College Athletics

The recent editorial regarding the sanctions imposed on Penn State by the NCAA ("Penn State sanctions aren't enough," July 24) concluded with the statement that the NCAA "needs to make this penalty the first step toward reining in a sport that has grown too rich and too powerful. " Here are three suggestions that the NCAA could adopt reasonably quickly to put college athletics back in its proper perspective on college campuses: First, eliminate athletic dormitories so that athletes can experience life on a college campus more broadly.

No. 7 Loyola took great joy in snapping a 13-game losing skid to No. 13 Johns Hopkins with Saturday's 8-4 victory. But even happier times could just be down the road. Saturday's win may have further strengthened the reigning national champion's pursuit of an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament regardless of what occurs in the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament being held at Hobart in Geneva, N.Y. later this week. According to Laxpower.com which compiles its own Rating Percentage Index (RPI)

- Within minutes of announcing that she was bringing back football coach Ralph Friedgen for a 10th season at the University of Maryland, Debbie Yow's BlackBerry began to fill up with messages. The first two, she said, were enough to take the pulse of a constituency that had become increasingly frustrated with Friedgen - as well as with Yow - toward the end of a disastrous 2009 season. "The first e-mail said, 'This proves you're the best AD Maryland has ever had,' " Yow recalled of that early December day. "The second e-mail read, 'I will have you fired by 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon and I'm going right to President Mote.

For full disclosure's sake, I am a 1968 graduate of what is now Towson University (and a 1974 graduate of Morgan State University). I taught high school for 14 years and founded an advertising agency that has a sports specialty. Our company has done sports ticket sales campaigns for 43 university programs in 24 states over a 30 year period - including Towson - as well as several pro teams, including all of the local franchises. To say that specializing in college athletics is not a way to build a big media billing agency is an understatement.

When it comes to college athletics, it's time to speak truth to evil. You might think evil is too strong a word for what's going on in college athletics, but consider how Webster's Dictionary defines evil: morally reprehensible; causing harm; offensive. That pretty much sums up the state of big-time college sports today. The inane move of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten is simply the latest example. Here's the current reality of college sports: •NCAA Division I sports - especially at Football Bowl Subdivision schools - has nothing to do with education.

ERIC RAMSEY, a former Auburn University football player, is spinning tapes in public that could shake the foundation of college football.Ramsey has apparently taped more than 100 hours of conversations with Auburn coaches, alumni and even the head coach, Pat Dye. They catalog more violations concerning his own wages and working conditions than the National Collegiate Athletic Association can shake a stick at. (But, rest assured, the NCAA will find a...

The basis of college humor is poor taste. It has probably been that way since Harvard College opened its doors in 1636. That should have been taken into account last week when the student newspaper at the University of Nebraska ran a cartoon taking a shot at the off-the-field escapades of some of the football players.Don't darken my practice field again, squeaky clean coach Tom Osborne decreed: "Attending our practices is a privilege, not a right."Wait just a moment, Tommy, what's this "my" and "our" business?

It used to be, when the crimes of intercollegiate sports flashed into public view, that defenders blamed what they said were a few rotten apples. The vast majority of programs, they insisted, were crisp and clean.It was assumed the clean programs would stay that way -- free of under-the-table cash payments to athletes, free of grade-tampering to preserve eligibility and thus free of the consequent low graduation rates.Today the assumption is different. By now, sports fans fear that almost every program is or will become dirty.

The Glenelg High School Guidance Department and PTSA will sponsor a College Planning Symposium from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 15 at the school. Martha Gagnon will discuss "The ABCs of College Planning." Sessions will include discussions of selective or private schools, Maryland universities, community college and technology options, military academies and ROTC programs and college athletics - how to contact coaches and seek scholarships. Refreshments will be served. Information: 410-313-5535.

Maryland has nearly completed its investigation into gambling by members of its football team, but it will be several more weeks before the university passes its findings along to the NCAA."

Loyola is 3-2 against Denver, and the Greyhounds won all three meetings last year en route to the university's first Division I national championship, but the combined margin of victory was five goals. And in the Pioneers' only visit to Baltimore, they scored a 12-8 victory over Loyola on March 16, 2011. Top-ranked Denver (9-2 overall and 4-0 in the league) has won four consecutive games, and both losses have been by a combined four goals. Senior attackman Eric Law, a former Salisbury transfer, entered the week ranked seventh in Division I in points per game (4.4)

Hidden inside the sports section last week was an article about the University of Maryland women's basketball team's latest victory (" Terps women beat Wake Forest, 73-63," Feb. 9). The team is currently ranked seventh in the nation. Yet despite Title IX's ban on discrimination against women in college athletics, the women's exploits were buried on Page 5 of the sports section. Page 1, by contrast, was taken up with a lengthy article on a high-school boys' basketball team.

It has become part of college sports -- as ingrained as dunks and FieldTurf -- for large universities to accept prized basketball and football recruits and other athletes under more forgiving admissions criteria than are used for other students. Less understood is what happens to these top athletes once they arrive in their college classrooms. Do their grades ever catch up to those of their teammates or the rest of the student body? Do they remain in school and graduate? Interviews and documents, obtained by The Baltimore Sun through more than a dozen public records requests, offer a rare profile of hundreds of these athletes and show that the "special admits" typically have not performed as well as other players in the classroom and pose unique and expensive academic challenges at the University of Maryland, North Carolina State, Georgia Tech and other schools.

When it comes to college athletics, it's time to speak truth to evil. You might think evil is too strong a word for what's going on in college athletics, but consider how Webster's Dictionary defines evil: morally reprehensible; causing harm; offensive. That pretty much sums up the state of big-time college sports today. The inane move of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten is simply the latest example. Here's the current reality of college sports: •NCAA Division I sports - especially at Football Bowl Subdivision schools - has nothing to do with education.

There is something precarious about the college athletics funding model, in which large universities often  rely on a small number of revenue-producing teams to support “minor” sports such as track and field, swimming and tennis. When the “big” sports falter, the other sports are often casualties. That's part of what happened at Maryland, where seven teams were eliminated as of last July. Revenue declines by Maryland's traditional money makers - football and men's basketball - began in the 2006 fiscal year before the current president and athletic director arrived.

Just when you think this wild game of conference musical chairs is over, the band starts up again and the craziness continues. What we learned when Maryland bolted the Atlantic Coast Conference for the Big Ten on Monday were some sad, ugly truths about big-time college athletics. We learned tradition doesn't matter anymore. Loyalty doesn't matter anymore. A nearly 60-year affiliation with the ACC as a founding member doesn't matter anymore. Natural geographic boundaries that make sense from a travel perspective don't matter anymore.

Drug charges should be dealt with severely I am tired of hearing about so-called sports stars getting off on drug charges. What kind of message does this send to our young people? If the Ravens' Jamal Lewis is guilty, I hope they throw the book him! It is about time star athletes are treated as all other drug criminals. It's also time for the powers that be in pro sports (owners) to send a message to all participants that any kind of drug involvement will not be tolerated and will be punishable by throwing them off the team.

Loyola has received a $1 million gift to be used for improvements to Reitz Arena. The donation from Jim Forbes, a 1980 Loyola grad, and his wife Hollis, will be used for enhanced scoreboards and new signage through the Greyhounds' basketball and volleyball facility. The basketball court will ultimately be named Forbes Court. “I am extraordinarily grateful for the Forbeses' generosity, which will play a pivotal role in our overall progress as we work to achieve critical goals for athletics in the University's strategic plan,” Loyola president Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J., said in a news release.