Emmert faces tough agenda

Group’s president to meet with board

INDIANAPOLIS — NCAA President Mark Emmert looks and sounds increasingly frustrated.

Some of the fast-track reforms he championed in August 2011 have been slowed down by the governing body’s legislative process. Simplifying the rule book has proven trickier than expected. His own enforcement staff got swept into a major scandal earlier this year, and Emmert has come under increasing scrutiny for presiding over all of this.

“It’s just a demonstration that this is a membership association and decision-making is hard. It’s hard to find agreement among all the members and that’s the nature of democratic processes,” Emmert said. “As Winston Churchill put it, it’s the worst of all systems except for everything else.”

At least Emmert can still laugh a little as the NCAA’s board of directors prepares to meet today. A lot has changed since the committee last met in person in mid-January.

Shortly after that meeting, Emmert announced publicly that the NCAA had botched its investigation of the University of Miami. A monthlong external investigation confirmed the initial findings and led to the ouster of NCAA enforcement director Julie Roe Lach. As speculation swirled about Emmert’s own future, the board issued a rare vote of confidence in his leadership.

Little has gone right lately for Emmert and the Indianapolisbased NCAA. Today’s agenda illustrates what’s at stake.

More discussion is expected on a rule passed in October 2011 that allowed schools to give athletes up to $2,000 beyond the cost of tuition, room and board, books and fees. It was later overridden by the membership, and the board has spent more than a year working on a new proposal.

Additional discussions are expected on a second phase of rule book changes.

The board plans to talk about recruiting rules that are now on hold. The board could take action, though the American Football Coaches Association has said the NCAA has asked the organization to serve on an advisory committee that will help draft modified legislation.

That ’s why Emmer t describes this meeting as “framing” the big issues for the future rather than a headlinegrabbing action meeting.

“We’ve been making really good progress, really great headway on a whole host of issues, most notably the academic and rules reforms,” Emmert said. “The work we’ve conducted on all of our enforcement work and those things have been really positive. Obviously, the distractions of the Miami case and the way that was handled have been frustrating to no end.”