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NCAA News Archive - 2006
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Division I continues search for ideal governance system
As with most legislatures, the governing body’s proficiency is only as good as its infrastructure. And most infrastructures need a little brick-and-mortar attention from time to time.
Such is the case with the Division I governance structure, now nearly 10 years old and showing its age — according to some — in its ability to lead the Division I agenda.
To be sure, the structure already has been remodeled over time. The representative system that replaced the outdated one-school, one-vote model in 1997 began with a quarterly legislative cycle, a smaller Management Council, four cabinets and a Board of Directors that was established as a leadership group but had few templates from which to work. Now, the Council is a 49-member behemoth, two of the cabinets have disappeared and the legislative cycle is an annual occasion. And the Board, particularly under the influence of NCAA President Myles Brand, appears ready to assume more leadership capacity.
That has caused some growing pains, as the structure has struggled to accommodate the Board’s desire to lead. Among the claims are that the Management Council does not provide reliable counsel to the Board, that it is too large to foster national discussion on broad-based issues, that the cabinets’ work is cloaked in subcommittees and that the legislative votes are directed by conference positions more than influential dialogue.
The perceived result is that the Board isn’t getting much collective expertise from the infrastructure created to provide it, which has left the presidents — who aren’t expected to be adroit in legislative minutia anyway — to frequently fend for themselves in formulating the bigger divisional picture.
Realizing the growing dysfunction, the Board commissioned some potential reconstruction in April 2005 when it asked the Management Council’s governance subcommittee to consider a system that better informs presidential leadership. The Board clearly wanted to be more than the legislative gatekeeper it felt it had become, and the presidents appeared to lack confidence that the substructure was built in a way that could provide the expert advice they needed to be anything more.
The governance subcommittee accepted the charge, but finding an answer wasn’t easy. The group in fact acknowledged after its first year of study that it was struggling not only with possible solutions but also with truly appreciating the problem itself. The more the subcommittee probed about fixing holes in the structure, the more surprised the membership was to learn there was a problem at all.
A subcommittee meeting in August with attendance from interested members of the Collegiate Commissioners Association and NCAA President Brand helped chart the future course. On this much that group agreed:
■ The current Division I governance structure does not provide the Board of Directors the informed counsel it needs to make sound policy decisions.
■ The Board’s agenda is legislation-based instead of leadership-based.
■ The Management Council does a better job managing the business of Division I than it does helping the Board lead the division.
■ Directed voting at the Council and cabinet level inhibits national discussion on major policy issues (it could be argued that good discussion occurs within conferences but that no adequate mechanism is in place to extend that discussion nationally).
■ Task forces and working groups composed of topical experts too often bypass the Management Council and report directly to the Board, thus diminishing the Council’s leadership role.
NCAA President Brand told the subcommittee to consider a three-tiered approach. First, he said, the structure requires an active and engaged Board to examine broad-based policy issues. The Board must lead, but it also must be informed by the structure, Brand said. Second, he said the structure must include an advisory body, whether it is the Management Council or something else, with trusted leadership from the trenches to provide counsel on policy matters. And third, an “expert level” or group of committees that can provide prima facie answers to legislative questions, must be developed.
Whatever structure results likely will look quite different from the existing one — Brand in fact made it clear to the group that the status quo was not acceptable.
“We need to move on,” he told subcommittee members in August. “Right now, the Board does not take information from the Management Council seriously, which means that the Board lacks that campus experience it needs to make good decisions. The presidents also are overwhelmed in the amount of legislation they receive — especially in January — and it needs to delegate more legislative authority downward in the structure.
“The Management Council is not successfully delivering information to the Board and the Board is beginning to lack confidence in what the Council says. It is thus essential to reshape the Council so that quality information gets to the Board and that the presidents trust the Council’s advice.”
Building blocks
So the subcommittee and its CCA representatives strapped on the tool belts and went to work.
“Ultimately we want a system where the communication and information that surrounds policy-making is efficiently and accurately managed,” said Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky. “That involves balancing the various responsibilities of each group effectively and ensuring that presidents on the Board of Directors — the group ultimately in charge of leading Division I — aren’t burdened with less-meaningful issues that prevent them from addressing the most important topics in Division I athletics.”
To accomplish that, the group identified the following directives:
■ Develop a national dialogue within the full membership on consequential issues facing Division I and use representative governance bodies to develop legislation and discuss policy issues.
■ Achieve a significant contributing role for the membership in decisions that set the direction of the division.
■ Identify a delegated agenda from the Board on which the Management Council (or its successor) takes action for the division.
