Colleges and universities are supposed to be brimming with ideas, places where bright students bring fresh perspectives to old problems while professors fearlessly offer theories for solving new problems.
Maybe the intellectual atmosphere that permeates a college campus got the better of John Calipari when he offered his idea on the future of college basketball.
Calipari, the men's basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, suggested the top 64 to 72 schools in the country break away from the NCAA and form four superconferences.
Calipari's ostensible reason for this dramatic change is altruistic. Superconference teams will have the revenue to provide stipends for scholarship athletes. Plus, Calipari said, millions of dollars would go to each school's general fund and help create stellar intramural programs.
No, really. He said that about intramural programs.
The real reason for Calipari's plan is power and control. It is about weakening the NCAA and raking in almost all the money generated by college athletics.
This is a harebrained idea. It should be jettisoned immediately.
The major conferences — Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 10 and Southeastern — already control college football. If the Bowl Championship Series would provide a legitimate playoff system, critics, including the U.S. Justice Department, would be quieted.
Calipari's plan also would give the superconferences control of college basketball.
Nothing is wrong with college basketball. With a few exceptions, it is as close to a perfect system for the schools, athletes and fans as can be created.
However, the so-called "mid-major" programs have become competitive with many of the top-ranked programs. Butler and Virginia Commonwealth University took two spots in this year's Final Four. And the super folks regard those spots as their property.
Under Calipari's plan, the primary postseason basketball tournament would consist of teams only from the superconferences.
The remaining 300 or so Division I schools — 100 of which Calipari described as barely Division I, anyway — would be left to their own devices.
The idea of forming superconferences is not new. It has been bandied about for years, mainly concerning football. These conferences, not the NCAA, would set their rules.
The power conferences already have lucrative television deals. Now, they want the rest of the money and to shed all those annoying NCAA guidelines.
Calipari's plan would make that possible. It would turn the non-super college athletic operations into little more than Division III programs and weaken the NCAA. Talk about a triple play.
Talk about a terrible idea.
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