When debating the pros and cons of the NCAA, I often hear the term "hypocrisy." I believe that to be wrong. The NCAA is staffed by dozens of smart, principled and well-intentioned people. There are also hundreds of NCAA member employees who help out and serve with best of intentions. Overall, the NCAA is a good thing. The NCAA is not hypocritical.
Many of the NCAA's principles, rules, structures and actions, however, present inescapable contradictions and intellectual dishonesty. Some of the most cherished foundations upon which the NCAA stands are fictions that are more suitably called fairy tales than missions. Many of its rules and principles are unreasonable and unfair.
The NCAA needs to be reformed, and it needs to be reformed now. We came close to a cataclysmic change in the entire NCAA structure during the conference realignment scramble of the summer, and that scramble is not over. We will face those same issues again. If the NCAA is not reformed, it will be a casualty (if not the cause) of this inevitable change.
The NCAA does several things, but it only does a few of them well. It serves as (1) the regulatory body that makes rules; (2) the enforcement body that investigates, prosecutes and sits in judgment of its rules; (3) the administrator of championships; (4) the collector and distributor of massive revenues; (5) the certifier of initial eligibility and amateur status of its players, and (6) the promoter of an educational mission.
In my judgment, the NCAA does only a few of those things reasonably well. It administers championships and takes in and distributes revenue very well and very efficiently. And the NCAA promotes the values of education very well, but does so at the expense of the athletes.
The other "missions" are not executed as effectively as they should be and the NCAA should be reformed in all of those areas. Starting with two major ones:
1. Redefine the principle of "amateurism" to make it fair and practical
2. Throw out the NCAA rule book and start over to make the rules sensible, reasonable and sport-specific (including a fair system of enforcement and adjudication)
If the NCAA does those two things, it will have created a structure that is fair and intellectually honest, which may assure its survival through the next wave of conference realignment.
Let's take a closer look at my two major ideas for reform:
Redefine Amateurism To Allow Outside Compensation
The NCAA holds the principle of amateurism as its bedrock principle. As defined by the NCAA, however, there are no amateurs in college sports now, nor have there ever been. Amateurism, as defined by the NCAA, is not just outdated and antiquated, it has never existed and never will. It is time to confront that reality and to ease the unfair restrictions on college athletes.
In its constitution, the NCAA sets forth that an athlete's participation in sport should be motivated primarily by education, and that athletes should be "protected from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises." Pursuant to NCAA rules, a college athlete is not allowed to accept any preferential treatment, benefits or services because of his athletic reputation, skill or payback potential as a pro, unless it is specifically permitted by those same NCAA rules. In other words, nobody can provide an athlete with anything of value except the NCAA.
The NCAA's amateurism principle dates back to the early 1900s and is based upon the Greek Olympic ideal that sport is an avocation, and that a true amateur plays only for the love of the game and nothing more. The NCAA's view of amateurism contemplates an inherent value in the principle, and a belief that money absolutely corrupts the athlete. An amateur is pure, the participation in sport is a vital part of one's education, and the benefits derived are from the competition, camaraderie and pleasure of the enterprise.
The trouble is this ideal has never really existed. From the very start, college athletics has been a commercial enterprise, and the players had a profit motive. The NCAA's concept of amateurism is rooted in a class-divisive elitism that existed in the early 1900s. At that time, higher education was for the elite, and the elite did not wish to compete with the common person. American higher education was reserved for "gentlemen," and that did not include institutions that would later be established to educate the masses.
When more and more colleges were established to educate the common man and not just the "gentlemen" of the elite class, there were too many differing mission statements to regulate with such rules and principles.
When the NCAA was formed in the first decade of the 20th century, recruiting and scholarships were strictly prohibited. An athlete was not supposed to be a professional-in-training and he was not supposed to have any self interest in terms of profit. Even today, according to the NCAA, if an athlete wishes to profit from playing a sport, it is inherently immoral and corrupting. Never mind that the rules were changed to allow recruiting and scholarships decades ago, and that the NCAA prohibits anyone else from providing the same things it provides to athletes. If an athlete profits beyond what the NCAA gives him, he is corrupt and immoral.
To the contrary, it is profoundly immoral for the NCAA and its member institutions to profit from the work of the athlete while restricting that athlete from realizing any profit himself. The NCAA does not want the athlete to be "exploited" by accepting any payment, but it does not seem to see the contradiction that the athlete could be exploited by the NCAA by being disallowed from profiting in any way.
The NCAA also contradicts itself by stating that the athlete is already being compensated and indeed receives benefits, and that anything in addition to what the NCAA provides is an "extra benefit" and thereby illegal. Clearly, if the NCAA provides scholarships that have a value of up to $100,000, the athlete is not a true amateur under the original principle. The athlete is an economic dependent that is simply restricted from realizing more profit than the NCAA says he can. That is simply wrong.
