Players request NCAA meeting
The leader of an organization that advocates for fairness in the treatment of college athletics requested that NCAA president Mark Emmert meet via videoconference Tuesday with basketball players who launched #NotNCAAProperty movement.
Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, wrote in a letter to Emmert that he and the players leading the movement want to discuss “the NCAA’s prohibition on college athlete compensation for use of their name, image and likeness as well as the unacceptable discriminatory treatment of female athletes in the NCAA March Madness Tournament and throughout NCAA member institutions.”
Jordan Bohannon of Iowa, Isaiah Livers of Michigan and Geo Baker of Rutgers helped start the movement. The hashtag #NotNCAAProperty was trending on social media.
“It’s really important what we did, to continue to create awareness,” Bohannon said. “You saw from the women’s standpoint, a couple days ago, the women speaking out about the weight room being different. If you look at that, that was just absolutely ridiculous. Look at Mark Emmert, he was nowhere to be found to answer any questions. ... At the end of the day, a leader’s got to step up and lead and he wasn’t there again to state his reasoning behind it all.”
An NCAA spokesperson said in a statement Sunday that Emmert “would be happy to connect either virtually or in person when appropriate with any studentathletes who want to engage.”
Minnesota
The school hired Ben Johnson as its new men’s coach, giving the former Gophers player and assistant a five-year contract — and favoring relationships over experience in the latest attempt to lift a long-middling program up to the top of the Big Ten. Johnson will replace Richard Pitino, who was fired after eight seasons and then took the job at New Mexico. Johnson, 40, was on staff under Pitino with the Gophers for five seasons before spending the past three years at Xavier under Travis Steele. For Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle, with university finances under pressure due to a steep reduction of revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic, this was bound to be a crucial hire. Williams Arena attendance has waned in recent seasons, as the Gophers frequently finished in the bottom half of the conference and the professional teams in town all got new or upgraded venues.
Rutgers
Joe Boylan, a popular radio voice for Rutgers basketball and a former coach when the team made its only Final Four appearance nearly a halfcentury ago, died. He was 82. Rutgers announced his death Monday. Boylan had a stroke Wednesday and died Sunday, the day the Scarlet Knights lost to Houston and ended their first NCAA tournament appearance in 30 years. the