By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

It would be nice to believe the NCAA really is looking out for the best interests of its athletes by filing a legal brief this week in support of the NFL's appeal to keep running back Maurice Clarett out of the draft.

But, then, we'd like to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the benevolence of the oil companies, too.

It is one thing for the NFL to dig in its heels in attempting to prevent the former Ohio State star from turning pro early. It is quite another for the NCAA now to come jumping on the pile.

Clarett, who helped lead the Buckeyes to the 2002 national championship as a record-breaking freshman, was to serve an NCAA suspension for receiving improper benefits. Instead, he sat out what would have been his sophomore season and filed suit to be allowed to declare for the April 24 and 25 NFL draft, which he had been prohibited from doing by a league rule that requires candidates to have completed their third year of post-high school eligibility.

A federal judge in February ruled that the NFL could not bar Clarett from the draft, a decision the league has appealed and the NCAA has sided with the NFL on.

It is easy to see where the NFL is coming from. It is a business with a bottom line and by relying on the colleges to be its farm system, it saves nearly $10 million per team on player development over what Major League Baseball invests and gets its stars ready-made.

And it is in the interests of the players' union to back the NFL in court. Both because it is part of their collective bargaining agreement and because prohibiting underclassmen lessens the immediate competition its members have for retaining their jobs.

But the NCAA was created to administer college sports and provide for the best interests of those who play them. By coming to the support of the NFL, the NCAA now comes off looking like what it increasingly has become, a partner in a lucrative cartel.

As much as NCAA president Myles Brand maintains, "We are not filing this brief to advance the economic interests of the NCAA," the more the decision to do it underlines a symbiotic relationship with the NFL at work.

For all the professed interest in keeping players in school, this has little to do with Clarett staying in a classroom, where he apparently had little interest in being from the beginning.

The truth of the matter is that football is the bread and butter of college athletics and the last thing the people who run it want is to see a precedent established that would allow the best players and premier attractions to go pro before maximum value has been extracted.

The NCAA has seen what it can mean to lose a Carmelo Anthony and others in basketball. It doesn't want the same thing in football.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.