It has been interesting for me to hear various parties suggest what the NCAA's role in intercollegiate athletics should be. The general public and media often regard the NCAA's regulatory involvement as intrusive, yet when issues emerge, many call for tighter NCAA control.

For example, fans frequently are frustrated with the NCAA when their favorite school is penalized in an infractions case, or when a student-athlete is ruled ineligible because of a rules violation. Yet when allegations of abuse in recruiting practices surface, or when institutions consider aligning with a different conference, they plea for the NCAA to intervene.

Such instances typify the widespread confusion between "leadership" and "control." I suggest that in the case of our organization, the distinction can be made in the following way: The Association is a leadership organization whose members are accountable for controlling an appropriate environment for intercollegiate athletics. Leadership for the Association is pointing to a better future, and then working with the member institutions to create that future.

Our newly created strategic plan sets forth a vision for intercollegiate athletics in which the Association will play a leadership role. Indeed, the envisioned future indicates that "intercollegiate athletics will be understood as a valued enhancement to a quality higher education experience" and that "members will view their Association as an essential partner in governing intercollegiate competition and enhancing the integration of academics and athletics."

The plan also says that "individuals at all levels of intercollegiate athletics will be accountable to the highest standards of behavior." As a membership organization, the Association plays a leadership role in setting those standards, but control lies in individual campus actions.

A good example in this regard is the recent decision to establish a recruiting task force. The actual oversight of recruiting is campus-based, but the Association has a vital national role to establish the best possible rules and to hold people accountable to them. In other words, the Association can take a leadership role by establishing guidelines, but institutions control the outcome by accepting the responsibility for abiding by those guidelines.

Another example involves hiring practices. The NCAA does not hire and fire coaches and administrators -- those decisions are controlled at the campus level -- but the Association can take a leadership role in establishing programs that identify and promote qualified candidates. The Association also can strongly suggest modifications in the hiring process that can lead to better decisions.

The NCAA Executive Committee has asked the national office staff to assume more of a leadership role than it has in the past. This already has been manifested in the staff's increased authority to decide various waiver requests and eligibility appeals under the "kinder/gentler" philosophy that gives student-athletes the benefit of the doubt in cases in which the student-athlete had no culpability.

Some members may resist the notion of increased staff leadership. They may view the staff's role as one merely consisting of service, and they may interpret any increased involvement as increased control. But in the case of the staff, leadership involves two primary tenets: one, doing the work of college sports, such as membership services, enforcement and championships administration; and two, taking a leadership role in pointing the NCAA toward desired outcomes in areas such as academic reform, gender and racial inclusiveness, and ethical conduct. While the national office staff cannot hope to stop every instance of bad behavior in these areas, the staff can provide guidance. That is leadership, not control.

How then does the Association create a leadership model that effectively allows institutional control? The best way is through partnerships. There is no way that the national office staff -- or any one group within the NCAA -- can provide adequate guidance by itself. There must be partnerships with key groups, such as athletics directors associations, the Collegiate Commissioners Association, the Faculty Athletics Representatives Association, coaches associations and the student-athlete committees. There also must be partnerships with external entities such as the USOC, the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, the Association of Governing Boards and the faculty-based Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics.

But the NCAA's single-most important partnership must be with presidents. The importance of their leadership on a national level is obvious, but they play in equally important role as change agents on each campus, where actual reform must occur. Perhaps we should make a distinction between "presidential control" (the usual phrase) and "presidential leadership," depending upon what we mean. In my mind, increased presidential leadership through the governance structures of all three divisions has led to key recent decisions that have fortified the integrity of college sports.

Intercollegiate athletics is at a crossroads. The pressures on college sports are pushing it away from the academic mission of universities. As much as we have stressed the integration of academics and athletics, there are forces that would very much like for college sports to become a de facto professional enterprise. This involves much more than pay for play, as enormously troubling as that concept may be. It is about the fundamental mindset of college sports and the acceptance of the notion that student-athletes are not part of campus life.

Our Association can and should provide leadership to prevent this from happening, but it can be effective only through effective partnerships with presidents, conferences, individual institutions and related associations. Such leadership is necessary to achieve the NCAA's envisioned future.

Myles Brand is president of the NCAA.