Frank Deford has been doing commentaries on NPR for more than 30 years. Needless to say, if it carries Deford’s name, they are going to be terrific.

As a public service, I wanted to let you know If you miss the actual broadcast on Wednesday, you still can listen to them at your convenience at Deford’s NPR site. And/or you could read the transcripts.

I have a link to Deford’s site on the rail in my Blogroll. Needless to say, I feel it is a must read each week.

From time to time, I’ll highlight some of his commentaries. This week, Deford went after the NCAA as only he can.

Deford writes:

The great social quest in American sport is to have one prominent, active, gay male athlete step forward and identify himself.

But I have a similar quest. I seek one prominent college president to say to her trustees or to the other presidents in his conference: “The NCAA is a sham and disgrace. Let’s get out of it.”

We know those presidents who disdain the NCAA are out there, but, alas, none dare speak the words that will break the evil spell.

Never has the NCAA been held in such scorn, regularly revealed as a hypocritical, bumbling vestige of a time when its so-called student-athletes were known quaintly as “lettermen” and the most notorious activity on campus was panty raids. Innocent America then bought into the NCAA justification of amateurism, but that giddy concept has come to be widely rejected — student-athletes are really sucker-athletes — and without public trust in amateurism, the NCAA is a rickety structure that cannot stand.