File photo WVU athletic director Wren Baker is shown during a recent press gathering.

MORGANTOWN — College athletics is about to enter into a new world as all the lawsuits seem to have been settled and collegiate sports have taken their financial agreements with players out from under the table and laid them out like a Thanksgiving turkey for the world to see.

They have been preparing for this for two or three years now, so one would expect that this play for pay system will work out, but there is not a soul amongst us who expect the transition to be any smoother than a 1936 Nash transmission would be on today’s roads.

Is West Virginia ready for this brave new world?

It has done all it could to be so.

Mostly, over the years, it has let tears run down its face complaining that was among sports have nots, but somehow it always found a way to keep up with the trend setters as over the last 55 years it has done as much building as anyone in the college games.

From the Coliseum, which remains one of the great home courts in the nation, and the football facility, which has undergone more cosmetic surgery than an aging movie star and coming out of each better than before, to such structures as the Kendrick Family Ballpark for baseball, the Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium, the basketball practice facility, track and swimming and diving facilities at Mylan Park, et al, whatever they’ve needed they’ve found a way to finance it.

With the fund-raising infrastructure now completely refurbished so that it seems to be a fundraising structure for fans, the Mountaineers under the guidance of Athletic Director Wren Baker feel capable of competing with the other schools in the Big 12.

And, as the new revenue sharing with the players and providing further paths to monetize name, image and likeness so that prospects can come to a small state school on a Greyhound Bus and leave in Mercedes, they seem well armed for the challenge.

It will be interesting to see, though, just how this all plays out.

It seems a lifetime in sports reporting and commenting has made me wary of where this will take us.

As someone who broke into the business when professional baseball players still would have to find off-season work because they had no free agency, no real road to capitalize on their earning potential, and saw it go so far in the opposite direction that more and more athletes are becoming owners of the professional teams.

Baseball actually over the years has given itself a complete redefinition, starting with the designated hitter rule that only one league would adopt, to surviving drug and steroid scandals while building palaces for ballparks that doubled as bars, restaurants and entertainment centers.

It went from players making peanuts and fans eating peanuts to filet mignon for everyone.

It brought in a time clock and challenged its own records and values with pitch counts and shifts and when the shifts seemed to take something away from the game, they took them out.

The result?

The Yankees and Dodgers still win, just like they did in the 1950s.

So, is there any reason to believe that in college sports the rich won’t just get richer, but also keep dominating?

Does anyone think no matter how much realignment goes on, no matter how much transferring seems to affect the sports that Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State and Alabama and Georgia won’t still dominate?

Will things get any easier for WVU to compete? Is there a national football or basketball championship somewhere in the offing for them, something they have never won?

Just a day or so ago a national media outlet predicted WVU to finish 14th out of 16 Big 12 teams, apparently figuring that it won’t be any easier to start over for Rich Rodriguez in his second time around as WVU coach than he was in 2001 when he went 3-8.

He has completely turned over the roster, almost as much as new basketball coach Ross Hodge has turned over his roster in his first year, although for some reason they think his roster will be more competitive in an even tougher Big 12 football race.

The truth is that all of the changes, just as they’ve been in the professional ranks in the major sports, have had nothing to do with evening out the competitiveness.

As the Pirates up in Pittsburgh.

They’ve made their money. Their players have become millionaires. But the incentives that have been addressed have been financial.

It has been not to spread the wealth, only to increase the wealth.

What’s happened in the college game is no different. Do not forget, these changes were court driven and they were to see that the players got their fair share.

Kudos for that. They deserved it after having been mistreated from Rockne to Wilkinson to Bryant to Saban.

Oddly, as much emphasis has been put on football and basketball, WVU goes into the new era far more accomplished recently in the smaller sports. Baseball and women’s basketball have risen to the level of being national contenders.

Men’s soccer and women’s are there with track and field and rifle and wrestling as competitive on the national scene, but what hasn’t really changed is that you will not be judged on that.

We live in a football and basketball world and WVU has to find a way not just to make enough to get by, but to compete on a level that continues to sell the school as an athletic destination for players for reasons beyond a pay day.