Marc Bailey is an objective thinker slinging wisdom in a subjective society.

But, like the biblical David, he has faith that one of his stones will eventually bring Goliath tumbling to the ground.

Last year, Bailey’s passion for the ethical treatment of collegiate athletes compelled him to dedicate a Web site, oversigning.com, to the cause. With nearly seven million hits as of this writing, it’s safe to say that the logic printed on his site is garnering attention.

“Life is not fair,” he stated passionately. “It doesn’t owe you anything. Believe that.”

And that is the one thing he wants potential college athletes to understand.

Bailey’s mantra, which most objective thinkers would consider to be fact, is a result of his twenty-five years of experience in the American business sector. Following a cancer scare, which he overcame, the former Indiana Hoosier football player retired. But his passion to topple what he considers to be a monopolistic behemoth, coupled with his absolute belief in free market economics, continues to work overtime on the Web.

His mission is simply about fairness and the protection of young men from Big Business lies.

His target is the governing body of collegiate sports, the NCAA. “Think about any business,” he began. “If the government allowed a cartel to be formed where owners didn’t have to pay workers, who wouldn’t want to own this kind of business? The government has given them special status and legislators (justify it by saying) ‘these are just students. We’ll compensate them with books, tuition, etc.’”

The problem isn’t the offer of a free education. It’s the fact that so few of these expendable athletes achieve it.

The problem is that the NCAA has no competition, resulting in it and its members reaping massive yearly profits for minimal, risk-free investments on the backs of impressionable young adults. Immoral schools with win-first sports aspirations are allowed, thanks to NCAA loopholes, to deceive talented athletes by offering them the moon and then crushing their dreams like an empty beer can once a better option comes along.

“Free market economics is what this country is all about….not, command economics,” Bailey said adamantly, noting that the NCAA makes tons of cash thanks to its ability to maintain its monopoly. “ESPN gets all of their funds from the free market. CBS’s bid for March Madness came from the free market. Big dollars are going to everyone except the performers because the government protects the NCAA.”

Bailey predicts that a present class action lawsuit involving former UCLA star basketball player Ed O’Bannon is the beginning of the end for the non-compensation days of NCAA players.

“The NCAA has always bought people off in the past, but the law firm handling the case isn’t willing to settle because it’s a billion dollar case. If this goes the right way, it will punch a fatal hole in the NCAA not allowing kids to be paid. Then, the NCAA will have to try other things to fend off the free market economics of players.”

SEC fans beware. Visiting oversigning.com is bound to rile your allegiant pride. The site’s goal is to position a fifty-million candlepower spotlight on the magical bookkeeping performed at all schools who indulge in immoral recruiting practices, and the resulting indecent treatment of gullible young souls, for the sake of winning championships.

Oversigning.com has become so successful that Bailey has pioneered a new site, Reform the NCAA (www.reformthencaa.com), to add more elasticity to his slingshot and allow for more ethical stones. On the site, he questions the rules of the governing body of collegiate athletics and offers common sense solutions.

One solution is for universities and colleges to include in a coach’s pay structure an incentive for developing young players as responsible adults. “Siphon some of the money into incentives to ensure that kids practice life skills, responsibility, etc.,” he said. “Put compensation on things other than winning games.”

He claimed to have made this pitch to the president of Washington State University. It fell on deaf ears. “It’s all about the money,” he said, exasperated.

The bottom line for Bailey is this: Our government allows millionaires to become richer via red-tape deceit akin to indentured servitude while providing impressionable young men with nothing more than false promises, which are creatively disguised in the recruiting nomenclature as “opportunities.”

He asked if any of the assistant coaches in major college sports today, all of whom are handsomely compensated and vying to someday become a highly paid head coach, would work for free with the vague offer of a potential “opportunity” in the future.

“There’s only one part of the whole machine who works for an ‘opportunity,’” Bailey said. “Seventeen and eighteen year-old kids who have never had a job.”

Visit www.oversigning.com and www.reformthencaa.com for more in-depth information.

Billy Bruce is a contributing columnist.