NCAA President: "Superconferences in football and men's basketball? Fine by me"

[The NOTBCS Guy]

From NCAA President Mark Emmert - and note this was before the whole Texas/Oklahoma to the SEC thing became public:

"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."

Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

[Ken Olson]

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

Typical administrator that has no idea what's going on at the player's
level.

[Michael Falkner]

Post by Ken Olson

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

Typical administrator that has no idea what's going on at the player's
level.

Or the reality that he's about to lose his job and there will be no successor.

Mike

[The NOTBCS Guy]

Post by Michael Falkner

Post by Ken Olson
Typical administrator that has no idea what's going on at the player's
level.

Or the reality that he's about to lose his job and there will be no successor.

You make it sould like the NCAA is going away. Why would it? What would replace it? The big schools certainly want it; otherwise, they would have broken away years, if not decades, ago. The fact that there's still no top-level NCAA football championship shows that they can do it if they wanted. Besides, somebody has to be there for the 1050 or so NCAA schools that aren't Power 5.

Somebody has to enforce the rules. "The schools will get together and do it"? Guess what: that's how the NCAA got started in the first place.

The main problem is, pretty much the same rules apply to, say, UC-Santa Cruz and MIT as to the SEC and Big 10 schools (well, except that Division III schools can't give out athletic scholarships, Nod, Wink), and even Emmert realizes this is a real problem now. If somebody ever does decide, "You know what? The schools can pay players whatever they want," this is only going to get worse. ("Well, we DID budget $1 million to upgrade our tennis facility, but we needed it for the salary of the Heisman-candidate running back we got to transfer here.") At least with the schools with big-pocket boosters, you can pay the players AND fund the other sports.

[Johnny RSFCootball]

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

I know it will never happen, because too many politicians and business people are addicted to college football and basketball, but I think US colleges and universities should get out of the sports business. Let the individual sports develop their own athletes (like club soccer in Europe), and let the schools stick to schooling.

[Ken Olson]

Post by Johnny RSFCootball

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

I know it will never happen, because too many politicians and business people are addicted to college football and basketball, but I think US colleges and universities should get out of the sports business. Let the individual sports develop their own athletes (like club soccer in Europe), and let the schools stick to schooling.

The change would have to happen at the high school level to change the
mentality.

[Eric Ramon]

Post by Johnny RSFCootball

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

I know it will never happen, because too many politicians and business people are addicted to college football and basketball, but I think US colleges and universities should get out of the sports business. Let the individual sports develop their own athletes (like club soccer in Europe), and let the schools stick to schooling.

or they could have an extra-curricular activity for the students, like football if they like playing that, or maybe baseball and they could organize games against other school clubs.

I'm seriously wondering if the current programs moved away from the schools, would there be an interest in actual students playing games? I think there might be. Would I rather see "the Oregon Ducks, brought to you by Nike" or "students attending the University of Oregon"? I'm not sure.

[JGibson]

Post by Eric Ramon

Post by Johnny RSFCootball

Post by The NOTBCS Guy
"We've had this tendency over decades to try and be as homogenous as we can in trying to treat every sport identically. That just doesn't work. We need to be ready to say field hockey is different from football. Wrestling is different from lacrosse. We need to think about some of them really differently than the way we approach football or basketball…It might include changing the way we look at the divisional models for those sports, as well, to make sure we're getting enough participation and we're accepting that responsibility to be partners in developing our (Olympic) national teams."
Of course, somebody needs to remind him that we'd be developing other countries' Olympic athletes as well.

I know it will never happen, because too many politicians and business people are addicted to college football and basketball, but I think US colleges and universities should get out of the sports business. Let the individual sports develop their own athletes (like club soccer in Europe), and let the schools stick to schooling.

or they could have an extra-curricular activity for the students, like football if they like playing that, or maybe baseball and they could organize games against other school clubs.
I'm seriously wondering if the current programs moved away from the schools, would there be an interest in actual students playing games? I think there might be. Would I rather see "the Oregon Ducks, brought to you by Nike" or "students attending the University of Oregon"? I'm not sure.

Penn State used to have only a club hockey team. It was decently popular for a club sport, but nothing like after it became a DI sport for the school.

[The NOTBCS Guy]

Post by Eric Ramon
I'm seriously wondering if the current programs moved away from the schools, would there be an interest in actual students playing games? I think there might be. Would I rather see "the Oregon Ducks, brought to you by Nike" or "students attending the University of Oregon"? I'm not sure.

Change Oregon to Alabama, or Texas, or Ohio State, or USC, or Notre Dame, and is it really that much different? How many scholarship football players at those schools chose the university over the team?