Higher Education--and Low-Water Mark for College Athletics

Concerning the University of Minnesota basketball situation: How discouraging it has become to read about the trials and tribulations of college “student-athletes” each morning in the sports pages. Have major college athletics been bastardized so much that criminals and people who must be asked to go to class are allowed to replace more deserving students? Can it be possible that school employees (strength coaches) are actually dispensing potentially dangerous drugs (steroids) to athletes? Apparently so. And isn’t it shameful.

Coach Jim Dutcher’s argument that it is the “system’s” fault that this sort of thing goes on is invalid and a cheap way to condone the present state of college athletics.

College athletics has become a big-money sham and is truly an embarrassment to higher education in this country. When will we realize that colleges and universities must divest themselves of big-time athletics, allow it to become the separate professional entity it should be and return to having its real students participate in intercollegiate and intramural sports in the spirit for which it was initially intended?

JOHN C. BARNES

Upland