THE RIGHT TIME TO RETRENCH. Some years ago, the president of the University of Chicago famously discontinued big-time football, a development that the University of North Texas blissfully overlooked.

"If you look at America's great universities, you'll see that they all have the three A's in common: great academics, great arts and great athletics," said UNT president Gretchen M. Bataille in a release. "All are key to a vibrant alumni community and continued growth. And all require great facilities. I am committed to ensuring that UNT, like many of the nation's best research universities, strives to be excellent in everything we do."

The stadium will hold about 30,000 fans and include luxury suites.

At Central Florida, the Orlando Sentinel recommends a different course.

A panel from the Knight Commission plans to recommend seven cost-saving changes for university athletics programs to the NCAA. Those include cutbacks in season lengths and team travel. But the panel is ignoring the middle linebacker in the room: sky-high coaching salaries.

It's ironic that university presidents would cite salaries for coaches as the biggest problem, yet do nothing about it. Until they declare a truce in their bidding war, athletics programs will be on shaky ground.

We like college sports. We understand winning programs can build school spirit and garner national publicity. But those worthy goals don't justify breaking the bank to pay for athletics, especially now.

Central Florida's basketball team currently has a problem, because a freshman player wants to wear his dad's shoes. But Central Florida is probably not positioned to load up on innovative economists, not to mention other talented scholars, in the Chicago way. (The editorial notes the university has been trimming programs and faculty.)

California, where Lr ( I learned it as Lw) and Bk and Cf were discovered, is another matter.

Now, the whole college athletics undertaking is one that deserves lots of scrutiny for its subsidies and excesses. Cal is certainly not alone in this. But for Birgeneau to take to the pages of the Washington Post, cry poverty, and call for the nation’s taxpayers to foot his school’s bills while he quietly pushes millions of dollars to water polo, rugby, golf, and sundry other sports? That takes a lot of gall. Of course, rent-seeking gall is not in short supply when it comes to higher education.

Chicago dropped football just before higher education became a growth industry. California has the opportunity to unbundle academic excellence from sports visibility in a way that would shake up establishments. Therefore, expect any proposal to defund sports in the California members of the Pacific Twelve to meet the kind of resistance that proposals to privatize Social Security or Medicare did.