Over at SeeThruEdu, Thomas Lindsay discusses the University of Texas at Austin’s new Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation, which is designed to strengthen athletes’ moral character and financial literacy.

Lindsay applauds the new center, but laments the fact that it’s even necessary: “Universities, in the beginning, had as part of their mission the inculcation of character. That isn’t exactly where they are today: a fact that goes toward explaining and clarifying our cultural problems.”

“College athletes are today’s Roman gladiators, with a somewhat better life expectancy. The sporting public values their ferocity and size more than their intellectual and moral attainments, if any,” writes Lindsay.