Ask university presidents if they control intercollegiate athletics, and they will say yes -- but with varying degrees of certainty.

Most will say yes, absolutely, on their own campuses -- though they aren't so sure about fellow CEOs at other campuses. Many will say yes, increasingly, in their conferences -- although in Division I they will acknowledge doubts about whether it's presidents or commissioners who are calling the shots.

Above all, they will say yes, they are in control of the NCAA in the wake of restructuring -- at least in theory, and increasingly so in practice.

"The chief executives of colleges and universities agreed upon a membership structure that says there will be a Division I Board of Directors made up of presidents and chancellors, also (similar groups) in Divisions II and III, and an Executive Committee," said Robert Hemenway, chancellor of the University of Kansas and chair of the Division I Board of Directors. "Those are the key governance mechanisms to achieve this goal, and for the most part they've worked pretty well."

Regardless of how big or small their institution or its athletics program, CEOs seem to agree on what "presidential control" means.

"Presidential control is, for us, the moral of the story," said Patricia Cormier, president of Longwood University, describing the view held by members of the Division II Presidents Council. "It's about standards, and it's about integrity.

"We believe you have to apply to intercollegiate athletics the same set of standards that you are applying on your campus for all students," said Cormier, whose tenure as chair of the Presidents Council ends at this year's Convention. "There are no exceptions to this."

"It begins, of course, at home, and it begins with the need for a president to feel that he or she has ultimate command and control over their own athletics program," said Stanley Caine, president of Adrian College and a former member of the Division III Presidents Council. "They need to have a sense that the program is operating in harmony with the objectives that they have set for the institution, that coaches and players understand what the institution is dedicated to, and what the mission of the institution is and how athletics fits into that mission."

Most CEOs at NCAA member institutions believe they have achieved such command and control on their own campuses.

A high percentage of Division I CEOs responding to a research study by a University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, doctoral candidate agreed they personally have "authority in all matters of athletics governance" at their institutions. The study, conducted by former Rocky Mountain Athletic and Northern Sun Conference Commissioner Kurt Patberg, did suggest some doubt about the involvement of fellow CEOs, primarily in national activities but also locally (although Division I CEOs said their colleagues' involvement on campus had improved since restructuring).

Similar views exist in Divisions II and III, and for good reason -- most presidents understand intimately just how busy their colleagues are in their jobs.

"Some do a very good job of being involved with the program and knowing what is going on, and insisting on control of and participation in the direction of the athletics program," said Charles Dunn, president of Henderson State University and a former member of the Division II Presidents Council. Dunn conducts orientation sessions for CEOs at institutions that are joining Division II.

"But the practical matter is, unless you have some mechanism set up in your institution to ensure you are frequently in contact with the athletics program at some decision-making level, then all the other functions that a president performs will take up that space.

"We've made a lot of progress, but I don't believe it's uniform in any division -- there's a lot of delegation of responsibility."

Demands on time aren't the only obstacles to presidential control.

"There are presidents out there who don't understand the NCAA," Cormier said. "When I became a president, I didn't know very much about the NCAA.

"If you come up through the ranks as an academic vice-president, like the vast majority of presidents, or unless you've been an athlete or had responsibility for athletics in an institution, you don't know much. So one of the issues with presidential control is education -- making sure that every new president is properly oriented to what Division II expects."

The NCAA's new president, Myles Brand, sees that problem in all three divisions and has been giving it some thought.

"It would seem to me that in the (university) president's first year of office, there should be an educational opportunity in which the president can meet with several members of the NCAA staff, perhaps even a retired president who has first-hand, direct knowledge from a relatively similar school," Brand said. "They can spend a little time talking about the NCAA and the relationships in the institutions -- especially the president's role, the athletics director's role, the faculty rep's role -- as well as spend some time talking about potential areas of conflict, and most especially talking about the positive values of intercollegiate athletics."

Henderson State's Dunn said Division II considered adopting such a program after restructuring, but was worried about the time commitment required for visits to individual CEOs and decided instead to offer orientation for small groups of presidents.

"I like that idea," Dunn said. "I like it very much, though I wouldn't want the new president to feel put-upon."

"I know how difficult it is for presidents in their first year," said Brand, remembering his experiences at the University of Oregon and Indiana University, Bloomington. "They're like two-headed calves at a county fair -- everyone wants to get a look at them. But it would be very useful to have a small group visit for a few hours on the president's campus to be able to convey this information, and also to make it clear how he or she can become directly involved in NCAA decision-making and the committee structure.

"I will continue to explore this approach to see how it might be received or refined."

Educating CEOs about intercollegiate athletics is one challenge. Getting CEOs involved at the conference and national levels is another challenge, and a long-standing one at that.

"I think there is a misperception by a lot of presidents that being involved is really talking about free throws and field goals -- about the way competition is carried on," Caine said.

