NCAA fails professor’s ethics test

Boyce Watkins, a finance professor at Syracuse, is a harsh critic of the NCAA, and not because the Orange were snubbed by the NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee.

Author of the book, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About College,” Watkins maintains that the NCAA exploits basketball players by raking in $6 billion in television rights for the tournament on the backs of those athletes.

Watkins recently gave the Atlanta Journal-Constitution five ways to tell when the organization that runs college sports might be exploiting athletes:

“1. When the coach flies to games on private jets, but the star player’s mother is riding a Greyhound bus.

“2. When the league sells a commercial spot for more money than it costs to educate every single player on the team.

“3. When this nonprofit, tax-exempt, amateur organization has a tournament that earns more money than the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals put together.

“4. When the coach earns $4 million per year, and a player is investigated for receiving a free bologna sandwich.

“5. Can you say, ‘$6-billion TV rights deal?’ ”

Trivia time

Only one university has produced athletes who won most-valuable-player awards in the Super Bowl, the World Series and the NBA Finals since 1980.

Name the school and those athletes.

Doesn’t everyone?

Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen, in Boston to promote the “Champions on Ice” tour, had to wear hockey skates during a session at Simoni Skating Arena in Cambridge, Mass., after her luggage was lost by US Airways.

Cohen borrowed hockey skates from Boston Bruins winger Dennis Wideman.

The bulky skates prevented Cohen from performing her usual acrobatics on the ice. But later in the day, she went out and scored two goals against the Kings.

We know how it turns out in end

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a survey of 4,000 Britons revealed that autobiographies by David Blunkett, the former British home secretary; President Clinton, and David Beckham topped the list of nonfiction books they began to read but did not finish.

Not surprising about Beckham. He’s never taken a World Cup start to finish, either.

Buffalo burgers

After finishing his 11th season as Colorado men’s basketball coach with a 7-20 record, Ricardo Patton is out of a job and looking for work.

“I’m a working stiff. I’ve got to work,” Patton told the Associated Press.

“If you go down to Wendy’s and you hear a familiar voice saying, ‘Can I take your order?’ it may just be me. I’ve got to work. That’s the only thing I know how to do.”

Actually, McDonald’s would be a more appropriate setting for Patton.

There they also churn out a lot of turnovers.

Trivia answer

UCLA, with Troy Aikman in the 1993 Super Bowl, Troy Glaus in the 2002 World Series and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1985 NBA Finals.

And finally

Chris Rock, talking with David Letterman on the “Late Show” Monday night:

“The government is not trying to get [Osama] bin Laden. They’re trying to get Barry Bonds....

“I’ve tuned into games and seen brothers diving into the stands to catch balls. Don’t talk to me about Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth hit a popup behind second base, they called them home runs. One time I saw a brother hit the blimp.”

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mike.penner@latimes.com