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Jun 17, 2010 12:20:17 PM

By Gary Brown
The NCAA News

 

NCAA Interim President Jim Isch said a report released Thursday by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics coincides with ongoing NCAA reform efforts, and he urged presidential members of the commission to initiate legislative proposals through their conferences to effect further change.

STATEMENT BY NCAA INTERIM PRESIDENT JIM ISCH ON KNIGHT COMMISSION REPORT The Knight Commission's latest report, "Restoring the Balance" provides a comprehensive review of the state of intercollegiate athletics and advances positions that the NCAA not only agrees with, but also has taken meaningful steps to advance and implement across the Association. The NCAA is pleased to both support the Knight Commission recommendations and have its support of ongoing NCAA reform initiatives. The Commission's three focus areas—greater transparency in athletics spending, making academics a priority and ensuring student-athletes are students first and foremost are the cornerstones of a reform movement started by the late NCAA President Myles Brand almost seven years ago. The NCAA and its member schools are overwhelmingly in concert with the Knight Commission. However, we feel there are some aspects of both the data and solutions advanced that require clarification and debate. As noted in the report, the NCAA's Dashboard Indicators provide presidents and chancellors a standardized look at their respective financials as compared to their peers. We agree there is a need for greater transparency and we urge the presidents on the Commission to work through their conferences to sponsor legislation to this end for the Division I Board of Directors to consider. We're also pleased the Knight Commission supports a cornerstone of our academic reform program—APR. We believe APR provides the best real-time assessment of academic performance of sports teams. We also believe that improvement is the goal and that punishment is a result if improvement is not achieved. As simple as it sounds, we don't think establishing a specific post-season penalty trigger of 925 for all teams is fair—especially to those teams that are improving. Our current penalty structure that accounts for improvement is fair and has the desired effect—an emphasis on academic success. We are not, however, resting on our laurels—our academic reform effort, including the penalty structure, features benchmarks and metrics to ensure the focus is on improvement and academic success. Likewise, we also strongly support treating student-athletes as students first and foremost—not as professionals. As part of that approach, a task force of presidents and chancellors is looking at the proper balance of commercialism with respect to the student-athlete—ensuring that the balance is appropriate and does not exploit the student-athlete in any way. It's important to keep in mind as a member-led association, proposals that require governance action can be advanced by any member. And as noted earlier, we urge those presidents on the Knight  Commission to sponsor legislation through their conferences to initiate vetting of all the recommendations.

Isch said the Knight Commission's latest report, "Restoring the Balance," advances positions that the NCAA "not only agrees with but also has taken meaningful steps to advance and implement across the Association."

While those positions align with the NCAA reform philosophy, Isch indicated that many of the actual recommendations the commission is proposing would have to be vetted through the NCAA governance structure.

Among those recommendations are:

• Greater public transparency in athletics spending, including "comparisons of the growth rate in athletics spending and in education-related spending per institution."
• Creation of an "Academic-Athletics Balance Fund" that draws from Division I Men's Basketball Championship and Bowl Championship Series revenue and is distributed based on teams' academic success.
• Determining teams' eligibility for NCAA championships at the start of each academic year based on a projection of at least a 50 percent graduation rate (according to the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate metric).
• A reduction of eight to 10 football scholarships at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

"We urge presidents on the Knight Commission to sponsor legislation through their conferences to initiate vetting of all the recommendations," Isch said.

The Knight Commission released its report in light of the escalating financial pressures on intercollegiate athletics. Knight Commission members, several of whom served on an NCAA Presidential Task Force four years ago that said athletics spending trends could not be sustained, concluded that "the financial arms race threatens the continued viability of athletics programs and the integrity of our universities."

Isch agreed with the assessment, saying the commission's three focus areas – greater transparency in athletics spending, making academics a priority and ensuring student-athletes are students first – "are the cornerstones of a reform movement started by the late NCAA President Myles Brand almost seven years ago."

"The NCAA and its member schools are overwhelmingly in concert with the Knight Commission," he said.

However, Isch cited a few aspects of the report "that require clarification and debate."

