Was reading an article in the Fort Worth News Telegram entitled “NCAA playing a shell game with college baseball seeds” and it starts out “College football players dream of playing in a BCS bowl game. College basketball players dream of going to the Final Four. And the dream of every college baseball player is the College World Series. Why can't the people who run NCAA baseball respect that?

Do you see what is wrong with his opening sentence and the two that follow? It is clear as day. The writer continues to disseminate the wrong information about the NCAA concerning football and all other sports. Being in TCU country he should recognize what he has done wrong and the disservice he has done to the college sports world and the NCAA.

He takes to task the NCAA Baseball Tournament Pairings pointing out some name teams did not make the tournament. He points out there might have been favoritism in the selection of teams last year from the Big 12. OK for sake of argument let’s agree with him. Then look at the favoritism for the BCS Football Conferences.

Of the 64 baseball teams in this year’s field, 35 were in last year’s field. Another way of looking at it is there are 29 newcomers to make the field this year. A lot of schools were giving a chance to get in to the tournament and they were not just from the big name conferences like the BCS.    

Each year in baseball and basketball and other NCAA run post season events, teams from the Sun Belt, Conference-USA, WAC, MWC, Big South, MAC, etc do have a shot at winning the true National Title.

It is hard to compare selections of the nearly 300 teams that play Division I baseball and basketball against the 120 that play football. When looking at 300 or so teams, no matter how you slice it, there will always be someone who got left out that thought they should have gotten in. There will always be teams that believe they should have gotten a higher seed.  

Let’s clear this up right now. In all NCAA run sports almost all the teams have the true opportunity to win a National Title. Only the NCAA is fulfilling the dreams of players to play in the Final Four or College World Series or becoming a National Champion in any other sports.

However, in “Division I” football only the select few conferences have the opportunity to win the mythical national title and only the power teams in those conferences. When you dig down further only two schools have a shot at the mythical national championship in football and they make it based on opinion of sportswriters, computers and coaches not a result of tournament play.

You see the BCS is not run by the NCAA, never has. It is run by the power conferences and they try not share the revenues with any other conference. Almost, no upper tier football program has a shot at winning the mythical national title without being in the controlling conferences. For example, let’s say North Texas Football goes undefeated this year and beats every team by 24 or more points. Do you think the BCS will allow them into a BCS Bowl or even stiff a shot at the mythical national championship?

If North Texas starts baseball next year and wins 35 or so games, the NCAA would give them the shot to earn their way to Rosenblatt Stadium and the College World Series. In other words, they could win the National Championship in their first year. 

So in the first sentence “college football players dream of playing in a BCS bowl game” it is the heart of everything that is wrong college football not run by the NCAA and the NCAA is not to blame. It is at the heart of recruiting and why schools not in the auto-BCS find it hard to recruit top flight players. Everyone knows if you don’t go to an auto-BCS Conference school you have almost no chance of playing in a BCS Bowl.  Stop blaming the NCAA they have no control over this. The dream killers in “Division I” football is the BCS, the dream fulfillers in every other sport is the NCAA.

When the article states “college basketball players dream of going to the Final Four. And the dream of every college baseball player is the College World Series” only in the NCAA can that happen. Because if it was run by the BCS only the big name conferences would have their teams in the tournament.

When the writer asks about players dreams of playing in the CWS and states “Why can't the people who run NCAA baseball respect that?”  The answer is the NCAA does respect that and that is why 29 new teams made the tournament. Only the NCAA gives all players the chance of fulfilling their dreams in all sports except BCS football.

Why can’t the BCS change and allow the NCAA to run the post season football tournament to determine a true National Champions? Because the same big name conference teams are also members of the NCAA and they do not want the BCS to change. The do not want to share the revenues except among their select few.

The NCAA gives back almost 94% of the monies they take in to their members and to any team that makes it to the Big Dance, the CWS or other NCAA Tournament participates no matter what conference, or what the name of the school is. The BCS really shares their revenues with basically 65 teams in seven conferences. (Notre Dame is a conference unto itself in football.) Once in a while another conference can make it.

So, every year only the NCAA run tournaments gives every school and every player a shot at the dream of being a National Champion. They respect the dreams.