A historic change is coming for college football-- bigger than anything else of the past century.  What happened at Vanderbilt last fall has to happen at every NCAA football school or they all go bankrupt.  I have a four-decade frame of reference from my work as Sports Information Director at Northwestern, then at Oregon.  That may give extra credence to what I propose. I love the games-- including football, despite its increasing violence-- but realize the only way to save the grid game is to scale down in the style of Vanderbilt, which is the Northwestern of the Southeast Conference.  A look at Northwestern's bowl season (?) of 2003 can be instructive.

We are learning that when Northwestern loses a football game to "little" Miami of Ohio, it can be a blessing in disguise, as well as a discomforting habit.  In 1955, Miami upset the Wildcats when Lou Saban was first-year head coach as successor to Bob Voigts.  Saban never got a second year, as the young Miami coach who beat him, 25-14, was hired to replace him, leading the Wildcats to unaccustomed gridiron heights.  His name:  Ara  Parseghian.    In 1995, Miami brought a Gary Barnett team to its senses by beating the Wildcats, cocky after an opening game victory over Notre Dame, 30-28.  NU revived to win all its Big Ten games, and advance to the 1996 Rose Bowl.  Early last fall, Miami did it again, with emphasis:  by a five-touchdown margin in the name-less Northwestern stadium I remember as Dyche Stadium.  

This time, NU can salvage something far more important from the latest debacle at the hands of the little school from Oxford, O.  I don't refer to being sucked into a meaningless Motor City post-season game at the invitation of conniving promoters. Win or lose, that was a tragic debasement of the University and the time of its student athletes.

Instead the University administration should choose to put its house in order, and do what it should have done after Parseghian left for Notre Dame in 1963:  follow the example of Vanderbilt by disbanding its athletics department, and putting intercollegiate athletics into its honest place on campus.

I say that from the perspective of an alumnus, Class of '55, and of a Wildcats sports information director (SID) in the 1960s and 1970s.  More than most, I was able to savor occasional victory, while suffering through many losses.  I also sensed-- though I could not say it in those days-- that for Northwestern to continue at the "big time" level of college football is a mistake.

The game on the field has not gotten beyond Northwestern.  It manages to stay  competitive against even football factories of some state institutions.  But in the game off the field, staying even comes at a cost that should embarrass all universities:  an out-of-balance commitment to expensive promotions and excessive spending on facilities and coaches.

Nationwide, such efforts have come at the expense of overriding influence on college football by corporate donors whose gifts have helped forestall the game's impending bankruptcy.  At the University of Oregon, where I became SID after leaving Northwestern, that influence is symbolized by Nike, whose owner, Phil Knight, a Ducks alumnus, gave $10 million for the recent expansion of Oregon's Autzen Stadium.

That came with strings attached.  The university had to cut its ties with the Worker Rights Consortium whose scrutiny on Nike overseas business practices angered Knight.  There may be a parallel at Northwestern with the dropping of the stadium name.  The Evanston gridiron then was named Ryan Field, after one whose generous donation made it possible to renovate the stadium.

Payback?  It looks like it.

Vanderbilt  has a courageous and visionary chancellor, Gordon Gee, who has chosen to eliminate the Department of Athletics.  It now is part of a Division of Student Life and University Affairs, which implies the end of the gravy train for those in the varsity program.

Gee issued a clarion call that needs to be answered by the NCAA and all universities that have prostituted themselves to the massive funding needed to stay afloat in an age of football overemphasis.  He said: "Nothing short of a revolution will stop what has become a crisis of conscience and integrity for colleges and universities."

At Northwestern, visible evidence of that crisis is seen in the point-shaving scandals that hit both football and basketball, and in the controversy that continues over death of a player in pre-season football practice a year ago.  The invisible crisis exists at every school that plays the big-time game, and it runs deep.

Some of my best friends in athletics will object to what I say.  They continue to wear blinders that shield them from the sickness.  It is time for Northwestern and all NCAA schools to face the truth.  They must follow Vanderbilt's example to save the game on campus.


George Beres, a Eugene, Ore. writer, is a 1955 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism.