Maybe Jim Delany is Right

Photo: Jerry Lai/USA Today

I am not a huge fan of the Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany. I've found him in the past to be excessively rigid, dogmatic and a hectoring sort of individual. This is not to say that he has not done good things, but I am not a fan of the man from what I have seen at a distance.

So I went into the reading of his white paper on freshman ineligibility (titled "Education First, Athletics Second") with a healthy dose of skepticisim. Granted, when he started talking about the idea of a "Year of Readiness" I had no clue exactly how much thought had gone into it.

I have to admit...I was surprised.

Not by the level of thought that was put into the paper, but by my inclination to agree with the points being made and actually being in support of the idea.

There is a thought that this proposal is being brought out to counteract the supposed college basketball killing "one and done" rule that was foisted upon college basketball by the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. Although the number of college basketball players that are actually one and done is shockingly small.

I do not think myself naive enough to believe that this is something that has been arrived at altruistically and organically. There is most likely some larger game afoot here, and given that there is a lack of support from other administrators, and even the head of the NCAA, it is not likely to gain any traction.

As a collegiate academic advisor, though, I do believe that there is a prima facie case to be made for ineligibility as a consideration. If the idea is student success, and if institutions are trying to stay even tangentially proximal to their missions, then anything that is going to encourage student success

At power five schools, the revenue student-athlete is not necessarily fully integrated into campus life. Football players and men's basketball players operate in their own sphere. The "20 hour" rule is a joke (across the board, I must say). So why not mandate that student-athletes have to take some time to learn to be a college student?

Ostensibly, they are in college to get prepared for the next phase of their life. As that old NCAA commercial reminds us, most are there to become professional in something other than sports. But even for those who are going to become a professional in sports, there is value in spending time, at what is an academic institution, on academics.

This is not something that the Big Ten could go alone though; this is something that would have to be adopted across the entirety of the NCAA.

Yes, all three divisions. I believe that that is the only way that this works.

Would it be adopted big picture? I doubt it at this point.

But's it not an awful idea to consider.