I believe the Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, when he says the university did not participate in a cover-up while investigating the suicide of a St. Mary’s College student who had claimed members of the football team fondled her breasts against her will.

I believe it because Notre Dame is one of the few remaining bastions of integrity in big-time college athletics. If I were to think that Notre Dame were no better than, say, your basic Auburn or Ohio State, then I would have to concede that there’s no chance for big-time college sports to rediscover its moral compass.

Notre Dame belongs to a small club of universities that strives to prove it’s still possible to compete at the highest level without compromising the ethical and academic values upon which universities – and the sports teams that represent them – are supposed to be based.

I trust Notre Dame to do the right thing. The same goes for Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke, North Carolina, Purdue, Virginia, Louisville, the Ivy League schools, and a few others. Indiana belonged to the group until it forfeited its reputation for integrity by hiring basketball coach Kelvin Sampson while he was under NCAA investigation at Oklahoma.

I don’t know what it is about Notre Dame. It’s not strictly because it’s a religious school because we’ve seen Southern Methodist University and Baylor (the world’s largest Baptist-related university) get involved in scandals of the most sordid kind.

I’m not saying everything is perfect in South Bend. Never has been, never will be. And yet the pursuit of excellence with integrity – the basis prerequisite for a Heisman Trophy winner – is more than just an empty phrase at Notre Dame. It’s a way of life that guides everything the university does.

More and more, we must turn to universities like Notre Dame because the NCAA has abdicated its role of moral and academic leadership by caving in to the bullies of the Bowl Championship Series.

In the case of Auburn’s Cam Newton, the Heisman Trophy winner, it’s absurd to believe that he had no idea that his father, a minister, was selling him to the highest bidder. In past cases, such as Reggie Bush at Southern Cal and the “Fab Five” at Michigan, the NCAA has held the institution responsible for illegal actions by family members or family friends.

This time, though, the NCAA reinstated Newton almost as soon as the Southeastern Conference suspended him, allowing him to play against Oregon in the Bowl Championship Series national title game.

While the media was still batting around the pros and cons of that one – the majority seem to want Newton to play because, you know, the game is more important than the piddling rules – the NCAA outdid itself in the case of Ohio State star quarterback Terelle Pryor and four of his teammates.

Caught breaking the extra-benefits rule by selling memorabilia, Pryor and his teammates should have been suspended for their Sugar Bowl game against Arkansas. Instead, the NCAA ruled they could play in the bowl game, but would be suspended for the first five games of NEXT SEASON!

If Pryor and one or more of his fellow culprits leave school for the NFL draft, that will be the most toothless penalty ever issued by the NCAA, which is saying something when you consider all those lame “Vacated” basketball tournament appearances and forfeited games.

The only possible answers is that the NCAA is so afraid the BCS conferences will leave it to form their own organization, with their own TV deals, that it refuses to do anything that might upset the BCS, ESPN, and the other TV networks. Without Newton, the BCS title game would be meaningless. Ditto for the Sugar Bowl if Ohio State had to play without Pryor and his fellow miscreants.

So now the NCAA stands exposed, yet again, as little more than a big corporation that pays only lip service to the principles of integrity, honor, and simple decency. They might as well run up the white flag over NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. The cheaters have won and the people who run the NCAA – the college presidents – have surrendered meekly without firing a shot.

The only universities who are worth our respect are those who have a higher moral calling than the NCAA. I’m talking about the ones who probably could get away with cheating but choose to stay on a higher road – even if it means fewer victories. I’m talking about the ones who understand that winning is important only if it’s done the right way.

The good news in South Bend this year was that the football team finished with a 7-5 record and showed signs of coming out of the coma in which it has existed more or less since Lou Holtz left town. Rookie coach Brian Kelly’s team overcame some tough early losses to finish strong.

But the bad news is that two students lost their lives in football-related incidents.

On Aug. 31, some Irish football players fondled the breaks of Elizabeth Seeburg, a student at St. Mary’s, against her will. She received at least one anonymous e-mail warning her to not mess with Notre Dame football. On Sept. 10, she died of a suspected drug overdose.

Then, on Oct. 27, student videographer Declan Sullivan was killed while filming a practice when strong winds blew over the hydraulic lift on which he was perched.

So far the investigations into both incidents have not turned up any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. But Seeburg’s parents were not satisfied and accused the university of a cover-up, which prompted this response from President Jenkins:

“I cannot stand by and allow the integrity of Notre Dame to be challenged so publicly. The values at issue go to the very heart of who and what we are at Notre Dame.”

In order to justify our continued support for big-time college athletics, we must believe that there’s something worthwhile and redeeming about it. We must believe that sports builds character instead of damages it. We must believe that some institutions are trying to do things the right way.

I choose to believe in Notre Dame because the alternative is simply unthinkable.