NCAA president says sport must change
WASHINGTON — Major changes are needed in college basketball before the 2018-2019 season to show the public the NCAA is capable of governing the sport after a widespread bribery scandal, NCAA President Mark Emmert said Monday.
Emmert’s comments at a meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics were his most extensive since federal investigators in New York accused coaches, financial managers and an Adidas executive of using bribes to influence athletes’ choices of schools, shoe sponsors and agents. The revelations detailed in court documents led to the firing of Louisville coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich.
The NCAA this month created a commission chaired by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to study college basketball and recommend changes. The panel will begin its work next month and make recommendations by April.
“We cannot go to the next basketball season without seeing fundamental change in the way college basketball is operated,” Emmert said. “The public doesn’t have sufficient confidence in any of us in terms of our ability to resolve these issues.”
After Emmert’s comments, Knight Commission co-chairs Arne Duncan and Carol Cartwright outlined what some of those reforms could be: regulations for nonscholastic youth basketball; greater enforcement powers for the NCAA, including possible subpoena powers; a limited antitrust exemption that would give the NCAA protection from lawsuits in exchange for some federal control; and allowing athletes to benefit from the use of their names, images and likenesses.
“The system in place today was designed for a bygone era,” said Duncan, a former Harvard basketball player who served as education secretary in the Barack Obama administration.