Academics and athletics: playing for the same team: NCAA president discusses the challenges of leading the organization in an era of academic reform

Black Issues in Higher Education, April 8, 2004 by Ronald Roach

BI: How do you think having been a college president, an academic dean, faculty member and scholar has helped you in your current position?

MB: I think the academic experience, most especially having been president of two universities, (the University of) Oregon and Indiana University, has given me the sense of the role of intercollegiate athletics within the academic enterprise. It's given me firsthand experience and knowledge about what we can expect of student-athletes and what we can expect of athletic programs. It gives me a comfort level of understanding the academic enterprise that others who come through the athletic track may not have achieved.

On the other hand, it makes me work doubly hard to learn the athletic side of the house, which is not as well known to me as to many others.

BI: Why do you think we haven't seen more Blacks hired as head coaches of Division I-A football teams?

MB: I've been discussing this with the Black Coaches Association, and ha particular the executive director, Floyd Keith, about what the issues are. It seems to me that the underlying issue, the one that's making it most difficult for highly qualified African American coaches to rise to the head coaching level is the search process itself. The search process sometimes is very short and not entirely open. It doesn't allow a full and fair consideration of talented individuals, and as a result of that the BCA has undertaken what they're calling a "report card," which will focus in on whether the search process really does provide a fair and open consideration of all the talent that's there.

I think that my own view is that one of the leading causes of not having adequate numbers of African American head coaches in football is the search process itself.... To the credit of the BCA and particularly the leadership group, its board, they have understood this activity and have worked on trying to change the search process.

At the same time, I think the NCAA has a role as does the BCA and other groups to provide educational opportunities for aspiring African American coaches so that when the call comes they're fully prepared to take advantage of it and succeed. We've been invested in doing that. We've run the coaches academy (which we started this past winter).

BI: Some might argue that commercialism of college athletics has increased in the short time you've presided over the NCAA. How can the NCAA help foster an image of college athletics that keeps amateurism in the forefront?

MB: Just because we have large media contracts, pre-eminently the CBS (college) basketball contract, that doesn't mean that college sports is a moneymaking operation. The NCAA, the home office of the NCAA, is really a pass-through for those dollars to time institutions. So 95 percent of the CBS contract is redistributed to the universities and colleges, and we just use about 5 percent for administration of the programs here in Indianapolis. The rest is distributed to the campuses and they use that money to help support their athletic programs. After all, only two programs, (the) so-called revenue sports, football and men's basketball on most campuses, operate in the black. But yet they're many more programs, including women's programs, and Olympic sports, track and field to name a few that need to be supported through whatever revenues come in. So that money is redistributed.