It was a typical example of the man's modesty. When Bill Friday had to back out of a dinner with those of us participating in a statewide editorial writers and editors conference last week, he apologized but said he had to attend an awards ceremony for Duke University historian John Hope Franklin. He didn't mention that he was also being honored.

But when he came to the conference the next morning, the fellow who led the University of North Carolina system with a quiet dignity for 30 years was breathing fire on a subject, college sports, that has occupied his energies for some years. It might even be said that his concerns go back nearly a half-century, to the early days of his tenure as president.

Friday, who became president of the university in 1956, had his first run-in with the passions and pitfalls of athletics in 1961, when the popular Dixie Classic basketball tournament was corrupted by gamblers. He remembers clearly that when some kids didn't go along with what the gamblers wanted to happen, "...the gamblers got the kids outside and stuck a gun in their stomachs and said, 'Give the money back, or we'll kill you.'" Against the wishes of some members of the General Assembly and certainly some fans, Friday, with the support of UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Bill Aycock and N.C. State's John Caldwell, shut down the tournament, which at that time was the most popular event in college basketball.

These days, he retains his leadership role in the Knight Commission on college athletics, which he and Notre Dame's president emeritus, Theodore Hesburgh, have co-chaired since its formation in 1989. And when he arrived at our conference (held at UNC-CH's School of Journalism and Mass Communication) he was loaded for bear. Let us just say that by the time he got through, the bears were wounded.

Friday is no friend of shoe contracts for coaches, or of the royal ransoms those coaches receive from their universities. The control television networks exercise over schedules in exchange for their millions angers him. This day, he was particularly distressed over the abysmal graduation rates of the teams participating in the national collegiate men's basketball tournament.

Of those who made it to the final 16 in the tournament, The New York Times reports, only four -- Duke, Vanderbilt, Kansas and Xavier -- had graduation rates of 50 percent or better. The Knight Commission has recommended that schools under 50 percent not be allowed to participate in post-season play at all. (It should perhaps be noted that another of our conference visitors, Dean Smith, had an exemplary graduation rate during his long tenure as head basketball coach in Chapel Hill.)

"There is a moral obligation," Friday said, "that once you accept a student, to help that student be a success." He noted that in 28 college football bowl games last year, only two schools would qualify under the 50 percent rule. And with some sense of irony, he pointed to the financial incentives included in the contract of Oklahoma's football coach, Bob Stoops. Most of them had to do with winning games or honors of some kind, with the total well in seven figures. "But look at this," Friday said, pointing to what Stoops gets if his graduation rate is 70 percent. "Do you see this figure?" It was $10,000.

Although the pooh-bahs of college sports decry the inflated salaries, the arms races for bigger and better arenas, their service as free training camps for professional leagues and all the other money-driven factors that have made a joke of "amateur" sports and have exploited many a "student-athlete," very little reform seems to get done -- especially when it might mean a drop in dollars. Only when a university is mightily embarrassed by scandal is true change accomplished, and even then, it seems, reluctantly.

Bill Friday, in the eye of this storm for decades, could say I told you so, but instead he continues to try to shame the pooh-bahs into doing better by simply embarrassing them with the facts -- disgraceful graduation rates, television deals that have them bowing to the long green above all else, university-sanctioned apparel deals that stop just short of requiring coaches to be tattooed with corporate logos. And yes, by reminding them that things can be done right, and that there was a time when college athletics had a place on campuses that enriched everyone in ways that had little to do with finances.

This is a tough and frustrating fight. Friday will be 84 in July, and many years back could have taken the bows for having done his part. But carry on he does. And as long as he does, the bears will at least be nervous.

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