Fiscal transparency

One is the commission's desire to make public every institution's athletics budget. The NCAA Task Force in 2006 also believed that fiscal responsibility could be facilitated through a disclosure and comparison metric, but members struggled with requiring all institutions – especially private schools – to reveal those data.

The Task Force successfully collaborated with the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Association of College and University Auditors, among other partners, to redefine and streamline financial reporting systems to make data more easily comparable. That effort produced annual "dashboard indicators" that allow Division I presidents and chancellors to compare their own budgets against their peers in aggregate form.

But institutional confidentiality was a linchpin to collecting those data and distributing them for comparison purposes.

While Isch said the NCAA's dashboard indicators "provide presidents and chancellors a standardized look at their respective financials as compared to their peers," he supported the commission's call for even greater transparency.

"We urge the presidents on the commission to work through their conferences to sponsor legislation to this end for the Division I Board of Directors to consider," Isch said.

Academic accountability

Isch also noted the commission's desire to base postseason eligibility on graduation success but said the issue is more complex than simply establishing a rigid benchmark.

"As simple as it sounds, we don't think establishing a specific postseason penalty trigger of 925 for all teams is fair, especially to those teams that are improving," Isch said. "Our current penalty structure that accounts for improvement is fair and has the desired effect – an emphasis on academic success."

Isch noted that the Division I Committee on Academic Performance is embarking on an extensive review of the entire Academic Performance Program, including the penalty structure, filters and Academic Progress Rate benchmarks.

As for the commission's recommendations to establish an "Academic-Athletics Balance Fund," Isch said the NCAA would support an academic component being part of revenue distribution.

Isch in fact noted that a group of five Division I presidents and four Division I commissioners appointed after the NCAA announced its latest broadcast-rights agreement in April is reviewing how the additional revenue will be distributed. The group will review, among other things, whether to insert academic performance (as measured by the Academic Progress Rate and the Graduation Success Rate) into the basketball portion of fund.

As for the commission's desire to reduce football scholarships or cut games, Isch reiterated that the commission is free to pursue a legislative agenda.

"It's important to keep in mind as a member-led association, proposals that require governance action can be advanced by any member of the NCAA," he said.

The current total of 85 football scholarships was implemented in 1994 after a gradual reduction from 95 over several years.

Proposals to reduce the men's and women's basketball season by one game failed in the most recent legislative cycle. Season reductions have had more success in Division II, which cut games and curtailed seasons in 10 sports at the 2010 Convention. A review of the nonchampionship segment in Division II is ongoing.

Other recommendations

The Knight Commission report includes other recommendations, such as reinstating financial integrity as a principle in the Division I athletics certification program. That principle was dropped in 2004 because of other legislative and membership requirements that addressed financial concerns.

However, the certification process still places a premium on fiscal integrity. For example, the institution must demonstrate that its governing board's oversight and policy formulation for athletics is consistent with its policies and stated responsibilities for other units of the institution (such as personnel, budget and facilities). Institutions also must demonstrate institutional control of the athletics program with respect to budget, accounting, purchasing and debt management, and schools must prove that the chancellor or president annually reviews NCAA comparative data (such as dashboard indicators).

The Knight Commission also proposes limiting "the number of staff members assigned to a particular sport whose duties do not involve either academic support or health and safety."

The Division I Recruiting Cabinet and the Big East Conference already are poised to submit proposals into the 2010-11 cycle that would limit noncoaching personnel in FBS and FCS football and men's and women's basketball.

Commission members also said NCAA rules should not allow "commercial sponsors or other third parties to use symbols of the athletes' identities for financial gain or to promote commercial entities."

NCAA rules already preclude institutions from using student-athlete names and likenesses to promote commercial entities or products. A task force of presidents and chancellors is looking at the proper balance of commercialism with respect to the student-athlete and ensuring that the balance is appropriate and does not exploit the student-athlete in any way.

The current roster of the Knight Commission features six sitting presidents, including co-chairs Brit Kirwan (chancellor of the University System of Maryland) and Gerald Turner (president at Southern Methodist University). The others are Carol Cartwright (Bowling Green), John DeGioia (Georgetown), Michael Adams (Georgia) and Elson Floyd (Washington State).