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Bob Hunter commentary: Big Ten athletic directors trying to spark debate on reform

At first glance, it was hard not to be cynical about the message out of this week’s Big Ten athletic directors’ meeting in suburban Chicago.

Conference commissioner Jim Delany and several athletic directors admitted that Delaney’s widely reported idea to make freshman ineligible accomplished what he intended by merely starting a discussion on ways to reform college athletics.

The admission that his “year of readiness” idea probably could never be passed and might never even be proposed was a head-scratcher. But the discussion of other highly unlikely issues — locking the doors of a school’s workout facilities during the summer so athletes could go on internships, for example — made this look more like a public-relations presentation than a quest for reform.