■ Attract the right people to serve (experience, maturity, respect and judgment) for meaningful work.
■ Regain membership trust that the operating level of intercollegiate athletics has a voice in consequential decisions within the division.
■ Balance the representation (functional, gender, ethnicity) from operating positions of intercollegiate athletics in some defined, overall sense, but not necessarily on each governance body.
Banowsky said the current structure creates an opportunity for the membership to participate at a broad level; however, there has not been to date an effective delegation of responsibility from the Board to the subordinate governance groups, which has resulted in the Board managing virtually all the legislative activity in Division I.
Tom Hansen, Banowsky’s peer at that Pacific-10 Conference, said that ideally, the Board shouldn’t look at much legislation at all. “It just bogs the Board down in things it is not well prepared to do,” he said.
Whatever model the subcommittee ultimately recommends must satisfy a menu of highly nuanced needs. The structure must position the Board to lead but it also must be inclusive — no louder cry was heard shortly after 1997 than the one claiming that the new structure disenfranchised people in the trenches who in the previous one-school, one-vote paradigm had equal voice.
And if the Board is the proper leadership authority, service in whatever substructure is created must be meaningful. Service on the current Management Council doesn’t seem to have the status it once did. Some conferences admit in fact that they struggle to find qualified representatives who want to serve.
Also, the structure has to agree on the type of leadership the Board will provide and thus develop the best supporting hierarchy.
“For Division I to be in a position to address the many major issues affecting college athletics, there must be individuals with a high level of expertise and experience around the table,” Banowsky said. “At this point at least in the subordinate structure, it doesn’t appear we have that.”
That has contributed to a more parochial leadership focus and less national discussion, said governance subcommittee Chair Rich Ensor, commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Ensor said that’s largely because each subsequent generation of structure representatives tend to have less experience than their predecessors and even less confidence in changing their conference’s position in a voting matter when and if persuasive discussion even occurs.
It’s not so much about the person who’s in that Council seat, Ensor said, but whether he or she is experienced and confident enough to change the conference vote based on the discussion.
“If I’m at the Council meeting and I change my vote, I can come back to my board and ADs and explain why, and I’m confident that nine times out of 10 they’ll be comfortable with my decision. But a compliance director or assistant or associate AD might not be high enough in the conference hierarchy that the others in the league will be comfortable with their explanation,” he said.
“It’s an interesting parallel because we want to get people involved, but at the same time you want the governance structure to be able to come up with good legislation and policy decisions. We get there by and large with most legislation, but when it comes to policy, it’s a lot more difficult.”
New architecture
Interestingly, the subcommittee even in its preliminary discussions struggled with balancing a streamlined and empowered structure with a representative one. The group realized quickly that the more it focused on representation, the less likely it was to create a group small enough to be effective. Yet the more representative the structure, the less nimble and powerful it will be.
That concern manifested itself in the late 1990s, too, when the Management Council grew from its original 34-member size to its current 49, which is inclusive but cumbersome.
By the end of the August meeting, however, the subcommittee seemed amenable to considering a smaller Council prototype. Members in fact were talking about a 31-person “leadership council” that would be allegiant to Board leadership more than simply to Division I’s legislative agenda.
They also discussed reshaping the cabinet structure into a more topical-based grouping that would include academic issues, pre-collegiate issues (recruiting and financial aid), championships, student-athlete benefits and amateurism.
In addition, a legislative cabinet, which could operate similar to the current Management Council legislative review subcommittee, would be the potential filter for all legislative proposals. That group would have the authority to approve or defeat proposals and send more controversial measures to the leadership council.
Such an architecture, the subcommittee believes, positions the Board clearly in a leadership role, retains the operational oversight at the Management Council level and builds an inclusive and well-positioned expert level to handle Division I’s business needs.
NCAA Vice President for Division I David Berst said the subcommittee is ready to test those theories this fall. He said the Management Council will hear a report of the subcommittee’s work this October, which could lead to a more formal proposal that would generate discussion and feedback at conference meetings next spring. The Management Council and Board of Directors could act on the proposals in October 2007, with implementation of a new system perhaps by summer 2008.
“Ultimately, whatever structure is decided upon must support the Board’s ability to formulate a leadership agenda for the division and decide policy matters based on credible and accurate advice from those in the membership best positioned to provide it,” Berst said. “The current iteration of the Board is not so much a leadership group as it is one that must act on items presented. The primary interest is to ensure that the Board is supported in a manner that assures good decisions and helps it thoughtfully set direction for the division.”
