Ralph Nader calls for eliminating athletic scholarships

HERE.

I’ve totally flipped on this issue. You all know I’m a big sports fan, and I love college athletics. However, the academic side of the life of college athletes is too often a complete sham.

From hanging around Iowa City, I know that players in the various Iowa programs (and none of the major sports have ever been on probation, so it’s a “clean” department) were all getting gifts from boosters such as motorcycles. It was common knowledge.

Then at DePaul, another supposedly clean program over the years, I smelled many a suspicious aroma coming from the basketball program during the 1990’s. My friends and I all had players in our classes, and everyone of us saw one or more funny things happen.

My conclusion is that Division I college athletics, in the revenue-generating sports, is rotten to the core and will always stay that way as long as the money is that extensive. I’d favor the relatively radical option of sweeping all these sports out of universities altogether, in favor of European-style junior teams for the big soccer clubs.

I love watching Derrick Rose play for the Bulls. I did not love reading the reports that he had someone else take his SAT’s for him.