The Big Ten's Ivy League takeover

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It seems like the Big Ten is slowly taking over the Ivy League.

First, Columbia appoints Lee Bollinger -- former University of Michigan president -- as its president. Now Cornell has named University of Iowa president David Skorton as its new president.

This should mean good things for Ivy League athletics, which are largely controlled by the presidents of the conference's eight university presidents.

Bollinger (1-1 in Supreme Court decisions) openly supports increasing the prestige of athletics at Columbia and throughout the league.

Skorton seems to come from the same mold. At Iowa, he changed longstanding policy so that the athletic director could report directly to his office. He also oversaw the merger of Iowa's men's and women's athletics programs.

And to start his tenure at Cornell, Skorton wisely took to the ice of Lynah Rink -- clad in an authentic Cornell hockey jersey, as was his wife -- to meet the players, students and university community.

Hopefully this means good things for Ivy League athletics policy in the next few years. I'd love to see Bollinger and Skorton (two former Big Ten rivals) unite to overturn the most unfair and illogical rule in all of college athletics -- the Ivy League's ban on football postseason play.