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By Gary T. Brown
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
As with most legislatures, the governing body’s proficiency is only as good as its infrastructure. And most infrastructures need a little brick-and-mortar attention from time to time.
Such is the case with the Division I governance structure, now nearly 10 years old and showing its age — according to some — in its ability to lead the Division I agenda.
To be sure, the structure already has been remodeled over time. The representative system that replaced the outdated one-school, one-vote model in 1997 began with a quarterly legislative cycle, a smaller Management Council, four cabinets and a Board of Directors that was established as a leadership group but had few templates from which to work. Now, the Council is a 49-member behemoth, two of the cabinets have disappeared and the legislative cycle is an annual occasion. And the Board, particularly under the influence of NCAA President Myles Brand, appears ready to assume more leadership capacity.
That has caused some growing pains, as the structure has struggled to accommodate the Board’s desire to lead. Among the claims are that the Management Council does not provide reliable counsel to the Board, that it is too large to foster national discussion on broad-based issues, that the cabinets’ work is cloaked in subcommittees and that the legislative votes are directed by conference positions more than influential dialogue.
The perceived result is that the Board isn’t getting much collective expertise from the infrastructure created to provide it, which has left the presidents — who aren’t expected to be adroit in legislative minutia anyway — to frequently fend for themselves in formulating the bigger divisional picture.
Realizing the growing dysfunction, the Board commissioned some potential reconstruction in April 2005 when it asked the Management Council’s governance subcommittee to consider a system that better informs presidential leadership. The Board clearly wanted to be more than the legislative gatekeeper it felt it had become, and the presidents appeared to lack confidence that the substructure was built in a way that could provide the expert advice they needed to be anything more.
The governance subcommittee accepted the charge, but finding an answer wasn’t easy. The group in fact acknowledged after its first year of study that it was struggling not only with possible solutions but also with truly appreciating the problem itself. The more the subcommittee probed about fixing holes in the structure, the more surprised the membership was to learn there was a problem at all.
A subcommittee meeting in August with attendance from interested members of the Collegiate Commissioners Association and NCAA President Brand helped chart the future course. On this much that group agreed:
■ The current Division I governance structure does not provide the Board of Directors the informed counsel it needs to make sound policy decisions.
■ The Board’s agenda is legislation-based instead of leadership-based.
■ The Management Council does a better job managing the business of Division I than it does helping the Board lead the division.
■ Directed voting at the Council and cabinet level inhibits national discussion on major policy issues (it could be argued that good discussion occurs within conferences but that no adequate mechanism is in place to extend that discussion nationally).
■ Task forces and working groups composed of topical experts too often bypass the Management Council and report directly to the Board, thus diminishing the Council’s leadership role.
NCAA President Brand told the subcommittee to consider a three-tiered approach. First, he said, the structure requires an active and engaged Board to examine broad-based policy issues. The Board must lead, but it also must be informed by the structure, Brand said. Second, he said the structure must include an advisory body, whether it is the Management Council or something else, with trusted leadership from the trenches to provide counsel on policy matters. And third, an “expert level” or group of committees that can provide prima facie answers to legislative questions, must be developed.
Whatever structure results likely will look quite different from the existing one — Brand in fact made it clear to the group that the status quo was not acceptable.
“We need to move on,” he told subcommittee members in August. “Right now, the Board does not take information from the Management Council seriously, which means that the Board lacks that campus experience it needs to make good decisions. The presidents also are overwhelmed in the amount of legislation they receive — especially in January — and it needs to delegate more legislative authority downward in the structure.
“The Management Council is not successfully delivering information to the Board and the Board is beginning to lack confidence in what the Council says. It is thus essential to reshape the Council so that quality information gets to the Board and that the presidents trust the Council’s advice.”
Building blocks
So the subcommittee and its CCA representatives strapped on the tool belts and went to work.
“Ultimately we want a system where the communication and information that surrounds policy-making is efficiently and accurately managed,” said Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky. “That involves balancing the various responsibilities of each group effectively and ensuring that presidents on the Board of Directors — the group ultimately in charge of leading Division I — aren’t burdened with less-meaningful issues that prevent them from addressing the most important topics in Division I athletics.”
To accomplish that, the group identified the following directives:
■ Develop a national dialogue within the full membership on consequential issues facing Division I and use representative governance bodies to develop legislation and discuss policy issues.
■ Achieve a significant contributing role for the membership in decisions that set the direction of the division.
■ Identify a delegated agenda from the Board on which the Management Council (or its successor) takes action for the division.
