I just found some eerily similar commentary to today's Amateurism entry from South Bend Tribune columnist Jason Kelly:

"Let's Remember, NCAA is a Trademark Brand"

As a defense, I had penned the majority of today's entry about the NCAA a few weeks ago (note the obviously dated sections about Brady Quinn and Notre Dame, for example) before finally pulling the trigger this afternoon.

Anyway, Kelly's column is terrific.

Kelly calls for some common-sense reforms and I agree with most of them.

Remove restrictions on endorsements and signing with agents. Grab the third rail of college sports and admit the amateur ideal doesn't exist and hasn't for years, for decades, forever.

Former USC quarterback Matt Leinart appeared in commercials last season as a celebrity spokesman for NCAA football. That didn't threaten his eligibility.

He made a spontaneous comment promoting "Sports Center" into an ESPN camera on the field after a game. That did.

Leinart made no money from either the NCAA or ESPN for using his image to promote their products. Yet the NCAA, in its infinite self-interest, replayed its own Leinart ad like a "Don't drink and drive" spot during prom season. For the "Sports Center" thing, it threatened to suspend him for the Rose Bowl (that didn't happen, of course, but that's another story).

That lack of shame in using revenue-restricted athletes as complimentary endorsers in its own ad campaigns illuminates the NCAA's lack of institutional conscience [Ed.-emphasis mine].

If Leinart had put his stubbly mug to use in a commercial enterprise that paid him for his time and marketability, he could have been drummed out of college football for debasing it with capitalistic interests.

Imagine that Brady Quinn could become a spokesman for Chipotle. He mentions it so often in response to "favorite food" questions, the chain ought to pay him anyway.

Or that Reggie Bush and his parents could accept a sweetheart lease from an agent as a loan against future earnings. That would be reasonable earnest money for the rights to a percentage of his potential net worth.

What effect would that have? It wouldn't make them stronger or faster or smarter. Just wealthier, and at least when it comes to its own bank account, the NCAA sees no problem with that.

In other words, Bush and USC should be off the hook.  Sound familiar?

And then he sounds a lot like Heisman Pundit with this proposal:

Offer an academic major in athletics, in the same serious spirit as music or art. In one of those cloying NCAA commercials -- "most of us go pro in something other than sports" -- a cocky saxophone player blows his own horn. He expects to end up in Chicago or New Orleans because "most good jazz musicians do." As if professional success as a performer requires nothing more than keeping his reed moist.

If he made a similar proclamation about his professional sports potential, a familiar lament would echo about misplaced priorities. Doesn't he realize he needs "something to fall back on" because sports provides only a fleeting living to the few who make it?

To cushion his eventual, inevitable fall off the stage, a sax player might have a music degree. An athlete has no comparable option.

Credit hours for varsity sports participation -- the performance element of athletics major -- would be only one way to back up platitudes about its educational value with the currency of a diploma.

Cross-list courses with sociology, psychology, medicine, journalism, education, business, all professional athletic fields as much as Wrigley and Soldier.

And then echoing my "responsibility" theme (Quote: "At least with more realistic degree options an extra ounce of choice is inserted into the process, and an athlete can pursue his or her true interest and calling and suffer the consequences if they fail along the way.  That's life"):

In accredited athletic departments, students, not coaches, should bear the responsibility for their education and graduation. Between phone calls, new Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson said something honest.

Asked at his introductory press conference about how many of his players graduate, Sampson said, "All that want to ... We've never kept one from it."

Buck-passing sentiment aside, he had a point.

Disgust over graduation rates for athletes never acknowledges that individual responsibility might be involved, as though the system alone failed them.

Maybe it did. Among other things, that system creates incentives for the best athletes to go pro as soon as possible and reserves the right to strip scholarships from the worst.

Removing those barriers -- and assuring no shortcuts exist -- would place the burden for the quality of their education on the students themselves. After that, it's up to them. That alone would be a valuable lesson.

Great stuff and very similar to arguments presented here literally in the last few days.