Penn State made a football coach bigger than the school itself, accountable to no person and no moral imperative, and now we see the devastating consequences.

North Carolina sold its esteemed academic soul for the pursuit of greater athletic glory, and now we see a proud institution embarrassed and divided.

Yet amid these raw cautionary tales about the dangers of misplaced priority on college campuses, along comes this news item: Oregon is dumping $68 million of Nike kingpin Phil Knight's money into a new "football operations center." Among the accoutrements you get for $68 mil, the (Eugene) Register-Guard reported, is a private hot tub and steam room for the coaches, "each with a waterproofed video center … so they can watch games while taking a soak."

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While taking a soak in that absolutely necessary hot tub, I suppose coach Chip Kelly could cue up the largely useless video his school paid $25,000 for from "talent scout" Will Lyles, who was closely tied to Ducks running backs Lache Seastrunk and LaMichael James. That's part of an ongoing NCAA investigation into Oregon football – but who really wants to think about that when Kelly has won three consecutive Pac-12 championships? On with the building projects.

This is the inherent problem with college athletics: No amount of scandal and no level of embarrassment seem capable of stopping the charge to make sports programs wealthier, more powerful and more disconnected from the universities that give them a name, location, identity and built-in following.

We've seen so many scandal cycles filled with so much consternation and followed by so little change. There is no convenient opportunity for introspection or self-examination when BCS dollars are there for the grabbing.

But here is the thing: If we're ever going to get the athletic genie back in the university bottle, this is the time. The re-examination has to come now. While delivering the worst storyline in college sports history, Penn State ironically also has provided the lever by which the enterprise can save itself.

The Penn State scandal is so bad that it could do good. It could force a day of reckoning at colleges across America. Specifically, it could force a day of reckoning in the offices of university presidents.

Take back your revenue-producing sports programs, school leaders. Take them back or cut them loose from the university educational mission and declare them professional farm teams.





[Related: Pat Forde: North Carolina's new AD out to solve growing academic scandal]





Last week, North Carolina history professor Jay Smith articulated to me the options facing his school and many others in an email: "The problems that have come to light [at UNC] thus far are not specific to 'athletics.' This is a university problem, a systemic problem, and quite obviously so. We clearly have a long way to go. UNC, and all other universities with good intentions, must refuse to walk this tightrope any longer."

You know the first school that should get off the tightrope? The first school to voluntarily fall, then get up and go in a new direction, daring others to follow?

Penn State.

It has to start there.

The school did take some steps last fall: It created a Center for the Protection of Children, pumping $1.1 million into the project. It donated $1.5 million in bowl proceeds to a pair of sex-crime advocacy organizations. But now it's time to advance the cause much further, using the football program as its change agent.

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