An athlete is not exploited when he is fairly compensated in a business transaction outside of the institution. To the contrary, one could more persuasively argue that an athlete is exploited when he is expressly disallowed from realizing his value while his reputation and skill are being used to realize a profit for others.
Just this month, University of Arizona basketball players were used by the institution to hand-deliver basketball season tickets to promote the program. And the NCAA wishes to protect the athlete from exploitation?
Here is the solution: The NCAA should redefine its concept of amateurism to allow compensation outside of the institution and to bring the principle in line with reality. As with the Olympic model, an amateur should be defined as an athlete that accepts no salary or direct compensation from the institution or its representatives (beyond a scholarship, expenses and stipend to cover cost of attendance), and the athlete should be a full-time student in good-standing. That's it.
Outside income from marketing rights, endorsements, jobs attained because of one's athletic reputation, participation in sport for which compensation-beyond-expenses has been received (which would primarily encompass foreign athletes playing under a different system), and agreements with agents, advisors and other representatives should no longer be illegal or discouraged.
An athlete should be able to take advantage of his worth in the marketplace outside of the institution. NCAA institutions do not have to pay the athlete, but the NCAA should not restrict the athlete from realizing his market value.
Critics will respond by saying that the acceptance of payment of any kind would corrupt that athlete and it would create an uneven playing field among NCAA institutions. It would, they argue, separate athletes from their teammates by some making more money in the open market than others.
There would be no "corruption" by allowing athletes to realize their value in the marketplace. I am not advocating that institutions pay athletes. Rather, I am advocating that the rules allow athletes to take advantage of their value outside of the institution. There is nothing corrupting about realizing value, just as there is nothing corrupting in being recruited and accepting a scholarship.
The Olympics removed amateurism from its charter in the 1970s, yet the NCAA holds it as a bedrock principle with no reasonable justification. The acceptance of outside income by a college athlete would not diminish the athlete's love of the game or make the athlete less of a student. It would not compromise in any way the educational mission of any institution, nor would it negatively affect the standards of any school.
Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps, Shawn Johnson, Misty May-Treanor and Mia Hamm realized their value in the marketplace, yet still represented a cherished ideal and played for the love of the game. The fact that all were allowed to profit off of the field through endorsement and marketing deals did not diminish their commitment as athletes, nor did it corrupt them in any way. It is not a scandal -- rather, it is accepted because it is fair, reasonable and permissible under the rules. Phelps. Johnson, May-Treanor and Hamm, like so many others, still embody the ideals and values the NCAA promotes. Money earned from outside sources has nothing to do with it.
The aforementioned Olympic athletes all have agents, and all far out-earn their teammates in the open market, but there were not fistfights in the locker room over their compensation because they are the most marketable athletes. The market determined their value, as it does in any other endeavor, and that is better understood by the athlete than the unfair and indefensible restrictions placed upon athletes by the NCAA.
So athletes understand why the better athletes play more, win more awards and gain more attention in the media, but not why they would command more outside income? That fails the laugh test.
The playing field is uneven now, it always has been, and it always will be. Allowing athletes to realize their value outside of the institution is absolutely fair, and it is the moral thing to do. It would decriminalize the normal behavior we expect in any other endeavor, and it would relieve the artificial suppression of the athlete's profit motive. Right now, the only party in college sports that is not allowed to profit in any way from the enterprise is the athlete, and that is wrong.
When the NCAA was formed in 1906, the only profit restrictions were placed upon the athlete. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. In its Constitution, the NCAA sets forth that its "basic purpose" is to maintain college sports as an integral part of the educational program and the athlete as an integral part of the student body, and "by so doing, retain a clear line of demarcation between intercollegiate athletics and professional sports."
Allowing college athletes to take advantage of their value in the marketplace does not alter that basic purpose one bit. As long as athletes are full-time students in good standing and are not paid salaries by the institution, they are an integral part of the educational program and the line between college and pro sports is clear.
An athlete should be able to hire representation (i.e. an agent), gain advice on how or whether to professionalize, and enter into legal contracts outside of the institution for any payment the market will allow. When access to professional counsel is restricted, it eliminates access to the ethical professionals and allows access to the unethical. Allowing athletes to accept outside compensation and to have agents will not in any way compromise the educational values promoted by the NCAA.
So the NCAA needs to redefine its concept of amateurism, and needs to do it now.
Promulgate Reasonable Rules
The NCAA also needs to throw out its near 500-page rule book and start over with reasonable and practical rules that are sport-specific. Too many of the current rules are unnecessary and unenforceable.
The NCAA rule book is reactive in nature. Like a coral reef, it is an organic set of guidelines that are difficult to interpret and grow in reaction to stimulus. When there is an action the NCAA wishes to curtail, it simply passes a rule that seeks to stop that action, thereby creating unintended consequences which, in turn, necessitate more unnecessary and unenforceable rules.
NCAA Division I is made up of 347 different institutions with 347 different mission statements and raisons d'etre. There cannot reasonably be a "one size fits all" rule book to level a playing field and to take into account all of the different circumstances of these vastly different educational institutions. It is impossible, and the NCAA rule book proves that.
