The sad case of Donte Stallworth came to a close Monday when the University of Tennessee wide receiver decided to give up the fight against the NCAA and become a professional football player.

First, a disclaimer. Yours truly is a card-carrying member of Volunteers Nation. Having grown up in Tennessee, I have lived and died with the Volunteers sports teams since an age too early to remember. My 7-year-old daughter learned to say, “Go, Big Orange!” when she was 18 months old.

But this isn’t about Tennessee, or you, or me. It’s about the NCAA. A multibillion-dollar business whose main purpose appears to be to add billions to its coffers while ensuring that student-athletes (who, by the way, are the reason its coffers are so fat) don’t end up at the Steak and Shake with someone else picking up the tab.

And it’s about naivete.

Here’s a small example of how deep the NCAA’s pockets go. Late in 1999 CBS and the NCAA agreed to an 11-year deal for television rights to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and other sports, including the baseball College World Series.

The deal begins next year and CBS will pay $360 million for the first year of the contract. The contract increases substantially each year with CBS paying the NCAA $764 million in the final year of the deal. Altogether, the deal is worth almost $6 billion.

Of course, the NCAA does good things with the money. Among other things, it pays a huge work force and feeds money back to member universities through its tournaments.

The lure of pro sports to the college athletes is as strong as a light bulb to a moth. Pro sports offer millions of dollars to the right athletes, and, after a while, some college athletes begin to hear how good they are. About the big money. How they are wasting their time in college. How they would be a first-round pick.

Thus, we come to the case of Donte Stallworth, wide receiver, University of Tennessee.

Stallworth had 41 catches for 821 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, his junior year. Pretty good numbers by most accounts. Excellent numbers when you take into consideration that he missed three games with a broken wrist and played five games wearing a soft cast.

Experts such as Mel Kiper Jr., however, advised that Stallworth would benefit from his senior year at school. Stallworth, of course, wasn’t listening to the Kipers of the world. He was listening to friends and perhaps, in the end, an agent. They told him to take the money – even when the experts were telling him the money would be much better in a year.

Whoever had Stallworth’s ear won out. Stallworth made himself eligible for the NFL draft. He had dinner with an agent, Jimmy Sexton. Sexton is a former UT football player and has represented the likes of Reggie White in the past.

Sexton arranged for Stallworth to have the use of a rental car for a day. He paid to fly Stallworth’s brother to Knoxville from California. The agent spent a total of $1,300 on Stallworth during a 24-hour period. But Stallworth did not sign a contract with the agent.

Then Stallworth had a change of heart. He contacted the NFL and had his name removed from the draft list. He did so before the NFL’s deadline for name submission. The university conducted an investigation into Stallworth’s situation. He repaid Sexton using Pell Grant funds.

But NCAA rules state that once a football player applies for the draft, he is ineligible to play college football. Even if he withdraws his name. Even if he signs no contract. Even if he wants to stay in school. Historically, the NCAA denies appeals to regain eligibility.

All this, despite the fact the NCAA allows college basketball players to test the NBA draft waters without losing eligibility.

So it was no surprise when the NCAA denied the university’s appeal on Stallworth’s behalf.

In an Associated Press story, UT football coach Phil Fulmer pointed to Stallworth needing just 34 hours to graduate and being enrolled in summer school as positives the NCAA should have taken into consideration during the appeal.

“It’s discouraging to me that we have a young man who wants to come back to school and do the right thing. … We’re required by the NCAA to conduct a program in a manner designed to enhance and promote education. It seems to me the NCAA and its committees have the opportunity to do the same thing,” Fulmer said.

Stallworth had the option to appeal the NCAA decision, but according to reports, with so much uncertainty in the process, he decided his time would be better spent preparing for the NFL combine later this month.

Who benefited here? The NCAA because it upheld a ridiculous rule? Certainly not the former student-athlete who leaves school without his degree.

Stallworth was not the first college athlete to receive bad advice and then have to pay for it. Unfortunately, NCAA rules say he won’t be the last.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.