Rice report calls for major changes
INDIANAPOLIS — The Commission on College Basketball has given sharp direction to the NCAA to take control of the men’s game, calling for sweeping reforms to separate pro and college tracks, permit players to return to school after going undrafted by the NBA and ban cheating coaches for life.
The independent commission, led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, released a detailed 60-page report Wednesday, seven months after the group was formed by the NCAA in response to a federal corruption investigation that rocked men’s college basketball. Ten people, including some assistant coaches, have been charged in a bribery and kickback scheme, and high-profile programs such as Arizona, Kansas and Louisville have been tied to possible NCAA violations.
“The members of this commission come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but the one thing that they share in common is that they believe the college basketball enterprise is worth saving,” Rice told the AP Tuesday night, before addressing NCAA leaders Wednesday morning. “We believe there’s a
lot of work to do in that regard — that the state of the game is not very strong.
“We had to be bold in our recommendations.”
It’s not yet clear how the governing body would pay for some of the proposals, and some of the panel’s key recommendations would require cooperation from the NBA, its players union and USA Basketball.
The commission offered harsh assessments of toothless NCAA enforcement, as well as
the shady summer basketball circuit that includes Amateur Athletic Union leagues and brings together agents, apparel companies and coaches looking to profit on teenage prodigies. It called the environment surrounding college basketball “a toxic mix of perverse incentives to cheat” and said responsibility for the current mess goes all the way up to university presidents.
The group recommended the NCAA have more involvement with players before they get to college and less involvement with enforcement. It also acknowledged the NCAA will need help to make some changes and defended its amateurism model, saying paying players a salary isn’t the answer.
“The goal should not be to turn college basketball into another professional league,” the commission wrote in its report.
Rice presented the commission’s report to the NCAA’s Board of Governors and Division I Board of Directors at the association’s headquarters Wednesday. She called the crisis in college basketball “first and foremost a problem of failed accountability and lax responsibility.”
The two groups of university presidents met with Rice after her presentation and the Board of Governors unanimously endorsed all the commission’s recommendations, Georgia Tech president and board chairman Bud Peterson said. Peterson said the board had put the process in place to implement the recommendations by August.
“It’s going to be a challenge to say the least,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said. “This is a pace of decision making that the association’s really never done on this kind of scale before.”
The 12-member panel included college administrators and former coaches and players, and it was tasked with finding ways to reform five areas: NBA draft rules, including the league’s age limit that has led to so-called one-and-done players; the relationship between players and agents; nonscholastic basketball such as the AAU; involvement of apparel companies; and NCAA enforcement.
NCAA officials mostly stayed out of the process. Emmert and Peterson were part of the commission, but not included in executive sessions, when proposals were being formed. The commission spent 70 percent of its time in executive session, Rice said, and kept its work secret until Wednesday’s reveal.
The overarching message to those in college athletics: Take responsibility for problems you have created.
The commission emphasized the need for elite players to have more options when choosing between college and professional basketball, and to separate the two tracks.
It called for the NBA and its players association to change rules requiring players to be at least 19 years old and a year removed from graduating high school to be draft-eligible. The one-and-done rule was implemented in 2006, despite the success of straight-from-highschool stars such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.
“I’m confident they are going to be very supportive,” Emmert said of the NBA and its players union, which released a statement supportive of the commission’s recommendations on enforcement and sharing concerns about youth basketball.
On draft rules, however, there was no commitment from the league or the union.
The commission recommended harsher penalties for rule-breakers and suggested the NCAA outsource the investigation and adjudication of the most serious infractions cases.
Level I violations would be punishable with up to a fiveyear postseason ban and the forfeiture of all postseason revenue for the time of the ban. That could be worth tens of millions to major conference schools. By comparison, recent Level I infractions cases involving Louisville and Syracuse basketball resulted in postseason bans of one year.
In those cases, then-Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who was later fired after being tied to the FBI investigation, received a five-game NCAA suspension for violations related to an assistant coach hiring strippers for recruits, and Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was suspended for
“It’s going to be a challenge to say the least. This is a pace of decision making that the association’s really never done on this kind of scale before.” –NCAA PRESIDENT MARK EMMERT
nine games for academic misconduct and extra benefits violations. The commission said suspensions should be longer, up to one full season.
Instead of show cause orders, which are meant to limit a coach’s ability to work in college sports after breaking NCAA rules, the report called for lifetime bans.
The commission also called out university presidents, saying administrators can’t be allowed to turn a blind eye to infractions. To that end, the commission said university presidents should be required to “certify annually that they have conducted due diligence and that their athletic programs comply with NCAA rules.”
On other matters, the commission:
› Proposed the NCAA create a program for certifying agents and make them accessible to players from high school through their college careers.
› Said the NCAA, with support from the NBA and USA Basketball, should run its own recruiting events for prospects during the summer while taking a more serious approach to certifying events, such as AAU tournaments, it does not control.
› Called for greater financial transparency from shoe and apparel companies such as Nike, Under Armour and Adidas. These companies have extensive financial relationships with colleges and coaches worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Adidas had two former executives charged by federal prosecutors in New York in the corruption case.