Written by This is without question a time of dynamic change or just plain turmoil in college sports. The last month has seen more than its share, culminating in last Tuesday’s announcement by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) president Mark Emmert that he plans to step down either as soon as a replacement can be named or June 30, 2023.
Three recent events, taken together, seem to underscore the earthshaking dynamics of college sports in modern times: Grambling University’s new women’s volleyball coach terminating the scholarships of and cutting her entire team; Notre Dame’s highly-regarded Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick saying that the current top level of collegiate model of sports, NCAA Division I, was likely headed toward breaking up within the next decade in an interview in Sports Illustrated with writer Pat Forde; and finally, Emmert’s announcement that puts an end date on his more than decade-long and controversial tenure as head of the largest organization in college sports.
Grambling’s Challenge
Newly-hired head coach Chelsey Lucas, a 2007 graduate of Grambling, announced in early April that she was cutting the entire roster of 19 players and moving to terminate the athletic scholarships of her players who receive athletic scholarships. This act has drawn immediate and broad criticism and seemingly caught officials at the venerable and important Historically Black University in Louisiana a bit off-guard. In the absence of extenuating circumstances, it is certainly an extreme move that no coach should consider replicating, at least not lightly.
Virtually every university, public and private, treats athletic participation…being on the roster, dressing for games, starting, or playing time… as a privilege and not a right. The decisions of coaches on each aspect of team membership are usually accorded great deference unless it can be demonstrated that decision is based on some form of improper or discriminatory motive, which can be difficult to do. It is important to point out that nothing of this nature has been articulated here and this seems to be an exercise in coaching discretion. In a similar vein, athletic scholarships are annual grants that can terminated in accordance with a combination of institutional and NCAA procedural rules and safeguards. Some of the larger conferences, to their credit, do have rules that limit the ability of institutions to reduce or terminate financial aid for athletic reasons, but many do not. So, Coach Lucas’ decision may stand without greater intervention by Grambling’s leadership.
Defenders of Coach Lucas’ decision have pointed to the existence of the transfer portal, which allows athletes in all sports a one-time transfer without a loss of eligibility, as providing the option for the players who were cut or lost their scholarships to continue their careers at other institutions.
But this misses the critical difference between college sports and professional sports. In college sports, at least in theory, the athlete picks the college as much as the college picks the athlete and the goal of this picking is the athlete’s graduating. That is the transformative part. The athlete then becomes part of that institution’s ongoing legacy as a graduate. Sure, the transfer portal is there to help, when that initial choice is poorly considered or when circumstances change. But it is not and should not be confused with a “waiver-wire,” for athletes who don’t perform well, develop quickly, or worse yet- get injured. When an institution, with as stellar a history of nurturing both extraordinary athletes and extraordinary leaders as Grambling, puts the graduation of its own students in jeopardy, one hopes this will be remedied. And the athletes who want to remain at the school will be able to complete their studies with the financial support they need to stay at the school they choose.
If the Grambling situation can’t be remedied, it certainly serves to undermine the wringing of hands many coaches are doing about the new realities of the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness (NIL), that offer athletes some greater choice, professionalizing and by extension ruining college sports.
Is the portal being used to push out athletes who aren’t as capable as was hoped when they were recruited? The portal, if used this way, really ups the ante on the urgency of getting an athlete who can play now and diminishes the fundamental relationship between athlete and institution. It does exactly what coaches are fearful of, professionalizing college sports, but it is the coaches doing it. It also scores a point for those who believe that college athletes have a status that puts them beneath both regular students and employees.
Notre Dame’s Swarbrick and the Inevitable Break Up of Division I
Jack Swarbrick has been Notre Dame’s Athletic Director since 2008. Before that he was a lawyer’s lawyer serving as counsel for several national sports governing bodies and as head of the Indiana Sports Corporation, which helped make Indianapolis the home for many Olympic and professional sports and ultimately brought the NCAA to Indianapolis. There are few more established insiders or distinguished leaders in this space.
This is what made his comments to Sports Illustrated on the “inevitable” break up of NCAA Division I, more surprising. Not because what Swarbrick said hasn’t been theorized before by some, but because it hasn’t been voiced by such an establishment figure in such clear terms. It is a bit like the revelation in the first Scream movie where the calls are coming from inside the house.
Swarbrick went so far as to put out a potential date for this change to begin with the end of current media deals in the mid-2030s. He mentioned two avenues for schools to go down in the future: one where sports teams are tied to the school only by name, and another where they operate more like the present structure where the teams are closely affiliated with the institution.
Swarbrick was pessimistic as to whether any national intervention or standards will be forthcoming to save the current structure.
Emmert’s Announcement
All of which brings us to full circle to Emmert’s decision to retire. Many will debate the efficacy of Emmert’s leadership in the days and months ahead of his ultimate departure. Much of this will be highly critical.
It already has been from famed columnist Sally Jenkins’ scorching piece in The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/04/27/mark-emmert-ncaa-robert-gates/ to searing comments by notable sports law experts like Marc Edelman and Rick Karcher on social media.
There is little doubt a measure of the present turmoil facing college sports can be laid directly at Emmert’s feet. There will be plenty of time to have a longer reset of Emmert’s tenure. But Emmert, who was a university president before he was 50 years old and served as president of two exceptional institutions before being named president of the NCAA, either very much missed or misread the many of the same signs that Swarbrick is now describing.
The NCAA and college sports are headed for massive changes. It will be interesting and perhaps troubling to watch, especially if the needs of the athletes aren’t at the center of the process.