DALLAS — Presidents on a task force charged with setting the future agenda for Division I intercollegiate athletics left their final meeting understanding full well that the kind of leadership needed to guide college sports into a second century must come from the top.

The 50-member NCAA Presidential Task Force on the Future of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics met for the last time as a full group April 17 and endorsed four subcommittee reports that in effect frame the future of Division I athletics. More importantly, the presidents pledged to see that agenda through well beyond simply issuing a final report this fall.

Indeed, the group’s final motion at the end of the day was to proclaim that the implementation of academic reform achieved over the last several years would not be the final mark presidents would leave on the intercollegiate athletics landscape. They promised presidential leadership would

drive the Association’s long-range plan to re-center the collegiate model of athletics during a time in which external forces are exerting more pressure on the enterprise to head off course.

The presidents’ resolve was an energizing statement, said NCAA President Myles Brand — one he personally wanted to hear.

“With the success of our academic reforms in the last few years, there might have developed a sense of completion and a subsequent complacency among presidents to engage in future reforms,” he said. “If you compare where we are now with where we were five years ago, we’ve made genuine progress in academic reform. We have in place a workable, honest metric in the Academic Progress Rate and we’ve started to sanction under-performing teams. That’s a major and remarkable change.

“But that also can lead to complacency. Have we reached a point at which the level of engagement is not adequate to accommodate next steps? Has success in the academic arena taken away our resolve to tackle perhaps even tougher issues? Clearly, the task force has answered ‘No.’ ”

At the Dallas meeting, the task force endorsed broad-based action plans in four areas:

• Fiscal responsibility;
• Academic values and standards;
• Presidential leadership of internal and external constituencies; and
• Student-athlete well-being.

Though details of the subcommittee plans have not been finalized, the linchpin of the final report likely will be a process to collect financial data in a more consistent way that gives presidents clear and comparable data on which to base future decisions about athletics spending. Recent research shows that the rate of increase in athletics expenditures is tripling that of spending in higher education overall. The amount most schools must allocate from academic resources to balance the athletics budget also is increasing. Task force members agree that those trends are not sustainable and that the rate of spending in athletics must be moderated.

They believe the most powerful influence in that regard is consistent and well-defined data that gives presidents the tools they need to make sound fiscal decisions. The group’s final report will include a methodology that leads to more uniform data, and “dashboard indicators” that let presidents see how their athletics spending compares with like institutions.

Also expected in the final report:

• A five-year legislative agenda for the Division I Board of Directors to consider regarding proposals that enhance student-athlete well-being, including financial aid commitment, transfer rules and length of eligibility.
• Methods to educate and hold accountable boards of trustees for the delegation of authority over athletics to the university president or chancellor.
• Policies that put presidential leadership at the center of the athletics certification program.

The report and subsequent roll-out also will include a comprehensive communication plan that positions presidents as the primary membership spokespersons on NCAA issues.

“What the task force has done is to set the agenda for intercollegiate athletics for the next five to seven years under the umbrella of presidential leadership,” Brand said. “That in effect is a national agenda, but it must be implemented on a campus-by-campus basis by individual presidents and chancellors. Even with setting an agenda, the solutions are not forthcoming unless presidents exert their authority.

“Personally, I am enthusiastic about the buy-in from presidents already. We have ample momentum toward a collective resolve.”

For now, the four subcommittees will continue to finalize their reports and vet them through appropriate constituencies before a final report is issued in September.

More information about the task force can be found at www.ncaa.org (type “Presidential Task Force” in the search box on the front page), including previous NCAA News coverage and white papers from the subcommittee on student-athlete well-being.