You play. To win. The game. That’s what former NFL coach Herm Edwards told us.

Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. That’s what Vince Lombardi told us.

Any good sports fan will read the above quotes, smile and nod in agreement. Winning is the ultimate goal whether you’re playing a 3-on-3 halfcourt basketball game at the Rec or starting at quarterback in the Super Bowl. Winning is life’s elixir.

But something has been irking me lately. The NCAA purports itself to be the antithesis of the win-at-all-costs mentality as a non profit institution monitoring the betterment of college athletes not only on the field, but off of it as well.

Athletes are students primarily. College sports are not about money. Graduation is the true end goal.

Two events within the Wisconsin college landscape last week called into question — not for the first time — this assertion.

Jarrod Uthoff was a freshman basketball player at Wisconsin who, after redshirting this past season, decided to transfer to a team that didn’t cause people watching to stick pins in their eyes.

As you may know, coach Bo Ryan did not take this decision very kindly and reduced the destinations Uthoff could land and receive a scholarship to 26 schools, causing a national media backlash.

The logic of the jolted writers went that coaches and administrators could relocate to whichever college tickled their fancy, so why didn’t their players have the same rights? Furthermore, you or I could transfer today, and Marquette would have absolutely no say in where we could or couldn’t land.

Then there’s the case of Aaron Durley, a 6-foot-10 recruit set to join Marquette next fall, who was “released” from his national letter of intent binding him to this institution. He is now free to go anywhere else but here.

How convenient that a school can simply release itself from a binding contract at the drop of a hat with absolutely no explanation. Imagine getting a call from your advisor today telling you your scholarship that had been promised would no longer be yours. Don’t worry though, there are hundreds of scholarships available at other schools.

This brings us back to the opening quotes. Teams are built to win, even if they are collegiate teams bound by NCAA guidelines. These two moves were cold-hearted but done with the intention to win ball games.

The Grinch — otherwise known as Bo Ryan — didn’t want his player going to a team that they might face over the next two years. Uthoff knew all of the current Wisconsin players’ tendencies, the way the system was run and exactly what the weaknesses of the Badgers were.

As such the Grinch blacklisted 14 teams that would definitely appear on the schedule and 12 that might make their way onto it in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Ryan is not the first, nor will he be the last coach to do this. He just happened to do it during a week when not much else was going on.

Here in Milwaukee it is no secret that Marquette is heavily recruiting Arizona State transfer Trent Lockett. With no available scholarships at the moment, somebody was getting the axe.

Durley was having trouble seeing floor time for his high school team, and according to his coach Ronnie Courtney, needed to “work on everything.” He was a potential prospect who didn’t pan out as expected, so Buzz and Co. said thanks but no thanks. It’s not personal — it’s just business.

Ryan and Buzz are paid exorbitant amounts of money to win games. Don’t let any of their quotes or emails about making players better humans tell you any different. Their job is to win enough to make the NCAA Tournament every year and, once in a while, make a deep tourney run.

Ask yourself this: If Buzz went 6-23 the next two years but graduated all of his players and transformed them into Rhodes Scholars, would he still be the head coach of the Warriors? Absolutely not.

It doesn’t matter what the NCAA or the Athletic Department tries to peddle. Winning is the main goal — with keeping players off the police blotter second.

So while the moves by both coaches this past week were heartless and self-serving, they are the norm in the current win-at-all-costs environment. I’m not one to say it’s right or wrong, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming otherwise.

As Ricky Bobby once said, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”