"What I found we're really doing is talking about some broad and deep issues related to the society -- student development, how to conduct an educational program in the context of a certain value structure. It's really social policy, and you don't really have to have a deep interest in whether baseball bats are metal or wood to find that there are many things about involvement in the NCAA that would be engaging."

A major finding of Patberg's study is that Division I presidents who are not directly involved in NCAA governance do, in fact, feel less involved in athletics on a national level as a result of restructuring. Many responding to Patberg's survey said they would like to gather for an annual meeting to discuss issues in intercollegiate athletics.

"In my opinion," Patberg said, "you can take their responses about wanting to be more involved and engaged, and take it to mean they want to be more in control."

"There's been some criticism, and maybe it's justified, that there hasn't been enough involvement by presidents and chancellors as a total group," Hemenway said. "Some of us have been very involved, some of us have been less involved.

"I think that probably Myles Brand, because he's widely known in that community of presidents and chancellors, may be effective in demonstrating to all of us the value of direct presidential involvement in the governance of the NCAA."

There is less doubt about CEOs' involvement in activities at the conference level, where they appear to be more widely engaged in governance and direction than ever before.

"A very positive step that began in the 1980s and has continued or expanded is authority of presidents within the conference structures, which occurred primarily as a result of the push for more presidential involvement by many national higher education leadership groups," Patberg said.

Patberg's doctoral study revealed that a presidential group is the "final authority" in essentially all Division I conferences, and that most of the presidents who responded to his survey believe "they make all or most of the policy decisions within the conference."

In some cases, presidential involvement is mandatory. Cormier and Dunn in Division II both say their conferences require their attendance at annual meetings, under the threat of penalties ranging from forfeiting an institutional vote on league issues to excluding school teams from postseason competition.

But Cormier and Dunn, as well as Caine in Division III, agree that the level of involvement varies widely among Divisions II and III conferences.

"There are a number of conferences that really do not meet for purposes other than athletics scheduling," Caine said. "The first step in trying to empower the presidents is probably to make sure that their participation in conference activities is meaningful, and that they have some real contact with athletics directors, faculty representatives and conference commissioners -- those that on a day-to-day basis have to run things."

In Division I, however, a recent emphasis on conference representation in NCAA governance -- paired with the leagues' willingness to empower presidents -- seems to make those conferences a potent focal point for presidential involvement in intercollegiate athletics.

"The people who are representing their institutions in the NCAA are the same people who are representing their institutions in a conference," Hemenway said. "The conferences are the creation of, and the carrying out of, the desires of the presidents and chancellors."

However, the emphasis on conferences is behind concerns voiced by various critics of Division I-A presidents that they rely too heavily on commissioners for guidance, and they sometimes represent their own conferences' competitive or economic interests over what's best for all NCAA members.

"A lot of the doubt about whether presidents are in control emanates from Division I-A, and most specifically football," said Bob Lawless, president of the University of Tulsa and chair of the NCAA Executive Committee.

Significant revenues are generated from the agreements negotiated by the six commissioners who head the Division I-A conferences involved in the Bowl Championship Series. Critics complain that the commissioners' role in managing those revenues undercuts presidential control of the conferences and of the NCAA.

"I would say at this point in time that it is not accurate to say that the presidents are in control of football -- certainly not postseason football," said Lawless, whose institution is a member of the Western Athletic Conference.

But Hemenway, whose university is a member of the BCS-participant Big 12 Conference, suggests observers shouldn't assume that presidents lack influence on matters like the BCS or lack control in their own conferences.

"I know there's a lot of talk out there about the conference commissioners somehow guiding the presidents and chancellors in determining their collective direction," he said. "If you've ever been to a conference meeting, I don't think you would come to that conclusion. It's a complicated business, and there's a lot of money associated with it, and there's a lot of complexity associated with it, so you need very good and strong people to be commissioners. But I don't think you'll find any commissioner who claims that they can take 10 or 12 highly compensated and extremely strong-minded presidents and chancellors, and bend them to their will. I just don't think that's the case."

Both Lawless and Hemenway view presidential control as evolutionary.

"The presidents are, at least in theory, the ones who give the commissioners their marching orders about what to do. I think it's clear that this is evolving," said Lawless, adding that commissioners receive more guidance from CEOs today than they did a few years ago when "they would just come back with stories about how much money they could generate if they could do this and this, and they were pretty much gleefully embraced."

"I don't see anything, as these things evolve over the years -- and they certainly are going to evolve -- that will inhibit presidents and chancellors from being at the key decision points," Hemenway said. "As a matter of fact, we will have to be at those key decision points to make good decisions for our institutions, for our conferences and for the NCAA.

"Intercollegiate athletics has to be a shared responsibility between the conferences, the NCAA and other organizing elements. Let me put it this way: I think the NCAA can be a big enough tent to include all of the elements that are involved in one way or another with organizing intercollegiate athletics, and ensuring the integrity of intercollegiate athletics."