‘Cleaning Up Sports System’

It is with great effort that I control the emotions called forth by a reading of a recommendation appearing in your editorial.

You suggest that stipends be given to athletes who meet the NCAA standards because they are semiprofessionals and make money for the school. Apparently, the fact that college sports have become a highly competitive money-making system does not strike you as inappropriate. I cannot fathom the mentality that accepts commercialization of school sports as the norm, and sees nothing objectionable in it.

The root cause of this scandalous condition is funneling of monies from sports television, the NFL and the NBA in exchange for the right to exploit and trivialize college sports programs. The Times should give its support to the solution offered by Ira Michael Heyman, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley: that the NFL and NBA form their own minor leagues for player development, and stop using our schools for this purpose. It is no part of higher education’s mission to produce athletes for the professional sport leagues.

PATRICK B. KELLY

Monrovia