In November, the NCAA and the National Basketball Association collaborated to name former Big 12 Conference Commissioner Kevin Weiberg as chief executive officer of the joint initiative founded by the NCAA and NBA to enhance youth basketball in the United States. 

Weiberg currently is a member of the Board of Directors of USA Basketball and was a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. He also served on the NCAA College Basketball Partnership and Women’s Basketball Discussion Group during his Big 12 tenure.

At last year’s Men’s Final Four, the NCAA and the NBA announced a youth basketball initiative to change the focus of the game at that level from simply a recruiting marketplace to an educational and life-skills environment that equips young boys and girls with the tools they need to experience more meaningful lives.

As Weiberg begins his new role at an Indianapolis-based office, The NCAA News asked him to define the youth basketball initiative and talk about its immediate goals.

Q  What is the youth basketball initiative and why is it important to NCAA member institutions?

Weiberg: While the concept is in its early stages, at its most basic level it is an effort to enhance the grass-roots development of basketball in the United States. It is important because what has happened over time is that increasingly, the secondary school structure has become less important in the development of young basketball players, and that development has moved more into the club system. While that is not necessarily bad in and of itself, it is more of an unstructured system. Our goal is to provide more structure to nonscholastic basketball, and to communicate with participants and their parents and guardians a much more education-based message that goes beyond the development of athletes to the values of education and academic achievement.

Q  What will it take to get the initiative underway?

Weiberg: Among the early priorities is to develop Web-based resources that benefit coaches and officials, players and families. This effort may include an event-sanctioning system, a sort of “seal of approval” for those events that operate in accordance with established standards.

One of the tactics we’ll use is building a robust Web site to communicate with all the groups that touch the sport. We want to give youth coaches the tools to do their jobs better, and to provide a calendar of events that are credible and that have the necessary component parts attached – like the focus on education and health and safety. We also want to use the Web site to develop grass-roots officiating programs to build a base of officials that is diverse and inclusive and knowledgeable about our education-based intentions. The Web site is envisioned to be the backbone of the initiative.

Q  This initiative is difficult to describe because it’s more of an attempt to change the culture more than it is an entity or program. What are the behaviors you are trying to change?

Weiberg: We want to influence the development of basketball skills but also other habits and skills that can help kids achieve in life generally. Basketball is a wonderful team game, developed by an educator in an educational environment. Yet sometimes at the grass-roots level it carries an over-emphasis on unrealistic goals (making money and being a purely elite player). We want to communicate better messages to those young people and their families, and lead to a better environment to conduct the sport in general, one that builds more on fundamental teaching.

Q  Who will benefit from the youth basketball initiative?

Weiberg: The initiative is designed to reach and benefit everyone who participates in youth basketball programs, including the more than 23 million American boys and girls who play the sport; their parents; and those who teach, officiate and administer youth basketball programs at every level. The initiative will create a platform for teaching youth the value of education and the important lessons of fair play.

The initiative also has an opportunity to develop the so-called elite player – those rising players with exceptional athletics ability. While the NCAA has made some positive inroads with those players through its First Team initiative, the youth basketball effort – via collaboration among all stakeholders – may be able to build a broader structure that could include 500-1,000 kids that have been identified as top players.

That offers a more structured system of athletics development that can also focus on education and life skills with a possible mentoring component as well. We would hope that over time it could lead to a better-prepared young person who would be more able to evaluate options to pursue an education or move on to play professionally. These are ambitious goals and it will require a collaborative effort through USA Basketball, the high schools, the AAU and others.

Q  What interested you about the position and why do you feel you’re the right person for the job?

Weiberg: I’ve always loved the sport, though I didn’t play collegiately. I have a brother who has coached at the college level, and I have other family members involved in the sport, so that’s the personal side of this. I also see the need – while there are a lot of good things in youth basketball, there is room for improvement and more structure. It’s also a chance to do something national in scope – much of my career has been focused on making a difference on a campus or conference level. It’s a good opportunity to build something meaningful from scratch.

Q  What are your first priorities?

Weiberg: Both the NBA and the NCAA have worked on a business plan, so we do have a blueprint –a set of targeted activities – to follow. Part of that is adding a few staff members to the office based in Indianapolis and working cooperatively with the NCAA staff and the NBA staff to consider branding and communications strategies, and then building an online community. We will work cooperatively with the NCAA and the NBA to do that, then reach out to groups that currently are doing things in the youth basketball environment. Indianapolis was the logical location for out office, since it allows us to interact with the NCAA staff and tap into an existing infrastructure.

Q  What will be signs of success?

Weiberg: We hope to see in the first few years a coming together of the groups involved with a common direction within the initiatives that have been identified.  This is by no means only a regulatory approach and we’re not going to solve every issue – we have to be realistic. But I believe we can have a long-term positive impact on the current environment.