For all the traditions the NCAA likes to observe, it does not let tradition get in the way of making money. Recently the overseer of major college football in the U.S. decided to allow its members to play games on Friday nights.

According to Gene Wojciechowski, writing in ESPN The Magazine, the move was made under the threat of a lawsuit claiming restraint of trade. The threat apparently came from smaller Division 1A conferences, like the Mid-American, Mountain West and Conference USA.

Their position is that they cannot get the television exposure they feel they need when they go up against the Notre Dames, Ohio States, Floridas, etc. for the few available hours on Saturday … so many games, so little time.

The recent addition of a Thursday night NCAA game was not satisfactory. It was not enough added air time.

Thursday night college football did not raise many eyebrows. However, Friday night college football might. Some high school representatives already are raising voices of protest.

It apparently is the same around most of the nation as it is here in Northwest Ohio … high school football is played on Friday night and college football on Saturday afternoon.

Of course here in Tiffin, as well as in Fostoria and Fremont, there are adjustments necessary because several schools share stadiums … but we know what the norm should be. The NCAA, however, is willing to allow its conferences to compete head to head with high school football for fan attention and dollars.

I wonder, though, whether the worry about the move hurting income for high school teams is valid.

Take the MAC and one of its premier rivalries, Toledo/Bowling Green, for example. The only real conflict might come if the colleges were scheduled to play in the Glass Bowl in Toledo on the same night a headline high school game was scheduled.

In BG, as in Toledo, high school football fans are not fans of local college football. Of course, there is some overlap. Locally, you may see a few of the same faces at a Saturday afternoon college game that you saw the night before at a high school game … but not many.

In my four years as a student at BGSU, with admittedly limited contacts in the community, it seemed there was not much interest from the community in the college’s athletic activities.

It seems, then, that colleges who might play on Friday night probably are not competing for the same fans as a local high school team. Nor are high school fans likely to stay home on Friday night to watch a small conference college game on TV.

Qualifying for the 87th Indianapolis 500 auto race begins Saturday. If you’re looking for someone to root for, think of Corey Witherill. Witherill had his first start in an Indy car two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Late in the race, his car had engine trouble, setting off a blazing crash which took out eleven competitors. A dubious claim to fame, but Witherill is not letting it get him down.

Witherill is a Navaho, who hopes that what success he may find in big time auto racing will provide a role model to young people who share his heritage. If he qualifies, he would be the first Native American to race at Indy since Joie Chitwood, a Cherokee, drove there in the 1940s and ‘50s.

He has paid his dues. The youngest of ten children, eight of whom were adopted, Witherill began racing motorcycles at the age of 15. He has been a regular in CART’s Indy Lights series since 1998. His first race in that series, on the two-mile oval at Fontana, CA, produced a fourth place finish.

This year, he had top ten finishes in the first two races of the Indy Lights season and skipped the third race to run in the IRL at Atlanta. He still needs to find a primary sponsor and his wreck at Atlanta further tightens the budget for his 500 effort.

He’ll need some powerful medicine this weekend.