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: Do you see the example of coaches getting sports apparel contracts' making the situation unfair for student-athletes who not only don't benefit from the sales of replica jerseys but have to wear apparel such as athletic shoes to fulfill the contracts their coaches have with the sports-apparel makers?

MB: No I don't. Because just like other employees, people who are employed under contract by the university, they have the ability (to establish) consulting arrangements. Whether you're a physician and you have a consulting arrangement with a hospital, or say a private practice plan, or you're in business or a humanities professor who sells his textbook, there are lots of kinds of relationships that people employed by universities have on an ongoing basis. business basis. It doesn't carry over to student-athletes.

I don't see any problems with coaches. We would have to single out coaches from everyone else employed by the university. Student-athletes are not employed by the university and are in a different category.

BI: Can you envision any kind of pay-for-play arrangement coming to college sports?

MB: I think if we move toward pay-for-play we will have mined the college game forever. I think it's a path we should do everything possible to resist going down. Yon can think of sports in two main lines in this country.

One is the professional model where yon have people who sign contracts to play. They're being paid for what they do on the field. That's a business arrangement. The other is a collegiate model in which students attend college and are permitted to participate in college sports in high-profile programs both they and the fans enjoy. But that's the collegiate model. There's all the difference in the world between the professional model and the collegiate model.

Just think of it from a fan's perspective. The college fan in a basketball game is an entirely different breed from those who attend professional games. Professional games don't have the same level of identification with the players and the school from which they come that you find in the college game. There's something very special about the college game where the players are clearly representing their school. So that's a very different model.

If we start to pay players, we couldn't compete with the professional levels, which are paying millions of dollars. I think what we would do is to take wonderful college sports and turn (them) into third-rate professional sports at a level practically lower than the minor leagues. Why would we do that? Why would we spoil the superb game of college sports whether it's in football or basketball or women's hockey? Why would we want to spoil that game just so that we would pay players a little bit of money?

If they want to be professionals; if they want to get paid for what they do, that's legitimate, that's okay. They just need to do it somewhere else--in the professional leagues if they're good enough to make it. It won't happen in college.

BI: In response to athletic recruiting scandals at the University of Colorado and other places, the NCAA will soon propose a new set of recruiting guidelines for colleges and universities. What can the NCAA do in addition to adopting new rules that will help foster a positive campus environment around recruitment and student-athlete life at individual colleges and universities?