actually revolved without their help? The graduates would be fully prepared to step right into a professional situation. A three-year contract would mean three good years. Not one bad year riding the pine, followed by one decent year, followed by a truly spectacular year right before the team loses his rights.

To help make the transition even smoother the classrooms would concentrate on areas of real import to these chosen few. Granted, the number of Communications majors would shrink by a factor of ten instantly, but the field was pretty full to begin with. No, these courses would cover things like Planning For a Future After Sports 101, also known as an audition at Fox. All aspects of criminal law would be covered as it applies to today's athlete. They'll learn the difference between "No Contest" and "Guilty". They'll learn how to do background checks on all former and future posse members. On a serious side, they'll take a course or two on dealing with women without resorting to a bitch slap.

Lawrence Phillips, I'm talking to you.

Think big picture now as you soak in the magnificence of this proposal. Campuses whose student body as a whole are there to learn. The sports still being played, but by those who view them as a learning experience unto themselves. A campus that's free of swaggering jocks taking up a desk that could go to a kid who needs it. A chance for others to lead, a chance to taste a glory that all those years has been the exclusive domain of 6'4", 270 pound, MegaGain fueled tackling machines.

Go ahead; find the flaws in this plan. Ok, I'll play devil's advocate. Yes there are schools that embrace the notion of the student athlete. Schools who don't use the BCS as a yardstick of their university's standings. Even on the schools that do use it, there are plenty of real-life kids busting a hump in the classroom and on the field. I will concede all of this. My reason for suggesting this change lies less in the good eggs, but the bad apples.

There are kids out there, good kids, who have been led to believe that all it takes to get by in this world is the ability to sink a 24-foot jumper. They coast through their schools buffered by hangers-ons and wannabes. They get drafted. They go to camp.

They fail.

They weren't ready. They didn't know about back-loaded contracts or how to say no to the wrong people. They have to go out again in the real world. The real world only cares about your ability to hit that jumper if you're wearing the right uniform. Wear a Knicks jersey, they love you. Wear a Circuit City smock and you're another guy in the warehouse telling tall tales.

This is for them as much as anyone.