Tom asked "So the question becomes, what do we value more:  Concentration of talent at some schools or purity of the sport?"

I do not think these are the two options. There is no purity in sport. Sport is a means to an end, not an end. Even for the pro athlete, sport is a way of making money to feed the kids. For some colleges, sport is a way of making money. For some colleges, sport is a way of recruiting students, of getting donations from alumni, of advertising and appearing big even if not (do you know how skunks do this?).

And so the problem is not that the NCAA does what it does. The problem is that there is no alternative. The NCAA is one of the purest examples of monopoly in the nation. There is no other sanctioning body anymore. What the NCAA does, you have to do, regardless of the price they ask in concentration of talent, athletic vs academic integrity, and ream after ream of ridiculous rules. As a monopoly, if the NCAA says I cannot have an Indian mascot, why can't I be independent of the NCAA or a member of the AAU or NAIA and still run my program and play Minnesota, the Wisconsin, the Michigan, and Maine? We have a difference of opinion, but what the NCAA wants, they get.

There may still be purity of sport, but there is no purity in the NCAA.

Nathan Hampton