BIG TEN BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 7, 2021

Kevin Warren

Big Ten

Commissioner Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: It is my pleasure to welcome the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, Kevin Warren.

KEVIN WARREN: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for making the time to join us today in Indianapolis in this great venue where we'll be back next March. It's so great to start today, the 2021 Big Ten Conference Basketball Media Days.

We have a great turnout. We have some incredible coaches you'll hear from today and also some phenomenal student-athletes. We have over 300 credentialed media members. So thank you for taking the time to joining us today.

Before we start, I'd like to give a special thanks to Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the Indiana Pacers, the Indiana Fever and also the Indiana Sports Corporation for being gracious hosts. This is a great facility that we're at here today, the Gainbridge Fieldhouse. We're looking forward to coming back here for our tournament this year.

Also, I want to give a special thank you to our partner, the Big Ten Network, led by Francois McGillicuddy, who I've seen here today. I just appreciate his tireless leadership and also everything that the Big Ten Network does to carry our sports across the globe for our student-athletes and for our coaches.

We have so many fans. Today it's going to be live on linear television and also going to be streamed live. Make sure you spend the time to watch this today.

Today is really, really special. We have some friends from Anointed Hands, who will be joining me onstage today. Haylie Buckingham, who's here, and then also Ramel Williams. They'll be serving as our official American Sign Language translators today. I'm grateful for their commitment to making sure that everyone can enjoy this Media Day today.

I'd like to give a special thank you to your media partners, FOX, BTN, CBS, ABC, ESPN and Sirius Big Ten radio.

There's a group of individuals who I owe so much to, our Big Ten Conference staff, who have worked so very hard today to get this event here and get it in a manner that you all can enjoy. It really is special for the first time for us to be able to have our men's coaches, our men's student-athletes, our woman's coaches and women student-athletes all at the same time, at the same location.

Speaking of our conference staff, today is a special day. I'm a big birthday person. Our Senior Vice President of People and Culture, Omar Brown. Happy birthday to you, Omar. Thank you for everything you do here at the Big Ten.

We have 28 unbelievable coaches who are going to be onstage today and tomorrow, and 58 phenomenal basketball student-athletes who have taken the time out of their busy schedules to join us here today to share their stories, to carry the message forward of how important Big Ten basketball is, not only in our footprint, across the conference and across the world.

We have been a leader in this space, in basketball. During our 125-year history, we've had 13 national championships and 65 Final Four appearances between our men and women's basketball programs. Two of our national championship coaches will be here at Media Days so you have an opportunity to hear from them. That's Maryland's Brenda Frese, our head coach there, and also Michigan State's Tom Izzo, who have both won national championships.

They are really a group of I strongly believe the best basketball coaches in college we have in our conference, from a women's standpoint and from a men's standpoint. We have the best student-athletes in the country in our conference. They're transformational. We're looking forward to this new generation of coaches, of players who you'll hear from these next two days.

Last year was really special for us. 16 of our Big Ten basketball programs from a men and women's standpoint made the NCAA tournament. Four women's programs reached the Sweet 16, with Indiana making it all the way to the Elite 8. The same thing for Michigan from a men's standpoint who made it to the Elite 8.

I'm confident this year will be even better, that we'll have teams in the Final Four, from a men's and women's standpoint. We'll have teams who will be able to compete for the national championship. I'm really excited about this upcoming basketball season. I love college basketball. It's great to be here with you all today.

One of the things that I made clear during our Football Media Days a couple months ago was the fact in order for us to stay on the cutting edge and continue to focus on the mental health and wellness of all Big Ten student-athletes, the 10,000 student-athletes that we serve each and every day, that we would be announcing the hiring of a chief medical officer.

With that information, a release went out within the last hour, but I'm proud and honored to announce here today that we have hired Dr. Jim Borchers through the U.S. Council for Athletes' Health, USCAH, to serve as our first-ever Big Ten Conference Chief Medical Officer. I believe Dr. Borchers is here today. I saw him in the gym early this morning. If you're here, will you please stand up.

