Where’s the outcry when players gamble?

Call it the NCAA’s silent shame. The recently released results of a gambling survey commissioned by the association found that 1.1 percent of Division I football players admitted taking money for playing poorly in a game, and 1.6 percent said they knew somebody who did so. In other words, go to a big-time college football game, and the odds tell you there are one or two people on the field ready to take a dive.

One can scarcely overstate the threat this condition poses to the well-being of big-time college sports, because it goes to the integrity of the game. Yet this unsettling admission seems to have come and gone without receiving the attention it requires. The NCAA has set up a committee, but that’s barely a start. University presidents, chancellors, faculties and others who care about the future of college athletics need to speak out and get involved. The silence is deafening.