It may very well be that NCAA President Mark Emmert is doing what his board wants him to do. If so, then the Association, and not Emmert, is the problem … unless….
Courtesy: Houston Chronicle
Last Sunday’s The Oklahoman (July 5) included a must-read commentary written by B. David Ridpath and Gerald Gurney. In After a Decade of Mark Emmert, NCAA Needs New Leadership, the co-authors conclude that NCAA president Mark Emmert’s “overall record is a disaster.”
I don’t take issue with that conclusion. But the situation looks different if analyzed from an organizational perspective–including how organizational change happens in conjunction with leadership succession. From that perspective, two scenarios seem likely.
SCENARIO 1: I’ve never experienced a situation where a CEO/president–working solo and without strong support and encouragement from his/her board–has succeeded in bringing about significant change. Lone Rangers don’t ride into town and save the day–unless the people living there want to be saved. If the NCAA doesn’t see the need for significant change, then Emmert’s successor (when that day comes) to likely to be more like Emmert than different from him.
SCENARIO 2: If there is strong support for significant change, then there’s every reason to believe that the next NCAA CEO will be a change leader–quite different in philosophy and approach from Emmert. For that to happen, though, something needs to happen first. At least one trusted and influential president/chancellor/athletic director/conference commissioner needs to step up, persuade enough of his/her colleagues that significant change is required.
Members of the Austin police department march with members of the University of Texas football team to the State Capitol in Austin, Thursday, June 4, 2020, to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
I don’t know enough about the NCAA culture to know whether Scenario 2 is possible. What I do know is that the NCAA has not responded sufficiently to this point. Rather than be proactive about change, the NCAA protects its flanks and operates reactively to legislation, court rulings, and activist athletes. In other words, it changes (grudgingly so) only when pushed.
The fundamental problem, in my opinion, is that the NCAA and its members (the so-called ‘Power 5’ conferences and schools, in particular) have subverted the concept of athletics within the context of higher education. They’ve done it in exchange for creating and feeding a revenue-generating, pro-like sports appendage that doesn’t align with education’s core mission.
In a recent Boston Globe commentary, Arizona State University professor Victoria L. Jackson put it this way. “The money in athletics has increased dramatically (from $4 billion a year to at least $14 billion a year) over the last couple decades, thanks to conference TV networks, licensing agreements, and the advent of the College Football Playoff, the money spent in this system has risen in tandem, from coaching salary escalation to the bloating of athletics administration, to a facilities arms race. To make sense of all the spending is to see that that the labor costs for the players on the field—the majority of whom are Black—have remained artificially low, capped at scholarships.”
To keep things as they are, the NCAA uses a technique that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned about decades ago–waiting things out. Wait and see if tension eases. Wait for activists to calm down. Wait until public attention shifts to the next social problem de jour. Stall as long as you can and wait for the smoke to clear. Then, get back to business as usual.
Change is a significant risk for the NCAA, and the biggest risk of all is changing the business model. There’s no secret here: the NCAA wants to eat its cake and have it. It’s a huge cake, too.
If what I’ve asserted is THE NCAA’s principal objective–which I believe it is– then Mark Emmert shouldn’t be removed; he should be congratulated on a job well done. Emmert has stayed the course. He hasn’t caved in to pressure. He takes bullets for ‘the team.” He deflects criticism. He denies that alternatives are better than maintaining the status quo. Best yet, Emmert gives the impression (and hope) that the NCAA ‘is working on it.’ Count on ‘big changes’ soon. But, of course, that never happens.
What’s going on? The NCAA is a membership organization. Emmert serves the preferences/needs of members. He’s their front guy. Get rid of him and Emmert II will emerge.
What I’ve just described isn’t new or unique to the NCAA. It’s an ancient game, played all the time. Dr. King experienced it decades ago. Even though he lived during a time (just as we are today) when CHANGE filled the air, King observed that change–real change, the kind you can feel and touch–“moves at horse-and-buggy speed.” He also said that “it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”
He’s right. That’s why I believe legislative action, court rulings, and pressure from athletes and fans are more likely than internal NCAA movement to bring about significant change in the college sports model. Unless, of course, well-positioned insiders lead the charge and succeed in persuading enough colleagues to say, “We must do this! We must do this now!”
The situation would be easy to fix if one person, a presumably failed chief executive, was the problem. He’s not. Emmert is the manifestation of the problem. The NCAA is the problem.
