SEC coaches and administrators gather at a resort hotel each year to make crucial decisions that will impact their schools and sports for years to come.

Will they partake of the hotel's seafood buffet or dine out? Golf or tennis? Beach or pool?

If it's the pool, which one? Indoor or outdoor?

As you can tell by those questions, this is a demanding time for SEC coaches and administrators, who will be trapped at a beach resort this week for their annual spring meetings.

Occasionally, I try to alleviate their workload by offering suggestions of my own. It should be noted that none of my suggestions has ever made its way into SEC or NCAA legislation. But I'm not easily discouraged.

So here are my recommended changes for this year:

Academic Reform: As you might have heard, this is an era of academic reform in college athletes. As you also might have heard, the 1990s were an era of academic reform. So were the 1980s. And the 1970s.

Recommendation: Refer to "academic reform" as "academic rhetoric."

Behavorial Reform: University presidents spend too much rhetoric on academics and not enough on crime.

What's worse? Low graduation rates or high crime rates?

Recommendation: Impose scholarship reductions on schools with a high crime rate among student-athletes.

Basketball Reform: Basketball players run faster, jump higher and dunk more creatively. All they lack is a shooting touch.

This just in: shooting is still an integral part of the sport.

Recommendation: Require student-athletes to take a standardized shooting test before becoming eligible for a college scholarship. If they can't meet minimal shooting standards, they can attend a junior college or a prep school.

Football Reform: College football has become too big.

I don't mean the money or the stadiums. I mean the size of the players.

Nobody needs to weigh 300 pounds. It's not healthy, and it doesn't make for a better game.

Recommendation: Put a 300-pound weight limit on players.

Minor Sports Reform: The so-called no-revenue sports are too often non-spectator sports as well. A few fans follow track. A few others follow tennis, golf or swimming.

But suppose you had all 12 SEC schools competing for championships in the same city and week - like Tennessee's Spring Fling for high schools.

Recommendation: A Spring Fling for the SEC.

Minor Sports Reform II: You want to improve attendance at minor sports events? It's easy. Tie it to football.

Recommendation: Require any football season ticket holder to provide proof of attendance at a swimming meet, golf tournament, tennis tournament and track meet.

Is that any worse than requiring football season ticket holders to make a donation?

Tennis Reform: Two words: roller skates.

Recommendation: Require college tennis players to wear roller skates and call it "Extreme Tennis." Student attendance will increase dramatically.

Television Reform: I had the misfortune of attending the Tennessee-Ole Miss game in Oxford, Miss., last October. The game was scheduled for 9 p.m. EST. to accommodate ESPN.

Never mind the inconvenience for the media. Think about the fans, most of whom stayed in Memphis. Even the hardy partiers didn't have sufficient time to celebrate.

Recommendation: No more 9 p.m. kickoffs for an SEC team from the Eastern Standard Time Zone.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knews.com.