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are advocating for free agency for college athletes. There are some who want to turn college programs into a franchise type function.

While I am not sure where we are going, I know that I will never accept such a concept. We need to make sure that the classroom remains part of the process.

We should never lose sight of the fact that while times have changed and we have had to make serious adjustments, it still resonates with many of us that photos of our Saturday heroes decked out in their letter jackets and walking the campus with books in hand and a pretty coed keeping them company is a scene that should always be a constant.

Maybe we should remind ourselves of what the Ivy League did years ago. They did away with athletic scholarships, but they still have football. Harvard versus Yale is still a big deal. I have taken the T from downtown Boston out to Cambridge for the big game.

The players were eager to perform for alma mater. The band had as much gusto and enthusiasm as bands on any campus across the country. The cheerleaders were delightfully fresh-faced and the cheering was as lusty as it is in Athens, Tuscaloosa, Ann Arbor, Eugene, Lubbock, Austin and Norman.

I certainly am advocating that, but I would much prefer that over free agency and collegiate franchises. It is time for sanity to rear its most valuable head.