Institutions of higher learning do not need a governing body to tell them how long to practice, how and when to feed their athletes, how many colors can be used on stationary, how many phone calls they can make, and whether an athlete is worthy of admission and should be provided a uniform.
Yet the NCAA has weaved this complicated web of unintelligible rules and has set up a regulatory nightmare for its members that has spawned entire industries and has cost millions upon millions of dollars. All of that in pursuit of the mythical "level-playing field".
As a result of these unreasonable rules and over-regulation, the NCAA staff has grown exponentially and it will continue to grow. To ensure that athletes are qualified under these rules, the NCAA has set up expensive clearinghouses to certify eligibility and amateur status. These clearinghouses are slow, ineffective and are not equipped to do the work that the schools do better and more efficiently themselves.
For example, there is no way that the NCAA Eligibility Clearinghouse is in a better position to "certify" the eligibility of Eric Bledsoe or Derrick Rose than was Kentucky or Memphis. It takes in and examines the same information as the two schools, and its certification is meaningless because it cannot be relied upon by the institutions. The Clearinghouse cleared both Bledsoe and Rose, and the latter was later declared ineligible as a freshman almost a year after the Clearinghouse had certified the athlete as eligible. So, what was really accomplished by spending all of that money and time? Nothing, except a lot of people outside of the athletes got paid a lot of money.
Because of the NCAA's over-regulation, institutions have had to hire "compliance staff" at considerable cost. Salaries and benefits are paid to university compliance staffs that usually range from three to 10 people who make sure NCAA rules are adhered to. For a BCS school, at least $350,000 annually (and that is the low end) is devoted to compliance. These compliance staffs pore over phone bills and count phone calls, and field questions as silly as whether a team may provide peanut butter in addition to bagels, whether eating on the way to the airport is considered a training meal or would be considered part of the road trip, and whether an athlete may sign an item for a charity auction.
An entire organization of professionals has been created by this complicated system of rules. The National Association of Athletics Compliance (NAAC) is an organization of university compliance officers that has annual meetings, attendance at which is paid for by the schools. Those costs are on top of the salaries and benefits of compliance staff and the immense cost of outside counsel. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent just to ensure that the NCAA does not point a finger at your institution and say "failure to monitor" or "did not promote an atmosphere of compliance" (whatever that means). It is patently absurd for so much money to be spent on so many cosmetic rules.
The NAAC is just one of the organizations spawned by the business of college sports. It is not a part of the NCAA, however, as it is under the auspices of the NACDA (the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics). The NAAC should also not be confused with the NACMA (the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators), the ICLA (the International Collegiate Licensing Association), the CEFMA (the Collegiate Event and Facilities Management Association), the NAADD (the National Association of Athletic Development Directors), or the CABMA (the College Athletic Business Management Association), all of which are under the NACDA umbrella. Are we clear on that?
None of the above-referenced entities have restrictions on the number of phone calls they can make, and none have software to monitor those calls. None are prohibited from providing bagels and cream cheese at a gathering, and none are prohibited from having color photographs on their promotional materials. There is no concern for a level-playing field in the marketing or sales industry having to do with the product produced by the athlete, or even in the compliance field. The only area in which there is a concern for a level-playing field has to do with the procurement and compensation of college athletes. In any other area, a level-playing field that limits compensation would violate federal law.
Too many of these rules are unnecessary, unduly burdensome, unduly expensive to comply with, and are simply unfair. The rules need to be reexamined and brought into the realm of reason. Rather than a facilities arms race, we have set up a system in which we have a compliance arms race. And that means a colossal waste of time, energy and money -- something that does not benefit the athlete one bit.
Bottom Line: The NCAA Is A Good Thing -- Let's Save It
The NCAA is a good thing in theory and, for the most part, in practice. In its proper role with reasonable rules and enforcement procedures, the NCAA should be preserved. But unless the organization is reformed, its very existence could be in jeopardy in the coming years.
The NCAA and its rule book are not the glue that is holding college sports together. College sports are great and promote many admirable values. But,allowing athletes to accept outside compensation and to promulgate more reasonable rules would not compromise those values one bit. Outside compensation would not diminish the educational value of the enterprise, nor would it compromise the deeply held beliefs and values of member institutions.
The so-called "race to the bottom" that some argue would result from a redefinition of amateurism and more reasonable rules is another myth that is designed to promote an elitist status quo, and I believe that to be wrong.
If athletes are allowed to accept outside compensation, and if the rules are reasonable, we will still celebrate the values of the college athlete just like we do the current Olympic athlete, and we will do it more honestly and straightforwardly. Remember, we still celebrated the values of the college athlete when the rules were changed to allow recruiting and scholarships when critics said that the amateur would then be a professional. Allowing them to accept outside compensation will not be any different.
The time has come to reform the NCAA, and by doing so, to preserve it.
Jay Bilas is a college basketball analyst for ESPN and a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.