Fans must share blame for college scandals

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The fault is yours. And it is mine.

Not that it was ever our intent. No, it was more like our negligence. Somewhere along the line we allowed this to happen. We permitted college athletics to grow grotesquely out of character.

We assigned it too much weight. We allowed it too much leeway. We saw television lights in the corner of an end zone and decided this was the way our alma maters should shine.

How else do you explain it? We have cheaters over here and revelers over there. Coaches acting like frat boys and players trolling for perks.

You hear that one coach is fired for gambling, another for drinking and a third for carousing. And then you discover they're the lightweights.

At Baylor, former basketball coach Dave Bliss has been accused of cheating. Of coercing others to cover up his rule violations by lying to investigators in a murder case. And that is not even the worst of it.

To divert attention from his alleged illegal payments, Bliss wanted others to suggest the murder victim got his extra money by dealing drugs. Pin it on the one person who could not defend himself. Even if it means stealing the young man's honor and memory after someone had already taken his life.

This is a place of higher learning? These are the people parents entrust with their college-bound children?

Go ahead with your smirks. Explain, in a sarcastic tone, how this is the real world and that cheaters, liars, drunks and philanderers are everywhere. That college athletics is a billion-dollar industry and, as such, it will undoubtedly have its unpleasant side.

Okay, but does that mean we must encourage it?

Have we really made beating Rival State University so important that athletic directors have no regrets hiring renegade coaches? Are we so insistent on a higher finish in the polls that we accept any recruit?

The only time we care about a player's grades is when they affect eligibility. The only time we appreciate a coach's dignity is when he is accepting a championship trophy. Otherwise our interests do not stray much further than the scoreboard or the television screen.

We have created an environment where we are practically goading universities into lowering standards and morality.

In our rush to be associated with winners, we will pay anything for coaches. Which makes some coaches so desperate to cash in, they will ignore the simplest of values to hand over a winner.

What does it say when coaches can earn hundreds of thousands in bonuses for postseason appearances and token rewards for a high graduation rate?

What does it say when university presidents - whose job it is to promote academic quality - lower their standards to get players onto campus?

What does it say when the NCAA extends the length of seasons, rubber stamps ridiculous travel budgets and jumps at network television's whims?

This is not a plea for Division I programs to operate as intramural sports. Just show some sign of restraint and credibility, because we have been seriously lacking both for quite some time.

Perhaps we could start at the NCAA level. This is an organization that will persecute a soccer player for accepting a free grilled cheese sandwich, but exploits athletes in every other fashion to make a buck. Stop the hypocrisy. Stop playing games late at night for extra TV money. Stop interrupting a student-athlete's class schedule to add more games. Discourage money-grabbing conference jumps and insist on fiscal restraint in athletic departments.

Maybe, later, we could move our attention to the university presidents. Convince them nothing is more important than a school's integrity. Nothing. Not a place in the Final Four. Not a donor's checkbook. Tell them not to hire coaches of questionable character. Grade coaches on their winning percentage, but also on their commitment to education.

Finally, we could approach the coaches. Make them accountable for promises made to parents on the recruiting trail. It is their job to win games, but to also watch out for student-athletes in their care.

This is not the NFL. It is not the NBA or the NHL. This is amateur athletics. The stakes have grown so high and our expectations so outlandish that sometimes it's easy to forget.

Human nature may account for the occasional cheater or the odd troublemaker. But universities are not a place where it should be tolerated. Punishing after the fact is not enough. A pro-active approach is better.

There have been too many scandals in too many places. Too many coaches making fools of their institutions and too many others pushing the envelope.

Yes, the fault is theirs.

But it is ours, too.

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