It's time to bring in the agents.(representation for college basketball players)(Brief Article)

Back when the coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference were named Smith, Cremins, Odom and Barnes, they were treated at their annual league meetings to an annual argument from then-NC State coach Les Robinson. He believed college players should be permitted to retain agents.

"He used to get laughed at," says DePaul coach Pat Kennedy, then in charge at Florida State. "Les Robinson was a very progressive thinker on this issue."

Robinson's proposal may have seemed a little nuts in the mid-1990s, but not now.

College coaches who largely have been averse to considering changes to the NCAA's amateurism policies should push for athletes to be permitted access to formal representation agreements while retaining their eligibility. The agreements should be registered with the universities' athletic departments and include limits on the money that may be loaned to athletes.

This proposal is not part of the package of amateurism changes being considered by the NCAA's governing committees. But other athletic administrators in addition to Robinson, now athletic director at The Citadel, favor this. The support of college coaches might be enough to get it considered for adoption.

"I think it would clean up a lot of things," Robinson says. "The agents are going to always be there, and it would be better to have some control of them."

In the past, the greatest problem involving college athletes and agents appeared to be under-the-table payments that violated NCAA rules and some state statutes. That is a victimless crime, though, compared to some agents' quests to lure underclassmen into professional drafts.