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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WVUALLEN" data-source="post: 131302115" data-attributes="member: 1112294">Why would P5 care about Villanova and Gonzaga? Basketball is basketball. P5 doesn't have to have 65 freaking schools in the tournament. The 32 is plenty.G5 can have their own set of rules and government.The NCAA often likes to harp on tradition and the sanctity of the term student-athlete, but it fails to recognize its true roots.The association in fact got its start because, at the time of its creation, football was in danger of being abolished as a result of being deemed too dangerous a sport.During the 1905 season alone, 18 college and amateur players died during games. In response to public outcry, Theodore Roosevelt, an unabashed fan of the sport, gathered 13 football representatives at the White House for two meetings at which those in attendance agreed on reforms to improve safety. What would later become known as the NCAA was formed shortly after on the heels of this unifying safety agreement.And so the question arises, how did the NCAA go from being an agreement to promote safety standards so as to prevent death on the playing field, to a multi-million dollar enterprise that seems most concerned with ensuring that student-athletes do not receive any compensation for their in-demand talents?Why does an organization formed when the idea of paying money to attend a sporting event was in its infancy still operate under the same model?In short, why does the NCAA still exist?It can’t be to police college athletics to ensure nobody violates the arbitrary rules that they’ve dreamt up. After all, this is an organization that at once, denied the University of Iowa request to wear jersey’s honoring the death of a teammate, while at the same time, was unable to conduct a non-corrupt investigation into the allegations that a rich booster had bought University of Miami football and basketball players jewelry, prostitutes and had even paid for an abortion.College sports could most definitely continue to exist outside of the confines of the NCAA. There’s no law stating that the governing body has to be in place for schools to compete against one another, and athletic departments are already in charge of scheduling many games.Without the NCAA in place, schools would be welcome to pay players, which would be a disadvantage to schools that don’t have profitable athletic programs. This could be solved in multiple manners, the most obvious one being: If a school can’t afford to support a college sports team, they probably shouldn’t have a college sports team.The slope isn’t as slippery as it’s often made out to be: People will pay money to watch certain college sports, so why shouldn’t the athletes who participate in these sports and drive the popularity of them get a cut?If the NCAA truly wants to respect its roots, perhaps they should spend more time addressing the dangerous nature of football, which is the real reason the organization was created in the first place.<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/author/daniel-treadway">Dan Treadway</a>, ContributorWriter</blockquote>

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