LARNED — A Warning Shot is a military term which describes any action of declaration, especially a demonstration of power, intended or perceived as a last warning before hostile measures.
That aptly describes what Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby did to the NCAA this past week during Big 12 Media Days in Dallas. It followed a similar press conference by SEC commissioner Mike Slive the week before.
Warning shot across the bow? More like a torpedo attack from all sides! Similar statements are coming from the rest of the “big boys” of collegiate athletics in the Pac 12, Big 10 and ACC. Both Slive and Bowlsby issued similar statements essentially saying that the NCAA is a fine organization, but they are lacking in “innovative leadership.” Bowlsby even stated, “I really do think we need to reconfigure the leadership of the organization.”
NCAA President Mark Emmert should be a little nervous. He ought to be checking to see if his ship, the one that just had the warning shot fired across its’ bow, has any life preservers.  Either that or he’d better be a great long distance swimmer! When these conferences state that the NCAA is lacking in “innovative leadership” they’re talking about Emmert and his board of directors. In other words folks, the BCS schools are about to launch a hostile takeover of the NCAA. You know, like the pirates used to do.
Consider this statement by Bowlsby: “There are 70 schools that win 90 percent of the championships in the NCAA and we have a bunch of others that don’t look like the others yet are trying to compete.” It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to figure out that Bowlsby, Slive and the rest of the “Big Boy” schools figure it is about time to break this thing up and form different divisions, one for the big-time programs that generate all of the money and another for those who you seldom see on television.
Can it be that collegiate athletics will end up like the KSHSAA with more divisions, more championships, than one can almost count? Heck, everybody makes the playoffs. The more the merrier!
Of course this is about money. Lots of it, like all things sporting in the United States. Money is the tail that wags the dog and right now Fido is being swung around in a dizzying circle.
Remember this: When a Warning Shot is fired across the bow it is to put the receiving ship on notice that hostile confrontations are coming. The Bigwigs at the NCAA had better strap on their fighting gear!

• CHALK TALK
Go figure. Kansas State has the most Preseason first team selections in football and yet are picked 6th in the conference? They just don’t get it about Bill Snyder do they? Why is it that the media chooses their “best” football conference by which team wins the national championship? Tell me about Tennessee, Mississippi State, Mississippi and Vanderbilt. Those Brits are sly. This year they started calling the British Open simply The Open, as in “we are the ultimate, the original, the best. Of course our silly media got right in lockstep with them on it. ... It was once said by a sportswriter watching the Celtics’ Larry Bird shooting jump shots for an hour before a game that it was like watching a fish practice swimming! ... Mentioning K-State’s Bill Snyder reminded me of a quote attributed to Green Bay’s Vince Lombardi: “A real executive goes around with a worried look on his assistants.”  
That sounds like Snyder.

Charles Tabler is a contributing writer from Larned.