The NCAA last week released a list of 15 “high schools” whose transcripts will no longer be accepted in determining eligibility of student-athletes for college sports. One of those schools is North Atlantic Regional High of Lewiston.

Any school named will have a right to appeal the decision.

The long-investigated problem is whether these and other schools are just diploma mills for athletes who cannot or do not want to pass through the normal high school process. Put bluntly, are these schools providing high school athletes a way to cheat their way to college sports.

The NCAA action is warranted against any such diploma mill school. However, there is a greater responsibility.

Colleges that have accepted students with transcripts from such schools had the blinders on. In fact, one can reasonably assume many colleges found athletes who were not going to make it through high school, “suggested” such diploma mill schools to them, and then recruited them to play at that college.

This is just another of the skirt-the-rules practices in which colleges engage to win in sports.

The first responsibility lies with parents, who should ensure students are not flimflammed into such schools. That is easier said than done when that may be the way to a college admission.

The next line of defense is with every college taking those blinders off and thoroughly investigating any transcript from a school for which there are legitimacy questions.

Colleges did not have to wait for this list of 15 from the NCAA to know where the problems might lie. They do not have to wait for the next list to know that there are other problem schools.

The danger in the naming of the 15 is that some colleges will use that as an excuse to do nothing. They will not accept transcripts from these schools, but will continue to do so from other problem schools and use the NCAA list as being all-inclusive rather than just a beginning.

Be assured, as quickly as schools are named, others will come into existence to fill the void and make money. The NCAA will not be able to keep pace with the diploma business, but the colleges can by scrutinizing every application.

That is not too much to ask in the ongoing battle to maintain some connection between students and athletes at the college level. It is also not too much to ask in the effort to maintain some manner of ethics and honesty in college sports.

Identifying such schools is not going to be a clear-cut issue. The NCAA may have opened a bigger box in regard to diploma mills than simply how it affects athletes. Just as there are mail- order college diploma businesses affecting the workplace, so are there high school mills that are in business for more than just athletes.

The NCAA is the whipping boy for college sports, even though it is nothing more than an organization authorized and constituted by member colleges. Colleges use the NCAA to take the heat for actions each college should be attacking anyway.

High school diploma mills deserve the attention of each college individually, with the NCAA leading the investigations on a national basis.

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