Just when I thought that aspiring black college football players were finally being forced to take their textbooks as seriously as their playbooks, along comes a place like University High School.

According to The New York Times, it seems that University, a correspondence school in South Florida, has been offering high school athletes a sure way to meet the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s scholarship guidelines by waltzing them through academic courses that they need to pass to boost their grade point averages enough to play college football. A number of athletes repeated courses at University -- an educationally unaccredited school that offers no classes -- and passed. Many got into Division I football programs.

But because they got into college ill-prepared to do college work, and with the notion that there will always be a way to get around that work, what they likely won’t get is the chance to use it as a ticket towards a degree and a better life if their dreams of turning pro are dashed.

I hate that.

I hate it because the overwhelming number of college football players are black, and some studies estimate that as many as 50 percent of them come from impoverished backgrounds. They shouldn’t get the idea early on that academics are an aside instead of an essential route to success.

That idea is wrong -- and when I think of it, I think of my days at University of Florida and the tragedy of Willie Wilder. I don’t know what he’s doing now, but I remember that Wilder, who had been a star receiver at UF, was injured after he went professional in 1978. Since he was shuffled through his classes and never graduated, by 1981 he had gone back to picking oranges in the groves of Kissimmee, Fla. His plight was the subject of a story in the college newspaper.

I remember thinking about the unfairness of it all; of how athletic handlers at the school cared more about whether Wilder shined on a football field, not whether he was lighting a path for himself out of poverty. So when I think of Wilder and the black football players who were steered towards correspondence degrees at University High -- some of who now complain that they can’t keep up with college work -- I think about how the last message that needs to trickle down to young black boys is yet another one that says being able to play sports is a ticket to get around the tough work that it takes to make it in school.

Not that it necessarily takes a University High to send that message.

Each day black youths are barraged with media images that show a preponderance of black men ruling the football fields or basketball courts. Add to that the fact that in the neighborhoods that many of them live in, there are few black men who are prospering in square jobs to help them balance those images; to show that between mega-rich athletes and entertainers are the doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs who used their educations to make a decent, fulfilling living. But those black men aren’t the types who are likely to be featured in reality shows.  So sadly enough, many young black males have bought into the notion that playing football or basketball is the only ticket to a better life.

There’s some proof of this. University of Texas at Austin professor John Hoberman, author of the book “Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved  the Myth of Race,” found that of black children aged 13 to 18, two-thirds believe they have a realistic shot at becoming professional athletes. Only one-third of white youths in that age group believe that about themselves.

I’ve also noticed this at school career days. More than a few times I’ve encountered young brothers who said they planned to play professional football. That gave them license to put their heads on their desks during my journalism presentations. Upon further questioning, I even discovered that some of them weren’t even on their school teams. Television made it look easy enough. No need for a real plan.

That’s how disconnected some of them are with reality.

So I hope that the N.C.A.A. will be pressured to close the correspondence school loophole. But more than that, I hope that black youths who have designs on playing college football begin to understand that if they are struggling in school, they must get help in middle school so that by the time they are seniors, they will be able to meet N.C.A.A. academic standards without having to turn to a diploma mill like University High - and further delude themselves that academics are merely an obstruction in the road to the NFL.

The truth is that having a shot at a college degree is a more secure route to success and, in the case of some black athletes, towards reversing generations of poverty.

Just in case their dream job doesn’t pan out.