The lead article in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week is about a University of Memphis football player named Dasmine Cathey. He lives not on campus but in his aunt’s home nearby, where he helps raise his siblings, who were essentially abandoned by their mother. He has two children of his own (with different mothers). He uses his Pell grant money to help pay the household bills and often skips class because he has to drive a family member somewhere. It’s a lot for a college student to shoulder, but he doesn’t shirk it.

College itself, however, is a different story. As an incoming freshman, Cathey could barely read, and academics remain a chore. His papers — a handful of which are posted on the Chronicle’s Web site — seem more like the work of a seventh grader than a college student. Among the courses he has failed are Family Communication and Yoga. His major is called “interdisciplinary studies.” As the article ends, the athletic department’s academic advisers are desperately trying to get him to go to class so he can graduate.

So while the article, written by Brad Wolverton, causes one to root for Cathey, who is a largely sympathetic figure, it also, inevitably, raises the question: How in the world did he get into college? But, of course, we know the answer to that. He is in college because, as one of his former coaches puts it, “He had all the tools you could ask for.” Football tools, that is.

In the months since I first began writing about the hypocrisy of the college sports establishment — I should note that Wolverton has written about my N.C.A.A. columns — I’ve heard one consistent refrain from readers. De-emphasize college sports, people have said; that’s the only way universities can reclaim their souls. Last month, when Buzz Bissinger, the author of the classic book, “Friday Night Lights,” wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Why College Football Should Be Banned,” a reader sent me the link with a short note. “This is the article you should have written,” it read.