Bringing Changes To Collegiate Athletics: Part 1 of 3

The picture above is from a time when UK Athletics was not all it once had been, or what it would one day become again. The late 60’s-early 70’s were a lull from what UK wanted it’s basketball program to be. It represents something that we all must face in today’s world of collegiate athletics. Change. Change is coming, and it is not going to be held back by naysayers, nor those who would seek to bury their heads in the sand and deny it’s existence. We not only have to accept it, we need to embrace it and mold it to the good of the sports we have all come to know and love.

Pay-For-Play, The NCAA, Television rights, video games, Super Conferences. These are the issues that college athletics now faces. They are tearing at the fabric of what we all know and love. But are these changes for the good of the college athlete? Are they not the ones who are supposed to get the most good from their efforts? Well, it hasn’t been that way for a long time, and collegiate athletics is starting to look like the United States these days. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening every day.

Cam Newton. Is Cam the straw that broke the camel’s back? Maybe. Maybe not. Is the selling of college athletes where we draw the line? Are we going to allow every rogue parent to peddle their children’s abilities in search of their slice of the pie? No. We cannot. We could no more allow that than to let unfettered wagering to go on nationwide on college sporting events. Wait! What’s that? That is already happening? I guess we can add that to the list as well. So what are the answers? Is there anyone who knows what is best for the games, the players (student-athletes), the fans, and the schools as well? Does the media have all of the answers to the questions that plague every college coach from Joe Paterno to Jim Tressel?

Cheating. Ugly word. In NASCAR, the old adage was that if you were not cheatin’, you weren’t tryin’. Is that the way it should be viewed in college as well. Billy Clyde Gillespie caught the NCAA not paying attention and managed to push up Big Blue Madness on them. Was he cheating? No, not necessarily. But his actions did cause the NCAA to change the rules. So, once again, change breeds more of the same.

What would you do? Would you ban all cheaters? Are penalties that are set in stone the answer? Seems the more we try to solve problems, the more problems we create. So is that the way we should handle it? Let sleeping dogs lie? We have raised a lot of questions in this first installment, so here is what I am going to do. Your comments will help drive the next segment. What would you do? Give me some of your solutions to the problems that plague today’s schools, athletes, coaches, and fans. You can either leave your comments here or e-mail me at gakedw@yahoo.com.

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