but I think it's telling that someone presumably having a reasonable level of intelligence came away with the opposite interpretation from what seems to have been intended.

I wasn't really sure about the writer's intent/approach until I got to "Down--Up." Doesn't seem to me a wise approach when you leave it up in the air that long...sorta forcing someone to go back and read again through the "oh, he's playing the opposite game" lens.

All I got out of it is that Coleman Collins thinks college sports need some fixing and that the fixing surrounds compensation, exploitation, and race. Zero supporting evidence to support his stance and zero suggestions for improving things. To me, that's not thought provoking...those issues have been raised by many before...if you haven't thought about those things, you haven't thought about college sports much.

I commend him for trying to be creative, I just think he whiffed on conveying whatever message he hoped to...he wrote a lot of words to convey very little.