Stop The Madness: Collegiate Sports Runs Amok

If you looked at the ESPN.com website yesterday, the NCAA Football section’s headlines read like a who’s who of collegiate athletics. Jim Tressel Lies To NCAA, Florida player dismissed from team for drug offense, Schools distorting figures for Title IX funding. And then there is this little snippet here; “Fiesta Bowl Junket Hosted Nine of Eleven Members Of The NCAA Committee Which Will Decide The Fate of The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl”. Interesting, that one there, isn’t it?

At first I thought, no, that could not be right, the bowl game hosting the very same people who were going to decide it’s fate, the NCAA is not that stupid is it?

Oh yeah, baby.

So now, we have the very same people deciding the issues, as a part of the problem?

In 1919 another of this great nation’s iconic sports leagues was in similar trouble. Major League Baseball was reeling from the Chicago Black Sox scandal, which was just the latest in several scandals that eroded public confidence in the game, and threatened to usher in a new era of sport, without professional baseball at it’s hub. Dubbed the “National Pastime” long before that era even began, baseball was in trouble and it knew it. The owners of the professional teams got together and appointed Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis as the Commissioner of Baseball. His title and authority were absolute. Gambling had run rampant through the sport, organized crime was getting it’s fingers into the pie as well, and no one knew who to trust either in ownership or in the player ranks.

In comes Judge Landis and things change dramatically. He rules with an iron hand, and lays waste to anyone who gets in his way. And all of this is done in the act of trying to preserve the game’s integrity. Landis was supposed to step in and clean up the mess, then bow out gracefully in a year or two and let business as usual take its course. Landis decided that was not going to work, and stayed 25 years in his post. But he accomplished what he intended, and that was to restore the respect to the game. Of course he also made some mistakes along the way, mind you, but they never prevented him from being the sole man in charge, and the most powerful man in the game during his tenure. Oh if poor Judge Landis could see the game now.

The NCAA has reached such a precipice. They have no control over schools, coaches, agents, nor players, and they are allowing the world of collegiate athletics to be ruined by renegades, rebels, and rogues. The rule book is antiquated, the players’ character is a shadow of their predecessors, and no one is making it stop. And now we find out that the fox has been in charge of protecting the hen house that he was already raiding.

When is all of this going to end people? The money is uncontrollable, the status of the NCAA’s integrity is in shambles, and the light at the end of the tunnel has a whistle and an engine strapped to it. I am more convinced than ever that the NCAA is going to have to scrap it’s current system of checks and balances in favor of a more aggressive stance. If a Commissioner needs to be hired over all collegiate athletics, then so be it. Take the committees and boards, and all of the above, out of the system and give control to one person who serves as Commissioner for a two year period and let them have complete control over all decisions and let the chips fall where they may.

It is time that someone with some integrity takes over the NCAA, because they obviously do not have any themselves.

Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans