THE MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL HAS A STATEMENT ON YOUR STATEMENT

The Big Ten released a statement yesterday reasserting the "inextricable link between academics and athletics as part of the collegiate model" and proposing a number of reforms related to that assertion, including guaranteed four year scholarships regardless of injury, improved medical insurance, and examining what the full cost of tuition entails. (There is also a lot of "we'll shut down every other sport don't make us do it cops!" which really doesn't address whether it's legally permissible to force an 18 year old to sign away his image and likeness in perpetuity but whatever)

And some of those proposals are good, if you ignore everything from the Northwestern labor decision about the time players spend on football or the testimony from the O'Bannon trial where players discussed the ways in which being an athlete limited their academic opportunities.

So let's add one proposal to your list, Big Ten. Let's put the following clause into the contract of every coach and athletic director across your institutions: if a program is found to have committed academic fraud related to any student-athlete, or falls below the NCAA's APR threshold, those coaches and ADs are automatically terminated for cause. No buyout, no appeal, nothing.

If they're students first, you should be fine with this. Right?