The horrific case of Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State administrative cover-up did need response, action and a strong statement from the NCAA and President Mark Emmert. The question is what was the real message sent by the leadership of the NCAA? Interesting Ed Ray the Chairman of the Executive Committee and President of Oregon State who introduced Emmert clearly stated, "The message is the presidents and chancellors are in charge." Yet to me the biggest perpetrator of the Penn State cover-up who enabled the conspiracy was Penn State President Graham Spanier. University presidents have tremendous power on their own campus and should be able to establish the accepted behaviors and style of the "inner circle" of their top aids. Everyone in a leader's "inner circle" takes both clues and cues from the boss that impact their own decisions regarding a myriad of different situations.
So while President Ed Ray says that the message is loud and clear that presidents and chancellors are in charge of college athletics, those same individuals need to start accepting that responsibility and send out messages loud and clear that resonate on their own campus that athletics have an important role but not one that operates as an uncontrolled power base within a framework and environment of win at all costs. Understand that presidents should not need the NCAA to dictate rules and regulations, each university though the leadership of the president or chancellor should have their own set of standards. Many of the issues surrounding college athletics could and should be handled on campuses through the strong leadership of the CEO. Why does this not happen? Easy answer---the presidents do not have the courage to upset prominent alums, donors, etc. Penn State should be the poster child case for every university CEO to muster up enough courage to make significant change to get college athletics in the proper perspective.
The first two things that every University CEO should do are:
1. Get coaches salaries under control. The message sent by paying some head coaches $4 to $5 million so overstates their value and importance that these coaches and the people around them lose perspective on their importance.
2. Insure that all admitted athletes fall within one standard deviation of the mean (average) academic admissions standards of the generally enrolled student body. Once again this measure will clearly state that athletics needs to fit within the framework of the institution.
Remember as a leader "talk is cheap". Action takes courage, so let us see how many university presidents muster enough courage to take action to show that they are "in charge" and perform "a gut check" just like Chairman Ray challenged in his Penn State sanction press conference. Hopefully one good thing that comes from Penn State's egregious disregard of responsible leadership will be university presidents taking action not just talking about it.
