AS A COLLEGE COACH, I spend my days helping young people grow.
As a parent, I spend my evenings watching my own son chase his athletic dreams.
Those two perspectives have led me to the same conclusion: college athletics is drifting away from the mission it was created to serve.
The NCAA was established to provide educational and athletic opportunities for students. College sports were never intended to function as a second professional league. They exist within universities that receive significant public support, tax advantages and community investment because they serve an educational purpose. Athletics has always been part of that mission, helping young people develop as students, leaders, teammates and future contributors to society.
That purpose is worth protecting.
Today, however, college athletics increasingly resembles something different. In many sports, roster spots are being filled by older athletes who have spent years competing in professional or semi-professional environments before entering the NCAA. While these athletes may be fully eligible under current rules, their presence raises an important question: Are we still prioritizing opportunities for the students college athletics was designed to serve?
Age matters.
An 18-year-old entering college directly from high school is not competing on equal footing with a 24- or 25-year-old who has spent years training, competing and physically maturing. The difference is not simply athletic. It is physiological, psychological and experiential.
American students generally begin formal education around age 6 and graduate high school at 18. The pathway is straightforward: elementary school, middle school, high school, then college. When college athletics allows unlimited age disparities, we create situations where young American students are competing against individuals who may have 6 or 7 additional years of physical development and competitive experience.
That is not a criticism of older athletes. It is simply reality.
In virtually every area of education, we recognize that age and stage of development matter. We group students by grade level. We establish age-based competition categories. We acknowledge that young people benefit from competing and learning among their peers.
College athletics should be no different.
The good news is that protecting developmental opportunities is not a new concept. In fact, it is standard practice throughout the global sports landscape.
Professional soccer academies invest heavily in domestic player development pathways. International federations establish age-group competitions to ensure younger athletes have opportunities to compete and progress. Olympic development systems around the world are structured specifically to create opportunities for emerging athletes.
These policies are not designed to exclude people. They are designed to preserve opportunity.
The NCAA should consider similar principles.
Reasonable age parameters would help restore balance and ensure that college athletics remains focused on student development. Likewise, policies that prioritize opportunities for traditional-age students would help preserve access for the young people who are coming directly through America’s educational system.
As a coach, I worry about the talented high school athletes who are doing everything right yet finding fewer opportunities available to them.
As a parent, I worry about what the landscape will look like when my own son reaches college age.
And as someone who has dedicated a career to developing student-athletes, I worry that we are slowly losing sight of why college sports exist in the first place.
Years ago, the NCAA ran a campaign built around a simple message: “Most of us go pro in something other than sports.”
That message resonated because it reflected reality.
College athletics was never supposed to be only about winning games. It was supposed to help young people build the skills, discipline, character and education that would serve them for the rest of their lives.
Sports make us better. Universities make us better. College athletics should continue to do both.
But that can only happen if we remember who the system was built for in the first place.
