All About Greed

"[T]he NCAA, through all of their summits, hasn't accomplished anything to
benefit the student athlete. People who say that one year of college
enhances your life are blowing smoke up their butt. The same NCAA that
supposedly takes a higher moral ground on education is now allowing
conferences like the Big Ten and the SEC to form their own TV networks to
telecast the events of these so called amateurs and they continuously use
them to make money. They pretend (to be) institutions of higher education
but it's all about greed."

Ah, the ring of truth. It has a nice ring. And vulgarity-loving UD is even
more pleased when Sonny Vaccaro, "one of the most famous movers and shakers
in the history of the sport... who built a national reputation for
attracting and building lasting, influential relationships with the best
players to his elite summer shoe camps and tournaments," tells the NCAA it's
blowing smoke up its butt.

Vaccaro's annoyed by the NCAA's new 19-and-under rule
which mainly serves to keep great players out of the professional game for a
year while they hang around some college waiting to be older.

"I was hoping these kids would leave after one year [the best players have
done just that -- left college immediately on professional eligibility]
because it proved a point - that colleges will take a kid for one year, one
day, one month, one game. If you can be eligible to play in the Final Four,
there is not a coach in America who wouldn't take you and there's not a
school in America who wouldn't let you in. This is where the problem lies.
The problem lies in the schism between the amateurs and professionals. If
(NBA commissioner) David Stern wants to delay a player's entrance and he can
get the Players' Association to agree with it, I can't find any fault with
him. This is a business. What I don't accept is the continuation of the NCAA
hiding behind the morality - this forum they have - of promoting the idea of
enhancing the student athlete. This has nothing to do with the student
athlete. If they were sincere about a student athlete, they would oppose the
freshman eligibility rule and would make every student entering capable of
being eligible and doing college work by their second year in college. Then
they would have a student athlete playing amateur games. They won't do that
because of scholarship limits, TV commitments and the likelihood that ...
players ... would probably go to Europe and not go to college at all."

As you know, UD believes bigtime college sports will change only with the
implosion of the sun. But that shouldn't keep you from understanding the
truth about it. Vaccaro is planning a college speaking tour. Grab him.