The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics supports recent reform proposals to the NCAA amid a federal corruption investigation into college basketball β but wants the NCAA to do more.
The commission suggests changing the NCAAβs governance structure and additional financial regulations regarding coaches or school employees receiving outside income from apparel companies. The Knight Commission issued its proposals during its spring meeting Monday in Washington, roughly two weeks after the committee led by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued recommendations to overhaul the NCAA.
βItβs an open question if the NCAA can restore public confidence in its ability to be stewards of big-money college sports,β said Arne Duncan, the commission co-chairman and a former U.S. Secretary of Education. βTo do so, it will need to embrace far more sweeping and deep-seated reform than ever before.β
The Rice committeeβsΒ recommendationsΒ included ending the βone-and-doneβ NBA rule, overhauling the enforcement process to handle complex cases of potential rules violations and creating a certification system to regulate agent conduct.
Riceβs Commission on College Basketball formedΒ in OctoberΒ , a few weeks after federal prosecutors announced they hadΒ charged 10 menΒ β including assistant coaches at Arizona, Auburn, USC and Oklahoma State along with a top Adidas executive β in a fraud and bribery scandal.
The caseΒ involvesΒ hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged bribes and kickbacks designed to influence recruits on choosing a school, agent or apparel company. It hasΒ entangled schoolsΒ such as Kansas,Β North Carolina StateΒ ,Β LouisvilleΒ andΒ MiamiΒ , among others, though prosecutors withdrew a criminal complaint in February against one of the defendants.
Among its proposals, Riceβs committee had recommended the NCAA restructure its Board of Governors β made up of college presidents or chancellors β to add at least five outside members to bring more independent voices into leadership.
Separately, the Knight Commission wants at least six independent members on the 24-person Division I Board of Directors, also made up of school representatives. It also wants βmore stringentβ approvals and disclosures for income from apparel companies. That includes prohibiting athletics employees from having a contract contingent on players using the companyβs products, a right the commission instead reserved for the schools themselves.
The Knight Commission, formed in 1989 to support βthe educational mission of college sports,β also seeks to have public disclosures of the outside income β both for public and private schools β received by university employees from the apparel companies.
The commission heard from several people during its Monday meeting, including: NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy, ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, St. Josephβs coach Phil Martelli and Kylia Carter β the mother of Duke one-and-done forward Wendell Carter Jr.
Remy said the NCAA groups are working to have legislation based on the Rice commissionβs recommendations ready to present in August and adoption in time for next season.
βThere were no stakeholders who should not have been put on alert as the commission report was read,β Martelli said. βWe are not here to rebuild college basketball. Weβre here to create a new model. And if youβre not in, youβre out.β
Bilas, a frequent NCAA critic, said the Rice commission didnβt address the amount of money flowing through the game and a βfailed concept of amateurismβ that instead should compensate athletes with more than an education.
βWhen I pull back the layers, the problem that I see is not with the student-athlete,β Carter said. βItβs not with the coaches and the institutions of higher learning. But itβs with a system β like the only system that I have ever seen where the laborers are the only people that are not being compensated for the work that they do while those in charge receive mighty compensation.
βThe only two systems where Iβve known that to be in place is slavery and the prison system. And now I see the NCAA as overseers of a system that is identical to that.β