■ Attract the right people to serve (experience, maturity, respect and judgment) for meaningful work.
■ Regain membership trust that the operating level of intercollegiate athletics has a voice in consequential decisions within the division.
■ Balance the representation (functional, gender, ethnicity) from operating positions of intercollegiate athletics in some defined, overall sense, but not necessarily on each governance body.
Banowsky said the current structure creates an opportunity for the membership to participate at a broad level; however, there has not been to date an effective delegation of responsibility from the Board to the subordinate governance groups, which has resulted in the Board managing virtually all the legislative activity in Division I.
Tom Hansen, Banowsky’s peer at that Pacific-10 Conference, said that ideally, the Board shouldn’t look at much legislation at all. “It just bogs the Board down in things it is not well prepared to do,” he said.
Whatever model the subcommittee ultimately recommends must satisfy a menu of highly nuanced needs. The structure must position the Board to lead but it also must be inclusive — no louder cry was heard shortly after 1997 than the one claiming that the new structure disenfranchised people in the trenches who in the previous one-school, one-vote paradigm had equal voice.
And if the Board is the proper leadership authority, service in whatever substructure is created must be meaningful. Service on the current Management Council doesn’t seem to have the status it once did. Some conferences admit in fact that they struggle to find qualified representatives who want to serve.
Also, the structure has to agree on the type of leadership the Board will provide and thus develop the best supporting hierarchy.
“For Division I to be in a position to address the many major issues affecting college athletics, there must be individuals with a high level of expertise and experience around the table,” Banowsky said. “At this point at least in the subordinate structure, it doesn’t appear we have that.”
That has contributed to a more parochial leadership focus and less national discussion, said governance subcommittee Chair Rich Ensor, commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Ensor said that’s largely because each subsequent generation of structure representatives tend to have less experience than their predecessors and even less confidence in changing their conference’s position in a voting matter when and if persuasive discussion even occurs.
It’s not so much about the person who’s in that Council seat, Ensor said, but whether he or she is experienced and confident enough to change the conference vote based on the discussion.
“If I’m at the Council meeting and I change my vote, I can come back to my board and ADs and explain why, and I’m confident that nine times out of 10 they’ll be comfortable with my decision. But a compliance director or assistant or associate AD might not be high enough in the conference hierarchy that the others in the league will be comfortable with their explanation,” he said.
“It’s an interesting parallel because we want to get people involved, but at the same time you want the governance structure to be able to come up with good legislation and policy decisions. We get there by and large with most legislation, but when it comes to policy, it’s a lot more difficult.”
New architecture
Interestingly, the subcommittee even in its preliminary discussions struggled with balancing a streamlined and empowered structure with a representative one. The group realized quickly that the more it focused on representation, the less likely it was to create a group small enough to be effective. Yet the more representative the structure, the less nimble and powerful it will be.
That concern manifested itself in the late 1990s, too, when the Management Council grew from its original 34-member size to its current 49, which is inclusive but cumbersome.
By the end of the August meeting, however, the subcommittee seemed amenable to considering a smaller Council prototype. Members in fact were talking about a 31-person “leadership council” that would be allegiant to Board leadership more than simply to Division I’s legislative agenda.
They also discussed reshaping the cabinet structure into a more topical-based grouping that would include academic issues, pre-collegiate issues (recruiting and financial aid), championships, student-athlete benefits and amateurism.
In addition, a legislative cabinet, which could operate similar to the current Management Council legislative review subcommittee, would be the potential filter for all legislative proposals. That group would have the authority to approve or defeat proposals and send more controversial measures to the leadership council.
Such an architecture, the subcommittee believes, positions the Board clearly in a leadership role, retains the operational oversight at the Management Council level and builds an inclusive and well-positioned expert level to handle Division I’s business needs.
NCAA Vice President for Division I David Berst said the subcommittee is ready to test those theories this fall. He said the Management Council will hear a report of the subcommittee’s work this October, which could lead to a more formal proposal that would generate discussion and feedback at conference meetings next spring. The Management Council and Board of Directors could act on the proposals in October 2007, with implementation of a new system perhaps by summer 2008.
“Ultimately, whatever structure is decided upon must support the Board’s ability to formulate a leadership agenda for the division and decide policy matters based on credible and accurate advice from those in the membership best positioned to provide it,” Berst said. “The current iteration of the Board is not so much a leadership group as it is one that must act on items presented. The primary interest is to ensure that the Board is supported in a manner that assures good decisions and helps it thoughtfully set direction for the division.”
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