Just to pass the time, you fall into conversation with, let’s say, a Japanese businessman. He’s an educated, articulate man, but has never been here before, and knows nothing of American culture.


(OK, so a worldly Japanese businessman who speaks English would almost have to know something of American culture. It’s a hypothetical. Buy in for a minute.)


So you talk about families and jobs and school and leisure and that leads to sports. And you mention that in America, some of the best institutions of higher learning make admissions decisions, and give free educations, based on the ability to run around in one’s underwear and throw a ball through a hoop, or kick one into a net or tackle or throw or bat.


Think your Japanese friend would even believe you? He’d think you’re kidding, wouldn’t he?


Are we nuts, in America, to turn the job of training elite athletes over to colleges and universities?


John Gerdy thinks so.


Gerdy, a Lancaster Countian, is the author of “Air Ball: American Education’s Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics,’’ a book that suggests maybe we are nuts, and that dramatic change to the sports culture are in order. “We are only country where the responsibility for developing elite athletes is on schools,’’ Gerdy said recently.


“We’re screaming from the mountaintop that athletics is more important than academics.’’


Not that Gerdy has a problem with elite athletes or their development. He used to be one, an All-American basketball player at Davidson College.


He was drafted by the New Jersey Nets, played a year in the CBA and later, had a tryout with the Golden State Warriors. Gerdy’s pro basketball experience gave him his first indication that something was wrong here.


“I saw so many guys in their late 20s, still chasing the dream,’’ Gerdy said.


“I went from Davidson, where everyone was expected to graduate, to the CBA, where I was maybe the only guy [on my team] who had graduated. I thought, ‘Man, what kind of system are we in?’ ’’


So he tried to change it. Gerdy worked as a youth-sports director in an underprivileged area of Charlotte, N.C. After taking a master’s degree in sports administration, he worked at the NCAA and then as an associate commisioner in charge of compliance for the Southeastern Conference.


The SEC? Where, at least by reputation, they occasionally like to mix in a little book learnin’ with their football? “A lot of people said, ‘Why in the world? ... You don’t fit in there at all,’ ’’ Gerdy admitted.


“It would have been easy to go to the Ivy League, places like that. Are you gonna make much of a difference there?” He tried.


“Is there a warped sense of priorities? Yes,’’ Gerdy said. “But I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, and we did make some progress.’’


Then Gerdy’s first child was born, in 1995. The family settled in Lancaster and, since his wife is a corporate executive, he became the world’s busiest stay-at-home dad. In addition to the writing, he lectures and consults and teaches graduate students, mostly via e-mail, at Ohio University.


He is president of Lancaster Day Care Center, a nonprofit organization which provides low-cost day care for low-income parents.


He also works with Music for Everyone, a nonprofit that raises funds and issues grants supporting school and community music programs.


Finally, Gerdy is aka Willie Marble, a blues musician who performs an educational music program in schools and occasionally plays for adults around town as “The Willie Marble Experience.’’


“Air Ball’’ is Gerdy’s second book. The first, “Sports: The All-American Addiction,’’ takes a broader look at all levels of American sport.


That macro view is distilled to a micro-blueprint for reform in “Air Ball.’’


Gerdy suggests making college freshmen ineligible for varsity competition and eliminating off-campus recruiting. He’d like to see pro sports develop minor leagues as feeder systems. That system already exists in the NHL and major-league baseball, of course, and is apparently coming in the NBA.


Nothing on the horizon in the NFL, though. Should there be? Do we really want to compromise Happy Valley and the Golden Dome for minor-league pro football?


“It’s a flawed argument,’’ Gerdy said. “Penn State fans don’t care if the kid who just turned the corner to score a touchdown runs a 4.4 (-second 40-yard dash) or 4.6. What they care about is beating Ohio State.


“If I get a bunch of guys and dress up in the red of Alabama, and you get a bunch and dress in the orange and blue of Auburn, people in Alabama would root for us. “There will be some drop-off, but not enough that people will stop coming. The appeal will actually be enhanced, because people won’t be so skeptical about college athletics.”


The cornerstone of Gerdy’s plan is elimination of the athletic scholarship, to be replaced with need-based financial aid of the kind for which every student is eligible.


“Need-based aid fundamentally alters the contract from between the student and coach to between the student and institution based on academic performance,’’ he said. “You keep the aid regardless of your performance on the field, or even if you decide not to play.’’


None of this is new, of course. None of it is the stuff of magic bullets.


“Will there be abuse? Of course,’’ Gerdy said. “But we can change the role sports play in our lives, and colleges and universities can take the lead in that. If they can’t say academics are more important than athletics, how can we expect anyone else to?”