The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- December 20, 1999

A presidential era

Institutional CEOs launch reforms in college athletics

BY KAY HAWES
STAFF WRITER

Toward the end of the 1980s, it became apparent that intercollegiate athletics was in jeopardy.

Scandal after scandal had tarnished the reputation of all of athletics, and the pressure of big-time college sports had led to spiraling costs, increased cheating and, in some cases, a disregard for student-athlete welfare.

If higher education did not take action to fix the problems, there was a real possibility that the federal government would clean up intercollegiate athletics in its own way.

"The scope or even the existence of the problem no longer is relevant," NCAA Executive Director Richard D. Schultz told NCAA members. "The fact is that the public perceives college athletics to be in serious trouble. Perception has become reality in our case. We must do something to change that perception."

The scandals of the 1980s got the attention of leaders in intercollegiate athletics -- and academics -- like nothing had before. It became clear that an institution caught cheating for athletics gains suffered consequences that reached far beyond athletics. There was a public perception -- and perhaps a reality -- that student-athletes were being used for their athletics ability, with no real regard for their academic welfare.

Institutions' academic reputations were at stake, as was the integrity of all in intercollegiate athletics. It was time for presidents, those ultimately responsible for the bottom line at universities both financially and academically, to get involved.

Knight Commission

In 1989, the Knight Foundation, supported by a $2 million grant from the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, was among the first to call for significant reforms that included more presidential involvement and control.

"We have a lot of sports fans on our board," said Knight Foundation Chairman James Knight at the creation of a commission on intercollegiate athletics, "and we recognize that intercollegiate athletics have a legitimate and proper role to play in college and university life. Our interest is not to abolish that role but to preserve it by putting it back in perspective.

"We hope this commission can strengthen the hands of those who want to curb the abuses that are shaking public confidence in the integrity of not just big-time college athletics but the whole institution of higher education."

The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, which was chaired by William C. Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Theodore M. Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, ultimately produced three reports that helped propel presidential involvement and reform in athletics in the 1990s.

The commission's first report laid out the problems facing college sports and proposed a new model, known as the "one plus three," which consisted of presidential control directed three ways: toward academic integrity, financial integrity and accountability through independent certification.

The commission recommended several actions that it believed would lead to greater presidential control, including a call to institutions' trustees to explicitly endorse and reaffirm presidential authority in athletics department governance, finances and personnel. The commission also recommended that presidents should control the NCAA.

While the Knight commission was an advisory body, it had the ears of many in intercollegiate athletics, including those within the NCAA.

"The executive officers -- chancellors and presidents -- have to be put back in control of athletics at their schools," said Schultz. "Hopefully this can be done in concert with the athletics directors, who are supposed to be experts in all facets of the athletics operation."

The Reform Convention

The NCAA Presidents Commission, which had conducted a 1989 study and found that the biggest complaint from student-athletes was that practices, conditioning schedules and travel to contests took the "student" out of "student-athlete," began planning reforms that it hoped would bring academic integrity back to intercollegiate athletics.

In deciding what other reforms to make, the presidents conducted a historic summit in June 1990 with the NCAA's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Thirty-eight of the 44 members of the Presidents Commission, including the chair, Martin Massengale of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, attended the closed meetings, marking the first time in the history of the NCAA that student-athletes' formal representation was permitted.

After listening to the concerns of the student-athletes, the presidents left the meeting vowing to present legislation at the 1991 NCAA Convention in Nashville that would help limit time demands on student-athletes.

The 1991 Convention became known as the Reform Convention. It was the first time that significant reform measures supported by NCAA institution presidents were adopted by the NCAA membership. That Convention was the beginning of what would be lengthy debates on many, many issues that would affect the Association in a number of ways over the next decade.

The 1991 reform package consisted of three major parts: cost containment, time demands on student-athletes and restructuring. Many in athletics saw the second part of the reforms as perhaps the most important.

"I've long believed one problem we've needed to address is the excessive demands the system puts on a student-athlete's time," said Edward T. Foote, president of the University of Miami (Florida) in 1991. "This (proposal) brings the balance between intercollegiate athletics and academics into a much better equilibrium."

This was the birth of what is now called the "20-hour rule," which was intended to limit student-athletes to 20 hours of competition or required practice time during the playing season. Also included in that legislation were restrictions on playing and practice seasons.

The cost-containment legislation included proposals to limit coaching staffs and establish what was called a "restricted-earnings" coaching position (which ultimately would lead to the historic restricted-earnings lawsuit) and a phased-in 10 percent reduction in scholarships, as well as reductions on the time spent recruiting.

The restructuring legislation included provisions that would more clearly define which institutions should be at what level in the Association. Also adopted were proposals intended to incorporate student-athletes into the student body, phasing out the use of athletics dormitories and limiting student-athletes to only one training-table meal per day.

Not a passing fancy

Those who doubted that presidents were in intercollegiate athletics for the long haul heard a prophetic statement from Schultz, who predicted that the presidents had just gotten started.

"I don't think this is just a shot in the dark for the presidents," he said after the 1991 Convention. "I think they have genuine enthusiasm to see that important changes are made in intercollegiate athletics and that intercollegiate athletics takes its rightful position in higher education."

Indeed, it was not a shot in the dark. The presidents went on to increase their influence through the NCAA Presidents Commission, which next took on the task of strengthening the NCAA's academic requirements for athletics eligibility.

In each subsequent year of the 1990s, the presidents seemingly exercised more influence as they supported changes in academic standards, financial aid and gender equity.

Then with the completion of NCAA governance restructuring in 1997, presidents found their role expanded again with the creation of Presidents Councils (called the Board of Directors in Division I) in each newly federated division, where they would wield more control over the Association than ever before.