Dr. Borchers is most recently the head team physician at Ohio State University. He's a skilled practitioner, a leader in this industry. I am really excited Dr. Borchers, for you, to make the commitment to join us here at the Big Ten Conference to help us continually elevate the importance of the health, both physically and mentally, of our 10,000 student-athletes. I look forward to working with you.

This has been an unbelievable year so far in Big Ten sports. We have two of the top 25 women's soccer teams, three of the top 25 men's soccer teams, five of the top 11 football teams, five of the top 10 volleyball teams, and seven of the top 10 field hockey teams.

We're off to a great start this fall in the Big Ten. I'm confident that it will continue through the remainder of the fall and into the spring for our Big Ten student-athletes.

One of the things that I'm focused on always is not only what we do on the court, on the playing field, in the classroom, but also in the community. And I'm focused on making sure that we build an environment in the Big Ten that allows us to be proud on the different things that we're doing from a diversity, equity and inclusion standpoint. All the way from the Equality Coalition, from the Mental Health and Wellness Cabinet. But this past off-season was really special. We had five head coaching vacancies that were filled in our men's and women's basketball ranks. Four of those five individuals are people of color. Penn State hired Micah Shrewsberry as their head coach. University of Minnesota hired Ben Johnson as their head coach. Indiana University hired Mike Woodson as their head coach. The University of Wisconsin hired Marisa Moseley as their head coach.

These are all individuals who I've had an opportunity to talk with, some to spend time with. They're hard working, they're honorable, they're on it, and they will do a good job in leading their programs.

I think it shows what the Big Ten stands for, that we're an environment that's inclusive not only from a gender standpoint, from a color standpoint, from an opportunity standpoint.

We've seen that same type of diversity in the ranks of our senior leadership. We now have five women who serve as chancellor and president for our individual schools in the Big Ten. We have three Black men who also serve as either chancellor or president in the Big Ten. That makes it that we have eight of our 14 chancellors and presidents in the Big Ten Conference are either women or men of color.

The same holds true for our athletic directors, where we have five Black men who currently serve at athletic directors in the Big Ten Conference, and one woman.

We will continually be leaders in the industry to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, from a race standpoint, a gender standpoint, sexual orientation. We will create an environment that's inclusive and will empower every person to have an opportunity to be successful in the Big Ten Conference.

We are coming up on 50 years since the passage of Title IX that provided women the opportunity to compete from an athletic standpoint. We made a lot of progress, but we have so much progress left to make.

One of the things we want to do at the Big Ten is be leaders in this area. We all can do better, but it is a focal point of us to do it. That's one of the reasons why we're here today in this environment, to show that we believe in equality, that we all can do better. That's why we wanted to have this Media Day where both our women coaches of our programs, our men coaches, our women student-athletes, our men student-athletes, could come on the same stage at the same time to be able to share their stories and to be able to promote their individual brands.

We wanted to do it together, not separately. It's the first of many things that we will do together with our women's and men's basketball programs.

I'm proud again speaking of Francois and his leadership at Big Ten Network that 52% of all the live programming this year on Big Ten Network, and I see Francois here in the back, will be to promote women's sports. I'm proud of that. I'm proud to be associated with the Big Ten Conference, and I'm proud for all the things that we're doing to make our conference continually to be strong and leaders in the community.

One thing I'd like to share is that we're in the stages of interviewing and eventually hiring a new vice president for women's basketball. This individual will be hired before the start of our Big Ten basketball season begins. But it's important because this individual will be the leader from our women's basketball standpoint. We will have a designated person who will lead those efforts, which is incredibly important. We have some incredible candidates, and I look forward to welcoming that individual into the Big Ten family before we kick off our Big Ten women's basketball season.

Speaking of powerful, successful, legendary women, this last week was really special because we were able to announce the establishment of the Lisa Byington Award, which is named after Lisa Byington, longtime Big Ten Network broadcaster. She was a two-sport standout at Northwestern University. She was recently named the first female full-time broadcaster in the history of the National Basketball Association, when she accepted the position of play-by-play announcer at the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Lisa Byington Award will be presented annually to our outstanding female student broadcaster who works at Big Ten Network Digital Services, BTN+ and B1G+, through the BTN StudentU program. I'm looking forward to have Lisa to help us choose this person.

