No Fear Factor
Emmert: NCCA reforms not because of fear
The NCAA’S move to restructure college sports is not being driven by fear, but rather a desire to seize an opportunity to tackle issues that have been building for decades, NCAA president Mark Emmert said Monday,
“There’s few things that are being discussed right now that have been discussed off and on at least for the 10 years that I’ve been involved in the NCAA,” Emmert said during a brief news conference.
“But yet at the same time, we’ve never had a moment where we had state legislators, congressional actors, the courts, the economic dynamics, and even the pandemic, all providing a very important catalyst for change.”
Emmert’s words came after the NCAA’S online constitutional convention, during which the entire membership of more than 1,100 schools in its three divisions weighed in on the proposed, scaled-down version of the association’s foundational document.
Emmert called for the constitutional convention over the summer, not long after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the NCAA a potentially crippling blow. In upholding a lower court’s ruling in an antitrust case, the high court left the association vulnerable to lawsuits any time it makes a new rule the impacts athletes.
Rewriting the constitution is the first step toward decentralizing college sports’ governance and deemphasizing the role of the NCAA.
“It has been a long time, 50 years, a half a century, since there was this thorough a look at what college sports is and how it should function,” Emmert said. “The inaction of the association at this particular moment would be very, very poorly received and it should be, frankly. If you have that much change going on, you darn well be better be ready and willing and able to change.”
The college sports administrators who make up the constitution committee, including Georgetown President Jack Degioia, who is the chairman of the NCAA’S Board of Governors, spent about four hours presenting the proposal to members and taking questions.