The restructured NCAA must provide student-athletes a strong and unfiltered voice because college athletics badly needs more of their idealism. We, as administrators, have become too jaded, too businesslike, and too self-interested -- so much so that we have forgotten who college athletics is supposed to be about. We have lost our focus and, in the process, crushed these youngsters' idealism and sapped their enthusiasm for their sport.
And if anyone wants to argue the point, simply ask those young panelists who believed that college sports was about student-athletes, only to find that they are simply a Third World entity in the power politics of big time college athletics.
Dr. John R. Gerdy is an educational consultant located in New York City. He is also a visiting professor in sports administration at Ohio University. He served as associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference from 1989-95 and as a legislative assistant at the NCAA from 1986-89.
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