June 10, 2010 – The slow disintegration of the NCAA (“No longer in Charge of American Athletics)began today when Nebraska and Colorado left the Big 12. It begins the long unraveling of the power base where college presidents collected from, over-legislated, and ruled with an iron fist over its member institutions. Money was their main driver, and so they were against a true college football championship because it would upset their applecart of bowl money. They created an investigative arm that rivaled the FBI to determine if coaches texting prospects was out of line. Or whether someone used too many cell phone minutes or made contact with a potential player out of hunting season.

In Ann Arbor, they determined that the Wolverine football team had practiced too much and had too many assistants to spot during lifting sessions and fetch balls during drills. The thinking was that Michigan was gaining an advantage or overworking their student athletes. Thank goodness for the NCAA enforcers, says nobody but their on-field resenters and rivals.

While the NCAA took three years to look into the University of Southern California athletic program, O.J. Mayo recruited himself, had a “friend” nearby at all times that had special access to practices and needed tickets, and saw to Mayo’s out-of-the-gym lifestyle. Head coach Tim Floyd was forced to leave the program and Mayo spent a year before becoming a top NBA draft choice. Heisman winner Reggie Bush contributed to a national championship while allegedly having a “marketing agent” provide cars and other “support” while locating his parents in a sweet, rent-free house. Brian Cushing allegedly poked his skin with performance enhancers that went back as far as high school and continued in LA, and Pete Carroll jumped to the NFL this past off season after years of NFL job offer denials.

Now USC can’t play in the post season for two years, will lose something like 20 scholarships, will have to give back a national football title and maybe Bush’s Heisman. Probably harder to do than giving up Kim Kardashian.

Jim Calhoun’s UCONN basketball juggernaut was exposed as being out of his control. His buddy Jim Boeheim’s basketball program produces good teams on the floor, but apparently they don’t go to class. The NCAA is particularly good at exposing these kinds of flaws, and pointing to the the “clean” programs as good examples, but somehow those programs get left out of their 64+ team bonanza every March, while the Syracuse’s, UConn’s and USC’s prosper.

So it’s a good thing that will emerge from the new “Super Conference” alignment because these conferences will dictate how national champions are determined, how bowl money is distributed and who takes the cake when it comes to television contracts. All of the NCAA lawyers, investigators and bureaucrats in Indianapolis will be rendered obsolete and that’s a good thing.