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A smart, gifted athlete at a local university once whispered that he wished he could have properly prepared for medical school during his undergraduate years while playing football, but he had found it difficult to coordinate rigorous, conflicting time commitments in both athletics and academics. He said he felt as though his coaches "owned" him, and that his playing time was dependent on dutiful, required, rigid compliance to the wishes of others that often went unspoken, but were definitely implied. He went on to have a terrific football career at the school — and wound up with a degree in communications. He had no time to become a doctor.

Time, at last, might be on a college athlete's side, or at least be edging in that direction.

It will be if the powers-five-that-be get their way, and actually enforce their proposals, and others follow suit, if those proposals are formally adopted. The commissioners of the P5 leagues on Thursday followed up on earlier resolutions, announcing a plan to reduce sports-related requirements on college athletes' time, allowing more flexibility for those athletes' other pursuits.

Like, for instance, being a student.

It's a revolutionary idea.

Think of the possibilities: College athletes spending a little less time on the practice field and in the film room and in position-group meetings and a little more time in libraries and laboratories and — who knows? — maybe even hanging out at the student union.

It would be a wise and healthy move all around.

Time has always been a major issue in college sports, coaches looking for any sort of advantage they can find, any improvement in a team's collective strength or preparation or execution. Classroom work can get pushed aside for the weight room. Voluntary workouts become involuntary. The sometimes-uneasy balance between school and sports, just like in the case of the aforementioned regretful football player, often tilts toward sports because a coach is more outwardly demanding, but, ultimately, no less punitive than a professor.

At times, already-existing rules, meant to protect the notion of a student-athlete, get stretched.

One of the biggest jokes in college athletics is the notion that athletes are supposed to spend no more than 20 hours a week in season devoted to their sport. Surveys taken among athletes reveal that that rule has been, if anything, a soft suggestion.

A new emphasis on the value of time might add some teeth to it.

The concepts put forth by the P5 leagues, as part of what's been called the "Flex 21" plan, which could be customized further by individual conferences as they are more fully shaped, give athletes more time away from their sports, starting with 21 additional days during the academic year with no athletic activities — seven immediately following their respective seasons and 14 more through the academic year.

In addition, during the season, athletes would weekly get one full day off, in which they have no required activities. That is not a new rule, but, as is, some teams use that time as a travel day. Under these proposals, that would not be allowed.

Also, there would be a consecutive eight-hour overnight block that would fall between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., during which no athletic-related activities could be required.

In their joint statement, the commissioners said: "Students deserve time off and we want athletic departments to work in a sensible and appropriate way to provide it. We want administrators to have some degree of flexibility in implementing these rules, but they must be mindful that rest is important to a student's health, in addition to their athletic and academic performance."

Every once in a while these guys get something right, and they are right about this. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has said in interviews that his conference might take such proposals even further. All of which would perhaps make less of a mockery of the term student-athlete.

Even if team strength is compromised or execution suffers, which it likely wouldn't, maybe the world would have more qualified doctors in it, more former athletes with fewer regrets.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.