Against a backdrop of college bowl games sponsored by everything from cell phones to auto parts stores, NCAA President Myles Brand sent out a warning that the collegiate model of athletics as we know it will continue to see itself challenged by commercialism.
Brand told delegates at the 98th annual NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, he wanted to reassert the integrity and value of college sports.
He warned that Division I schools, as well as those in Divisions II and III, are vulnerable to being too much like pro franchises by allowing athletics to become separate from the rest of the university.
"Intercollegiate athletics is not a freestanding, wholly autonomous enterprise. We have seen the type of drift to the professional model that will diminish, and in the long run will eliminate the value of the program to its university," Brand said.
Though Brand believes that professional sports has an important role in soceity, he warned that "college sports must not be allowed to be drawn to the professional model like a moth drawn to a flame."