Sports Roundup by Various Sports Writers

By Tim Sullivan

Jim Delany has launched a trial balloon that a lot of people have mistaken for the Hindenburg.

The Big Ten commissioner wants to sweeten the deal for scholarship athletes, to divert some of his conference's bulging coffers into the pockets of the perspiring, to expand the traditional grant-in-aid to cover "the full cost of attendance."

And from some of the reaction, you'd think Delany was talking secession. Though NCAA President Mark Emmert has encouraged this kind of thinking, you'd think the idea of improving the lot of college athletics' labor force — or at least those athletes who attend BCS schools — was a maneuver calculated for competitive advantage, a ploy designed as pushback on the antitrust front and an implicit threat to the NCAA's have-nots to the effect that the big boys are prepared to bolt and form their own Super/Mega/Money Conference.

On some theoretical level, Delany's idea could mean all of those things, as well as a strategic diversion from the noxious stink at Ohio State. Yet the notion that it is a game-changer, that it could disrupt the balance of college athletics, assumes a level of equality that has never existed.

The collegiate playing field is already severely tilted, and no amount of legislation can make it level. Those schools able to afford Delany's "full-cost" scholarships, which might mean another $3,000-$5,000 per year per athlete, long ago established sustainable advantages through the length of their traditions, the size of their alumni and fan bases, and the depth of their pockets.

"You can't compete with the dollars," San Diego State football coach Rocky Long said. "They (BCS schools) can build better facilities. They can spend more money recruiting. They can't actually spend more money on the recruit, but the kid walks in and he walks into a nicer weight room or a nicer locker room or his academic service center is pristine with individual spots to study ...

"If it comes down to facilities and stuff, we have no chance."

Long likes to think that it doesn't always come down to facilities and stuff, that a discerning eye and a grindstone-seeking nose can narrow the gap between college football's plutocrats and its peasants, and he's counting on college presidents to prevent Delany's plan from compounding current disparities. He anticipates conference realignment will become an annual exercise as leagues chase the almighty television dollar, but he expects the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) to remain essentially intact.

If Delany, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive and their BCS co-conspirators have designs on creating an elite football level, retaining all of its revenues and escaping the scrutiny of the Justice Department, Long's instincts tell him that design is doomed.

"My gut feeling is there's not going to be a formal break (to a superconference) because the presidents of the universities are basically making decisions within the universities and the NCAA," Long said. "I have great faith that the majority of the presidents have a different vision of athletics rather than making them a pro team on their campus ...

"My belief is that (college presidents') belief is that we're not going to have pro teams on our campuses."

Delany insists that his idea is not a "pay-for-play" scheme, but a means of reimbursing students for transportation and personal expenses the standard scholarship does not cover.

"Obviously, there's a cost implication," Delany told The Sporting News. "Obviously, there's a political implication. The NCAA constitution allows for this, but since 1972, when we walked away from the multiple-year grant-in-aid, as well as the $15 (per) month laundry money, the politics of any change has been complicated."

Low-budget athletic departments could easily interpret Delany's idea as an attempt to raise the ante to a point where only rich schools could afford to play.

Big-budget programs could argue that improving the living standards of athletes should have higher priority than luxurious locker rooms and elegant coaches' offices, even if only a minority of schools have the means to make it happen.

Ultimately, any change in scholarship limitations would require a vote of the entire NCAA membership. Still, the notion that all athletic scholarships can be created equal is founded on a flimsy premise.

Beyond the subjective quality of education, it's silly to think an in-state athlete attending San Diego State (annual tuition: $5,990) is receiving the same compensation as a scholarship student at Stanford (annual tuition: $38,700). Similarly, it's hard to imagine that an extra $3,000 to $5,000 per year would sway a football player contemplating offers from Florida and Florida Atlantic.

If Delany's plan would increase the difficulty of competing with the power conferences, it has always been hard.

"I don't know if you have to be smarter," Rocky Long said, "but you have to work harder. It's much easier if you have all of the benefits, (but) as long as there are rules and regulations that prevent them from recruiting a whole bunch of people to stand on the sideline so other schools don't get them, you can compete with them on the field or on the court."

Just not at the bank.

Tim Sullivan writes about sports for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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