Solution to NCAA’s gender inequity begins with respect

The best message in college athletics this week wasn’t sent by Supreme Court justices or women’s basketball coaches or Mark Emmert. The best message was sent by Gonzaga freshman Jalen Suggs.

After hitting only 10of-28 shots and one-of-11 3-pointers, Suggs said he was struggling to find his footing in the NCAA Tournament. He paced the floor as his friend Paige Bueckers played terrific Monday in UConn’s Elite Eight victory over Baylor. Suggs texted her. They FaceTimed. The UConn freshman offered Suggs advice. After he hit 7-of-11 for 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds Tuesday in the rout of USC in the men’s Elite Eight, Suggs told the world that it was Bueckers’ words that had uplifted him.

He called Bueckers, who Wednesday became the first freshman to be named AP Player of the Year, the GOAT on and off the court. This wasn’t from some NBA player with a young basketball-playing daughter, or some other well-meaning words of paternalism. This was from a peer, a projected NBA lottery pick, and a friend from Minnesota.

The message of respect among equals was powerful. The message was clean and inspiring.

The rest of it is messy. Equality. Equity. Compensation for college athletes. The potential breakaway from the NCAA by the Power 5 football cartel. The willingness to work together to solve massive problems.

Don’t care how much others want to read into the verbal beatdown the NCAA took in the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Don’t care how much Emmert, the

NCAA president, backtracked and apologized in an earlier press conference from San Antonio. Don’t care if the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association convinces Emmert that an external review into gender equity in tournaments isn’t enough and there should be a full commission on gender equity in college sports led by people chosen by the WBCA and NCAA.

It has been messy. It is messy. It will remain messy until a successful overhaul of the college athletic system takes place. Yes, the screwups with the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments may finally have started some significant action, but the finish line remains far on the horizon.

Wednesday was quite a day in Washington D.C. When you can get Connecticut’s U.S. senator Chris Murphy, an outspoken critic of the NCAA, and justice Elena Kagan agreeing with

justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh … when you can get liberals and conservatives to agree on anything these days … it’s quite a day. So, congratulations NCAA.

In appealing a federal district court’s ruling that NCAA colleges cannot mutually agree to impose restraints on what athletes can be compensated — as long as it is education-related — the NCAA got more than it bargained for in the highest court. A ruling may not come until the end of June, but the justices sure sounded dubious.

Kavanaugh said he found it somewhat disturbing that it appears colleges are “conspiring with competitors to pay no salaries to the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing.”

He voiced concern the NCAA is using the cover of antitrust law to exploit students. Which, of course, it is.

“It just strikes me as odd that coaches’ salaries have ballooned and they’re in the same amateur ranks as the players,” Thomas said.

And that’s from the side the NCAA has been counting on for support.

It’s hilarious really when learned men and women, products of our best law schools, hear some of the NCAA’s archaic bull about amateurism. Maybe dudes in white wigs in 19th century England would buy in, but it’s not going over well in 2021.

Yet you have to remember any Supreme Court ruling only would give athletes unlimited compensation if it relates to the classroom. Computers, study abroad, post-grad internships, etc. That’s how far the NCAA was willing to go in its argument that even education benefits can cross the lines between college amateurism and pro sports.

“The case is not about pay for play,” Emmert said. “There’s a lot of belief that it is. The case is not about name, image and likeness (NIL), which a lot of people think it is. The case is about an antitrust issue that really focuses on who has the authority and the ability to make decisions around college sports in general.

“There’s doubtlessly more that can be done and should be done. And I don’t think that’s a question or doubt either.”

On the ability of athletes generating revenue from NIL? “I believe they absolutely should and have been clear about that and so have the schools,” Emmert said.

He said that’s why the NCAA is working with Congress on a clarification rule for the entire country rather than 50 individual states. Of course, the NCAA was for decades against athletes cashing in on their likeness. And was so sickeningly wrong.

Which brings us to direct pay by schools to athletes. It sounds good. And with some schools taking in hundreds of millions on the back of unpaid labor, I’m for it in some fashion. Yet even if the NCAA’s old schoolstudent athlete vs. schoolemployee argument comes crashing down in the courts, how exactly will this work? The courts have ruled football schools can keep their TV money. Emmert isn’t wrong when he compared himself to being the secretary general of the UN, trying to negotiate the needs of large nuclear countries and small non-nuclear countries.

Who gets paid? Football and basketball players on scholarship? OK, that’s 97 men. How does that square up with Title IX? How much do you pay them? Texas and Ohio State can pay a lot. Central Connecticut?

“It’s probably something we couldn’t afford,” Central Connecticut athletic director Tom Pincince said. “You look at schools that give cost of attendance, and that’s something we don’t currently do.”

In recent years, schools have been allowed to give in addition to an athletic scholarship a $2,000-$4,000 cost of attendance stipend.

If the small schools or even non-Power 5 football schools can’t afford to pay athletes or refuse to pay, where does it leave the NCAA? With an inevitable split? So much work to be done.

Which now brings us to the March Madness logo at the men’s basketball tournament and not at the women’s tournament this year.

“The women’s staff are a part of the NCAA,” Emmert said. “They’re part of my national office. We all work and live in the same building. This is not somebody against the NCAA.. The March Madness logo can — if the women’s committee and the women’s community wants it used — there’s no reason they can’t use it.” So what the heck happened?

“The details of how and why those decisions were made, we’re going to get to through our review,” Emmert said. “I want to make sure we all understand unequivocally.”

There are 12 staff members on the men’s tournament staff and six on the women’s. The irony is it actually could have been women who decided not to use March Madness in 2021.

Could you imagine if they were scapegoated?

Emmert said the women’s basketball community has to determine specific improvements it wants to “pick up and run with.” That’s part of the problem. This can’t be about setting minimum guidelines and clearing the lowest bar. Goodness, the weight room issue was settled in hours. It’s not about swag bags, it’s about equity for everybody and that just doesn’t get settled quickly. It does start with respect, the kind of respect Suggs and Bueckers have for each other.

Emmert, who makes about $3 million a year, may find himself out of a job. Georgetown president Jack DeGioia, chair of the NCAA Board of Governors voiced his support for Emmert and told the Associated Press last week: “We have confidence in Mark’s continuing leadership of the NCAA.” If that sounds kind of crazy, well, consider Yahoo Sports spoke to more than a dozen college leaders and they estimated 85 percent of the membership is dissatisfied with Emmert. Yet is ridding Emmert enough?

College presidents, in the end, oversee the NCAA and most spend only a limited part of their time on NCAA athletic matters. It’s understandable. And it’s why an overhaul is in order to fix this mess of incalculable proportions.

Of all Emmert’s mistakes,, Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports pointed out the biggest was the estimated $3.5 billion dollars the NCAA left on the table in 2016 when it extended its March Madness contract with CBS and Turner eight years from 2024 to 2032 at less than a three percent annual increase. An open market would have made so much more.

The NCAA could have used that money to help close the inequity gap and reward its unpaid labor.