"I can't remember having many team meetings when I played. I don't remember having quarterback meetings where the coach went over the playbook with me. I called my own plays. I'm not saying it was better then, but today the pressure on these young men - in all the sports - it's so time consuming you wonder sometimes how they ever do get an education," says Giel.

Critics of today's college sports system suspect some athletes - in the money-making sports, especially - are not getting much of an education. The academic fraud scandal that shook the U of M men's basketball program two years ago contributed to that perception.

Investigators found that over a five-year period, 20 basketball players turned in classwork that was done for them by a university staff member.

Cheating of that magnitude may be extreme, but Richard Purple, a professor emeritus at the U of M medical school and a member of a national group of scholars concerned about athletics compromising academics, says he believes a growing number of universities routinely lower their academic standards to attract and retain top athletes.

"Kids can't get a seat in class because so many of those seats are reserved for athletes whose grade point averages and everything else are lower than theirs. The academics suffer," Purple contends.

"You can graduate all of your kids and no problems off the field. But after three or four years, that coach - especially in football - better win more than he loses and go to some major bowls or he's gone," Giel says.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Big Ten Conference, and individual schools like the U of M have all looked at ways to reform college sports. Richard Purple favors abolishing athletic scholarships.

"Some college president ought to have the guts to stand up and say, 'No, I'm not going to play this game,'" says Purple.

Former U of M President Ken Keller, now a professor at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, says any such bold move at a major university would be short-lived.

"I think what would happen is a president who decided to do that would do it, and the next president, who'd follow in a week or so, would change it back," he says.

Keller says big state-funded universities don't have much choice about taking part in intercollegiate athletics. He says the public expects it, even demands it.

Keller says for Minnesota, reform would have to be undertaken collectively with its peers in the Big Ten. He suggests returning to the days when freshmen were not eligible to take part in intercollegiate sports. Besides giving new students a chance to adjust to college academics, Keller says freshmen ineligibility would cause athletes who really have no interest in school to look at other options.

Fred Morrison, who chairs the Faculty Consultative Committee of the University Senate, says it would help colleges if more career paths existed for the would-be professional athlete.

"Why do we not have problems in baseball? Because there are minor leagues out there and the high school student who thinks he's a future baseball star, but really doesn't want to go to college, can go play for a minor league team," says Morrison.

But the debates over how to reform college sports can obscure the fact that for a great many young people intercollegiate athletics is working very well.

U of M Women's Athletic Director Chris Voelz says publicity about scandals contributes to the stereotype that athletes are not legitimate students. Voelz says that's a disservice to the athletes who put so much into both their studies and their sport.

"Look at our female student athletes; nine solid years of our department GPA being over 3.0. And that while they are handling Division 1A athletics, travelling and practicing. They're going to be pretty complete women when they graduate from here and pretty smart women," says Voelz.

Volleyball player Lindsey Berg says she's impressed with how many businesses looking for student interns come to the athletic department, perhaps because they understand the skills those students have developed at managing a tight schedule. Berg says she's interested in reports a pro volleyball league may start in the USA next year. But she's grateful for intercollegiate athletics mostly for the fun.