Opinion
When Clemson University terminated football player Ray Ray McElrathbey's scholarship earlier this month, it showed the world exactly where it stands as an institute of higher learning: uncommonly low ground.
McElrathbey's story, which began as a feel-good tale of love, family and responsibility, has become a tragedy -- or more rightly a travesty -- that represents only the latest and most cold-hearted in a long line of incidents exposing big-time college athletics as callous and hypocritical.
McElrathbey, a junior running back, garnered national attention in 2006 after he rescued his then 11-year-old brother Fahmarr from foster care and a disastrous home situation, where the boys' parents struggled with gambling and crack cocaine addictions.