NCAA crackdown on cheats? Get serious

It's an interesting thought, hundreds of those "Nader's Raiders" descending upon campuses across the country, investigating the corruption that more and more defines college athletics.

There even could be scouting reports on which ones hold a bigger grudge against coaches.

Chip Kelly would probably pay thousands for such information, especially on any activists from Texas.

Before, of course, trying to cover it up.

I'm not yet ready to embrace Ralph Nader's idea to eliminate scholarships to de-professionalize college sports, but his point that amateurism is a myth around the football fields and basketball courts is spot-on.

The NCAA might as well be those drug cops who test Olympic athletes, a passionate, committed bunch that lacks the manpower and sophistication to stay even with all the cheaters. It can't properly police its own any longer. Hasn't for some time.

TMZ does a better job uncovering the sins of major college football than the NCAA.

No. Seriously.

It probably pays its investigators better, too.

Kelly and Oregon are the latest from the scandalous world to get caught with their hands in the jar of deceit. If allegations are true, Kelly shouldn't expect a call from the Nobel Prize folks any time soon.

He is alleged to have paid a scouting service owner $25,000 and later request retroactive player profiles to justify the money, insisting it had nothing to do with anyone steering recruits to Eugene. The School of Swoosh and its head coach could be in big-time trouble.

North Carolina and agents. Ohio State and tattoo parlors. Southern California and houses. Auburn and seedy fathers. Oregon and recruiting services. These are ones we know about. If you don't believe there are countless other schools cheating, then congratulations ... you officially have an IQ lower than Chip Kelly.

The cheating won't end because the game has become too powerful and the money too grand for everyone involved. Nader has his scholarship theory. Walter Byers, head of the NCAA from 1951 to 1988, thinks college athletes should be paid. But neither would solve the big picture of widespread cheating that has infiltrated major programs.

Watch what happens with gender equity issues if you begin paying players from football and men's basketball. Imagine what doors of corruption would open if dollar signs were legally attached to an athlete's college career.

Besides, what would the next Cecil Newton do with his spare time if players could actually accept money?

The NCAA is either too overworked to handle all the cheating or too accepting to care. It waits for others to unearth violations when it should be at the forefront, no longer offering an aggressive nature when chasing leads of misconduct.

Some think the enforcement arm of the NCAA is simply a cover to maintain a tax-exempt status of college athletics, that there is just too much money to be made for the boat to be unnecessarily rocked by bringing down major programs.

Is it that difficult a notion to believe?

Mark Emmert talks a different game. The NCAA president will hold a two-day summit next month to discuss the future of Division I sports. He also doesn't support a pay-for-play system, instead proposing more education about how to limit cheating.

"Is there a sense that we need stronger investigative tools?" Emmert asked in a statement regarding the summit. "Is there a sense that we need a more understood and more comprehensive penalty structure?"

Is there a sense that nothing is going to change?

Without question.

Things can't get cleaner with the cooperation of one or two or three major conferences. It has to be a collective effort, and it's unrealistic to think every Bowl Championship Series president and athletic director and football coach is going to fall in line and walk away from a system that knowingly or otherwise enables cheaters for a common ground of championships and paydays.

Ironic. College football is stuck in a bad place created by the very success of its product and there is no end in sight to the cheating.

Emmert seems sincere when it comes to cleaning things up and holding others accountable. He doesn't blink when talking about protecting the integrity of college athletics.

Problem: The road to good intentions is paved with deceptive programs, with new sins being discovered weekly.

There's no plausible reason to believe we haven't reached the point of no return with cheating in college sports.

To those who doubt otherwise, prove it.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.