NCAA report wants presidents to reassert control of athletics

For those who care about college sports beyond the wins and losses, the NCAA Presidential Task Force Report on the Future of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics is a must-read.

Here are a few of the general conclusions:

1. The student-athlete is increasingly being separated from the student body, both physically and emotionally.

2. The perception that big-time football pays for a myriad of other sports on campus is a continuing myth. “The truth is that except for a few at the top end of Division I, whose revenues continue to outpace expenditures, most athletics administrators are struggling to balance their budgets and increasingly doing so through subsidies from their universities.”

3. The cost of Division I sports is increasing “more than three times as fast as total university operating expenditures.”

4. “Like other parts of the campus, the mission of intercollegiate athletics is to educate,” not to entertain.

5. It is the responsibility of university presidents to reassert their control and oversight responsibilities of sports to ensure they remain part of the college mission. “Intercollegiate athletics is not a freestanding, autonomous enterprise located in close physical proximity to a university. It must be both in principle and in fact as richly integrated with the rest of the campus as each of the other components.”

The task force concluded, “There must be presidential leadership that begins at the campus level, and there must be institutional accountability for the conduct of the enterprise [sports].”

One problem highlighted was ill-defined and often obfuscated financial data. The coverup of what money goes where and from whom has to end.

The spiraling contracts given to coaches and the incessant outlay of capital for new facilities that serve only athletes are out of control.

The separation of athletes in separate housing units with their own cafeterias, libraries, game rooms, and more does nothing to integrate the student into campus life. Such acts are recruiting tools more designed to raise the salary of the coach than to help the student.

The report finds that “intercollegiate athletics’ greatest challenge often is its own success.” The more success, the more “the collegiate model drifts toward the professional approach.”

Sad to say, but the task force found it necessary to make a specific point that “those who participate in intercollegiate athletics are students attending a university or college,” where the “fundamental mission … is intellectual in nature….”

The thrust of the report is to control the runaway nature of Division I sports through campus presidents exerting the same oversight they do with other programs.

The NCAA takes a lot of hits from fans who live vicariously through university sports. Credit the task force with having none of that.

There are no paid athletes mentioned here. There is no discussion of extending seasons or creating a football playoff system.

The report is about athletics as part of the university life – what a concept.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.