Emmert: NCAA has no interest in paying players

SAN ANTONIO — Mark Emmert expects change to come to college basketball after this season — except at its foundation.

Following the FBI’s corruption probe into college basketball and the revelation of some players being paid by agents, the NCAA president said he doesn’t believe the sport would be cleaned up if players received a cut of the billions of dollars they help bring in each year.

“Universities and colleges have consistently said they don’t want to have student-athletes become employees of a university,” Emmert said. “They don’t want them to be playing for compensation. They want this to be part of a collegiate experience, and they want these young men and young women to be part of a higher-education environment.”

Emmert said the NCAA plans to have discussions with the NBA and the Players Association, and he believes that players should be eligible to turn pro straight out of high school.

With that choice, Emmert said a player would then choose how important it is to make money.

“There needs to be the ability for a young person and his family to say, you know, what I really want to do is just become a professional ballplayer, and they ought to be provided that opportunity if they don’t want to go to college,” Emmert said. “If they do want to go to college, I think that’s an extraordinary opportunity. They get to pursue the sport they love. They get to potentially wind up in a venue like this one.

“That’s a choice that needs to be there. But people fully understand that when you go into a collegiate environment you’re not doing that to become an employee of a univer- sity. And there is no interest in higher education of turning college athletes into employees that are hired and fired by universities.”

Emmert, who responded to the FBI scandal by selecting former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to head the Commission on College Basketball, said the recommendations of the group will be given April 25.

“I recognize everybody says this is sort of typical behavior of big organiza- tions, right? Something goes wrong, you form a commission and then nothing happens,” Emmert said. “I mean just to be blunt about it, you don’t waste Condoleezza Rice’s time if you’re not serious about it. ... Everybody that’s involved in college basketball right now recognizes this can’t continue the way it’s continuing.

“There’s more motivation and focus on this than any issue that I’ve seen in my time in college sports.”