Colleges trying to regain hold

The attempt to bring college sports back within the control of university administrators received a major lift that stunned everyone this week. Vanderbilt University eliminated its athletic department and put all sports under the control of the same department that handles intramural activities.

Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee said college sports are “broken” and it’s time for university administrators to right the ship.

Mississippi State football coach Jackie Sherrill said the move is “something that an awful lot of universities around the country will start doing.” NCAA president Myles Brand said he was pleased with the move, and that while it might not be the model for everyone, the concept was correct.

This comes as the NCAA Division I National Association of Basketball Coaches has issued an order that all coaches attend a mandatory ethics summit in Chicago on Oct. 15. The initial response from the coaches has run the gambit from “good” to “we all shouldn’t have to pay for the sins of 5 percent” to “I don’t like being ordered to attend such a thing.”

College sports is a mess and university administrators are saying “enough” and coaches associations are saying to their members, “You better get your head out of the sand.”

Good news comes on another front that will deal with the same issues, but at the high school level. University of Maine Dean of Education Robert Cobb announced this week that the university has secured a $397,000 Congressional grant to shape a coaching and sports educational initiative.

The idea is to study and assist in the training and preparation of secondary level coaches and to undertake a “statewide conversation about the purpose and merit of interscholastic athletics.”

Some of the same issues the universities are dealing with begin at the secondary level. The question of ethics on the part of coaches, parents, and players exists across the sports board. The “follow the money” theme has overtaken ethics for two decades, but the corruption created has reached an unacceptable level.

The Maine project will seek input from every Maine middle and high school that has sports, from groups such as principals, coaches, and parents and from Maine citizens who care about the development of sports in the secondary curriculum.

Former Maine Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese will oversee the day-to-day working of the project. He says, “There is no definition of what good, healthy sports programs look like or what their parameters in the middle schools and high schools should be. Articulating the essential qualities of interscholastic athletics that mesh with teaching and learning expectations will help steer good activities and experiences for kids.”

That is precisely the issue before universities with major sports programs. What began as a few games played by college kids for the fun of it has turned into a big business that got away from universities and turned political and ugly.

As universities seek to reign in the mess, Maine’s project looks to get to the core issues at an even earlier stage, and one no less important.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.