NCAA president expresses concerns

NCAA President Myles Brand spoke on his growing concerns about collegiate athletics moving toward professionalism Monday in the College Center Grand Ballroom.

“We Americans love sports,” Brand said. “They provide us with metaphors for life, such as ‘taking one for the team' and ‘getting our game face on.'”

He went on to comment on the differences between collegiate and professional athletics.

“I point out the differences not to argue that one model is superior to the other,” Brand said, “but only to establish that the collegiate model is utterly distinct from professional sports.”

Brand considers professional sports to be a business in which athletes sell their services to the highest bidder. The professional model views these athletes as a labor force.

The collegiate model is based on education, where the model views the athletes as students in the pursuit of an education.

“The relationship between the team and the university is essential,” Brand said.

He added that the team cannot disassociate itself from the university like a professional team can move to a new city.

Brand voiced his concern that college sports have become too similar to professional sports.

“Universities compete for student athletes as aggressively as they compete for students,” Brand said.

In order to combat this glorification of student athletes, he said a task force has been assembled to investigate the athletes' recruitment visits.

The goal is to normalize the visit so that it does not differentiate from that of the non-athlete. Each university will submit written policies for recruitment visits to be approved by the conferences in the NCAA.

As of Thursday, the final piece of the current academic reform act will be put in place.

Universities will be accountable for the academic success of their student athletes, according to Brand. Credit will be given to the universities that receive transfer student athletes and graduate them. No longer will universities be penalized for students who transfer out and are in good academic standing. If those transfer students were not in good academic standing, then the university will be unable to re-award that scholarship the following year.

When asked of the timetable for this implementation of graduation rates, Brand noted two phases to the piece of legislation.

The first part, called the contemporaneous penalty, will be put into effect for fall 2004 student athletes, he said.

The second part, the historical penalty, will take three to four years until in affect because of the new measurement of graduation rates. These penalties include losing scholarships, banning of post-season play and, in extreme cases, the decertification of the sport.

JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne commented on this legislation.

“It is a move in the right direction,” Bourne said. “And it is placing emphasis back on the academic component.”

Junior gymnast Brett Wargo said, “Pushing athletes in over education is something that really needs to be dealt with at the college level.”

Freshman gymnast Robert Federico, echoed Wargo's comments and added, “The changes will be good for college athletics.”

These new penalties will help to curtail the desire of competition into a desire for academic excellence, according to Brand.

“We are overzealous in our desire for competition,” Brand said.