Storyline: The system for managing college basketball (and football) is hopelessly flawed. Historic problems persist. The answer isn’t reforming the system incrementally; it’s disrupting the system fundamentally. Moving to a pro management model does that.
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Syracuse are in the NCAA men’s Final Four. Two great schools … two great athletic programs … two schools with academic fraud.
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In 2015 the NCAA found Syracuse guilty of more than a dozen infractions that spanned ten years. “The institution permitted athletics success to supersede NCAA standards of conduct,” the NCAA concluded. Examples included maintaining an inappropriate relationship with a local nonprofit organization (“internship” related) and giving inappropriate assistance to athletes in preparing papers for courses and completing take-home exams.
If anything, the situation at UNC is worse: it may be the most grievous case of academic fraud in NCAA history. According to allegations (case pending NCAA adjudication) over 3000 UNC students (about 1500 of them student-athletes) were given unwarranted assistance over a period of 20 years. Allegations include a pattern of structured, fraudulent intervention: a campus department (with assistance given by the unit chair and its head secretary) knowingly provided “an academic boost” to athletes (men and women, across sports, including football and men’s basketball). The “boost,” according to investigators, included fake courses.
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SU and UNC aren’t just “any schools.” They’re two of America’s leading universities. US News and World Report ranks UNC #30 among all national universities, Syracuse #61. The schools rank even higher on the basketball court. They’re two of the winningest cage programs in NCAA history: UNC #3, SU #5. These cage programs are led by school alumni—Roy Williams (UNC) and Jim Boeheim (SU)–highly respected coaches, both members of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
But there’s an unfortunate connection between outstanding coaches and “issues” facing basketball programs. Consider these names—all of them in the Naismith Hall of Fame and all winners of past national championships: Jim Calhoun, Larry Brown, Rick Pitino, and John Calipari. All great coaches … and all of them coached programs that engaged in proven or alleged wrong doing. The schools include UCLA, UConn, UMass, SMU, Louisville, and Memphis.
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The situation is historic and current. Syracuse didn’t play last post-season (penalties for the aforementioned issues). SMU and Brown didn’t play this post-season. The reason, again, is academic fraud. Louisville and Pitino didn’t play this post-season, either. And the situation facing Louisville is, well, as problematic as it gets: allegations of offering sex to recruits.
There’s nothing new in this underbelly of major college basketball. While unbecoming higher education, it’s also just the way it is … and the way it has been for a very long time.
The quest to win and the money involved contribute to the challenge of staying clean. And it’s not just the coaches who are to blame. For example, faculty and academic staff are implicated at UNC. The executive director of a local youth organization was involved at SU.
What’s notable about these transgressions is that many of the teams involved often rise to the top of college basketball. Case in point this year: two of four teams in this year’s Final Four (Villanova and SU) have been found guilty by the NCAA of major basketball-related improprieties. A third, UNC (as mentioned), is under investigation for major violations. Only Oklahoma—the school in the Finals this year that hasn’t won a national championship—has been violation-free.
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The stark reality is that the NCAA has nailed many high-profile cage programs over the years. That’s obvious by analyzing the list of schools that have had games vacated/forfeited by NCAA ruling. Which schools are highest on the list? Once again, they’re highly ranked schools academically. Michigan is tops (117 games). Ohio State (113 games) comes next. Syracuse is third.
Is it possible to win, win big, and win clean? Of course. But is it the rule or exception? Either way, the NCAA needs to clean up college basketball. And the clean-up isn’t just a matter of getting all schools to comply with the rules.
Remember the Final Four in 2014? Shabazz Napier, star guard of eventual national champ, UConn, told the media that he sometimes goes to be hungry, even starving. While embarrassing to the NCAA, there was a positive outcome. The NCAA adopted a rules change as a result of Napier’s admission. The NCAA now funds student-athletes for a more broadly based “cost of attendance.”
But the underlying circumstances remain unchanged: there’s the unbridled quest to win coupled with millions and millions of dollars connected to winning. And while it’s true that revenue-generating sports pay most (if not all) of the bills for sports at Power 5 schools, there’s not enough revenue to cover those programs, let alone non-revenue sports, at other NCAA Division 1 institutions.
What’s the answer? Each and every time I pose that question I think immediately of internal reforms, what schools, the NCAA, and conferences might and could do—internally–to address challenges. And each and every time I do that I come up short on big, bold, and sustainable reform.
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I’ve concluded that an external model makes most sense for schools in NCAA’s “Power 5” conferences–the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, and Pac12. (Note: I don’t believe it’s possible to advance a single model for all of college sports. The space is diverse. What’s right for UCLA probably isn’t right for East Tennessee State. What I propose here is only for schools at the highest end of college sports.)
What do I mean by “external model?” Have pro operations assume responsibility for managing major college football and basketball programs. Players need not enroll at schools, but they could (if they wished), by enrolling independently of playing sports. The players would play as minor leaguers, just like they do in pro baseball. They’d be paid for play. How long they’d play would depends …. better players would migrate to the pros and lesser players would remain on college teams or retire from the game – just like what happens in minor league baseball.
College and university programs could either become franchises (“farm clubs”) of NFL/NBA teams or the entire system could be opened up more broadly to corporate and private sponsorship. Operators would provide schools with annual financial allocations in exchange for naming and management rights, including facility fees. And while the NCAA and conferences would get a cut, too, neither the NCAA nor conferences would manage post-season play for major sports–only for non-revenue sports.
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Schools, NCAA, and the conferences could use funds to support non-revenue sports activities and–very importantly–fund other worthy causes, athletic and non-athletic. Here’s an example. Research has shown that African-American students enrolled at similar institutions have a better chance of graduating if support programs exist to help those students achieve academically and matriculate. Some sports-related revenue could be invested in a worthy program like that.
Why do I bring up this topic? I believe that the college basketball and football system is hopelessly flawed. Historic problems persist. And there’s no sign of major change in sight.
The answer isn’t reforming the system incrementally. The answer is disrupting the system fundamentally. Moving to a pro management model does that.
If such a system were to go into place then perhaps, just perhaps, in the year 2025 academic fraud in college sports would be a thing of the past. Cheating in recruiting would be gone, too. That’s because we’d have an open system of selecting players, just as we do in pro sports.
Pro management isn’t a perfect model, but the college system just doesn’t work.
