What Message Did Mark Emmert Send?

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.

NCAA President Mark Emmert Reform Movement---An Ongoing Leadership Case Study

Over the next month the NCAA member schools will vote on two override issues that were approved by the Board of Directors last summer. Both are being positioned as student-athlete welfare issues, but many long time athletic directors wonder if this is the first step in the creation of a “Super Division”. As the non-BCS schools struggle to financially support their programs and find alternative revenue sources (mostly student fees), the huge television deals and bowl payouts provide significant revenue streams for the Big 6 conferences.

The Board has passed legislation where athletics departments can provide an annual supplement of $2,000 above the normal athletic scholarship. However 161 of the 355 Division 1 schools signed an override measure against the stipend, enough to suspend the measure for now. The reality of this movement is that this legislation will divide the Association into haves and have-nots. NCAA President Mark Emmert says that this is permissive legislation. No school has to provide the stipend to its athletes. However, the reality is that a school will quickly be classified as to whether they provide the stipend or not. Those programs that cannot afford to provide the stipend, will quickly be stigmatized as not committed to “big time” athletics.

To many Athletic Directors who have been in the game for a long time, they perceive President Emmert ‘s reform movement as the early stages of the ultimate move to a “Super Power” Division with different rules and different agendas. Typically this is an example of a leadership style (used frequently in Higher Education) where different scenarios are created over a long period of time that ultimately lead to a major desired outcome. Compare that leadership style to the one where leaders just deal with the main issue and explain the pros and cons of the big issue and the implementation process.

So President Emmert and the NCAA Board has two options:

1. Pass many pieces of legislation that ultimately demonstrate the extreme differences in the 355 Division 1 members so there is no doubt there is a need for the creation of a new “Super Power” Division.
2. Deal with the inequities in college athletics right now and develop a plan (based on input from all levels of the Division 1 membership) that outlines how this “Super Power” Division would operate and then present that concept.

With the huge amount of money that is at stake here, it is really hard to fathom that sooner or later the big boys won’t want both a bigger share and more control. The next 6 months should provide interesting as President Emmert pushes his agenda. Will his leadership provide a strong unified Division 1 or will college athletics turn into a bifurcated system of have and have-nots. Stay tuned to see where President Emmert’s reform movement and leadership takes Division 1.