The NCAA Shame: Why Is Harvard

Like the prodigal child grown too big for its britches, the NCAA has turned nasty and slapped its parents in the face. The irony of last week's decision to demote Ivy League football from Division I-A to Division I-AA is not obscured by the obfuscatory rhetoric voiced by people like Penn State's Joe Paterno who said," The Ivy League is living in its own world, while we deal in the real world." The simple point is that the NCAA has not only insulted its founding members, it has also gone far to undermine the values of the college athletics which--on the surface at least, through media like its commercials on football broadcasts--commercials on football broadcasts--it professes to promote.

Even schools with proud academic traditions, such as Notre Dame, have shown a sharp willingness to subordinate those values to the money and prestige an elite college football division would bring. Far from a guardian of the proper balance demonstrated over the past 15 years--that it has become a professional institution designed to defend athletics at the expense of academics, and football at the expense of all other athletics.

And the ridiculous requirements the group laid down for staying in Division I-A--a home-stadium capacity of 30,000, or an average home attendance of 17,000 or better over the past four seasons--smacks of the worst sort of arbitrariness. Previously, a school needed to support at least 12 varsity sports in order to qualify for the top-rated status. The about-face represents a transparent attempt to find a rationalization for money-mongering. Presented with the choice of losing the 61 high-powered football programs which composed the fledgling College Football Association (including all big-time teams except the Big Ten and the Pac-10 conferences) or bowing to their pressure, the NCAA backed down and buckles under sight of the fact that the NCAA should be first an educational organization and second a commercial interest group.

And "the real world" tells us that a good education will serve the vast majority of collegiate football players better than playing on a good team. Most cornerbacks and quarterbacks, after all, never play a down of football again after their four years of eligibility have expired.

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"The entire exercise is one that leaves me very cold indeed," said President Bok, referring to this damaging commercial spirit that taints the high-minded goals of higher education. And indeed Bok, as a leader of American education, has every right to lament last week's developments. But whether, as president of Harvard, the result of the vote--which pared the membership of Division I-A from 137 schools to less than 100-should worry himexcessively is another matter.