What if big time athletes really acted and performed in the classroom and not given a free pass at these football factory universities?

I agree with Amaretta's answer. In my opinion, the problem starts with the fact that many sports media outlets encourage racism and sexism. It is pretty obvious that ESPN and college football have a bias against people/athletes that are white and/or female.

I could not believe the love affair ESPN had for Cam Newton, back in 2010. Newton was previously arrested, and kicked out of the University of Florida, for stealing laptops. Then, ESPN defended Cam, even though everyone else in the world knew that his father was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for Cam's recruitment.

Yet, when a white female athlete, who goes about things the right way and has a 4.0 GPA comes around, all ESPN does is try to nit-pick at every little thing she does not do well.

I agree with you. It was irritating to see the dummies in my high school class get football scholarships to college while the rest of us actually had to work hard to get there. (Most of them flunked out, though.) But big time football keeps the alumni feeling connected to the university and that translates to revenue for the school. The alumni buy season tickets, merchandise, return to the community for game days (bringing revenue to the town as well), and donate to the university. At many schools, the football program supports the other sports teams, as well as the athletic program in general. Unfortunately, some college football players are just thugs or have a sense of entitlement that leads them to think that there are no consequences for their bad behavior.