“The Harvard Busiess School said that the number one monopoly in America is not Microsoft, is not Wal-Mart, is not the West Coast Longshoremen’s Union, not the post office, it is not even OPEC. They said it is the NCAA, which has total power and abuses that power.”

That statement is taken from the records of a 2004 hearing before a House Subcommittee titled “Due Process and the NCAA.”

The hearing examined the sanction process of the NCAA, and much of the testimony rings true today.

It is appalling that the NCAA can destroy the economy of a university, its students and its host town with no repercussions or accountability.

Major universities cannot feasibly withdraw from the NCAA, coerced into compliance by what has become an unaccountable monopoly.

The time has come to reexamine the untethered power of this organization.

The White House has a Web platform, “We the People,” to allow individuals to create and sign petitions calling for the federal government to take action on a range of issues. A petition is currently opened, asking for the support of the White House in a federal investigation of the NCAA sanction process.

Individuals are able to actively support an investigation of NCAA frontier justice by signing and passing along the petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov. Search for NCAA in Open Petitions.

Charlie Barno

Jefferson