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The problem is not the mixing of athletics and education, but lies in educational institutions making money and often big money from athletics. The solution is quite simple. The universities in our country should revert to focusing their full energy on educating their students, and let the NCAA organization set up its own for-profit athletic system. The two should not have anything to do with each other. After all, college athletics did not start as a way for universities to make money, but as a way for the students to have some fun and compete for pride against their local peers.
Instead we have a system where instead of letting the students who are naturally at the school participate on the sports teams, the schools bring in people specifically for the sports team. This leaves the rank and file student body with only intramurals.
I know that I would have liked to play basketball against Yale, Duke, and Maryland during my time at Georgetown, but the school went out and got this kid named Iverson to play point guard because the team would make the NCAA tournament and the school would make a substantial sum of money.
In short, we have lost the purpose of college athletics. Our schools should be in the business of scholarly instruction, not of running semi-pro sports teams.
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