College sports is a billion-dollar enterprise whose leaders pride themselves on taking care of athletes. But lately many institutions have lost that focus.
“Our core has become diverted,” one NCAA leader says. “People care so much about the money, they’ve lost sight of the students.”
Broad proposals to change the game have historically fallen short. But what if we narrowed the focus, reorganizing around the needs of students? Here are five ideas for doing that.
1. Hire educator-coaches.
Years ago coaches had faculty appointments, anchoring them to the educational mission of universities. Many taught classes in physical education and kinesiology, where they debated ethical issues, discussed developmental readiness, and prepared prospective coaches with the safety of athletes in mind.
If academics were the top priority—as they would be in a student-centered NCAA—coaches would fit their practice schedules around their players’ classes, not the other way around.
Now coaches are at-will employees, whose eye-popping contracts typically put them on the hook for one thing only: winning games. Although they’re surrounded by specialists in areas like sports medicine and strength and conditioning, some lack a foundational understanding of their profession, says Ellen J. Staurowsky, a professor of sport management at Drexel University.
“When schools stepped away from that teacher-coach model, something was lost,” she says. Her idea: Refocus the priorities of coaches on their relationships with students. And put more of those coaches back in the classroom.
2. Expand opportunities.
Elite athletes typically train five or six hours a day year-round, which prevents many from traveling abroad, doing substantive community service, or participating in other activities. In addition, coaches’ demands and strict NCAA academic-progress requirements make it hard for some players to take the classes they want, or to major in certain disciplines.
If academics were the top priority—as it would be in a student-centered NCAA—coaches would fit their practice schedules around their players’ classes, not the other way around. NCAA leaders would do away with year-round competition. And colleges would think hard about how a potential move to a new conference would affect their players’ time away from the campus.
Having fewer athletics commitments could open the door to new experiences. As it is, players must look for condensed activities. A program called Coach for College has placed 170 NCAA athletes in Vietnamese villages for three weeks every summer, where they teach sports to young children while giving lessons in biology, physics, and English.
Parker Goyer, a former tennis player at Duke University who started the program, says it has opened the eyes of many students who previously hadn’t thought about what they were going to do after their sport ended.
“If you focus on one thing for so long, you may not know you have other talents,” she says. “We’re trying to show students how their skills can transfer to other arenas of life.”
3. Give players more voice.
Coaches have their lobby, as do athletic directors and everyone else down the chain. Division I players have the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, an NCAA-supported group that has not always played the most integral role.
The committee’s 31 members serve as advisers to every NCAA council, cabinet, and committee but don’t have a vote. Their one-year appointments can make it hard for them to build credibility with NCAA and campus leaders, says Nick Fulton, a former swimmer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is a past chair of the group.
He suggests expanding the committee to include former athletes and letting them serve more than one term. The NCAA is facing multiple lawsuits involving the welfare of students, including some that center on controversial debates over paying players. With such high stakes, critics say, the NCAA must pay more heed to athletes’ needs.
4. Consider due process.
If players are accused of taking money from an agent or of some other NCAA violation, colleges often hold them out of competition until they prove their innocence. That way the institutions don’t risk postseason bans or other penalties for allowing ineligible athletes to compete. But some players have lost a season of eligibility despite their having done nothing wrong.
In other cases, athletic departments are sifting through the personal finances of athletes and their families when players show up with pricey new merchandise. The hope is to make sure those items came out of the right pocket, but some critics say the process is too intrusive.
There are no easy solutions here. But at a minimum, many experts say, players deserve the protection of due process.
5. Help with hiring.
The NCAA likes to point out that the majority of its more than 400,000 student-athletes go pro in something other than sports. But no one offers comprehensive job-placement services to connect players with potential employers.
It’s an idea that one NCAA leader likes. “There’s a built-in support with alumni and other people interested in athletics that is really untapped,” says David Berst, a longtime NCAA senior executive. “Someone could do more to help students move into the real world.”
But before helping athletes go on to find good jobs, colleges ought to make sure those students have the time to get a good education, says Jeffrey H. Orleans, a former director of the Ivy League: “They need the kind of education that really qualifies them for jobs.”