What we'll do with this individual is that they'll have an opportunity to get training, to get their reel put together. We'll help them interview, we'll help empower them to provide them with a platform through the Big Ten Network and the Big Ten Conference to follow in the footprints of Lisa Byington and also have another incredible career.

Earlier this week I had the great fortune to talk to Lisa and actually inform her and reveal to her the creation of this very special award.

(Video Shown.)

KEVIN WARREN: That was really a special moment with Lisa.

With that, as I close, again I want to welcome you, I want to thank you for your commitment to college basketball, to Big Ten basketball, to our men, to our women, to our head coaches, to our student-athletes, to all of our fine Big Ten institutions, thank you for taking the time of coming here today to be able to listen to the incredible stories that you will be able to hear from everyone from our Big Ten basketball family.

I would challenge everyone, I challenge our staff every day, I challenge myself every day, to ask what we can do to continually amplify women's and expense sports to bring these two sports together, to be able to show the respect that our student-athletes deserve and have earned.

You have my promise that I'm going to do everything that I possibly can, especially from a women's sports standpoint, that we give them the respect that they've earned and provide a platform for them to be able to come together and be treated equally, treated in the same manner that we treat our men student-athletes.

We have the best women's basketball coaches, we have the best men's basketball coach, we have the best women student-athletes and the best men student-athletes in the Big Ten Conference.

On behalf of our 10,000 student-athletes and our 6.4 million living alumni, our incredible network partners, we're happy to welcome you today to our 2021 basketball Media Days. I'm looking forward to a great two days together.

Thank you for your support, for your time, and thank you for your commitment to excellence.

THE MODERATOR: We will now open it up to questions.

Q. I know we're here for basketball, but I have a football question. It seems the 12-team Playoff may have been dead on arrival when it got back to the national level. Where do things stand with that in your mind? What is maybe the next step or the direction with that?

KEVIN WARREN: Thank you for your question. Thank you for your time.

We've had some incredibly productive meetings over these last couple months. We were in Dallas two weeks ago, in Chicago last week. We will be convening again in October to continually work through the issues, to figure out is the 12-game Playoff, as you alluded to, the proper number, what's the right timing, all the different issues we have to look at. How do we make sure our student-athletes still are afforded the opportunity to get their education taken care of, the calendar, winterization of our stadium, the media issues.

I'm confident with the group of individuals from a conference level, Jack Swarbrick at Notre Dame, were working hard on these issues. I've had an opportunity to sit down and interview every single one of our chancellors and presidents, I've talked to our faculty athletic representatives, our senior women administrators, every athletic director, every football head coach, prior student-athletes, current student-athletes, families, just to make sure I can gather information.

It's really important that we keep our student-athletes at the center of our decision-making process, do what's right by them, do what's right by our fans, by college athletics, and make this decision in a methodical manner at the right time for the right reasons.

Thank you for the question.

Q. Last year with the COVID-19 pandemic, changed everything for all of us. How much have you enjoyed being back out there yourself, enjoying all of that? Secondly, what was the entire financial impact on all of that? Where do you stand as a league now going forward from that?

KEVIN WARREN: Thank you for those questions and points.

I'm ecstatic about being back. This is my first basketball Media Days. I was a college basketball player. I love college athletics, every sport. But I adore basketball. It's good to be back in the arena here. It was so enjoyable to watch our student-athletes play last year.

So I'm excited about this season. I love our coaches. I love our players. We have great teams. I just can't wait to get the season started.

One of the things from a financial standpoint, I'm proud that our schools really stood steady and firm and handled those issues internally, did the right things, and took the long approach to it. They didn't take any shortcuts. I know at the conference we're strong.

Fortunately we were smart about our expenses as we started to deal with the COVID-19. We were able to hold steady, to have a good year financially, a steady year financially. I literally hope and pray, and I do pray every single day, that we all can stay healthy, that this COVID-19 and Delta variant, all the other different variants, we're able to make sure we make the right medical decisions so we can have complete seasons for all of our sports. I'm looking forward to be able to look forward, do well, to make sure we do stay strong financially.

I appreciate you coming today.

Q. Question about last season. Illinois Josh Whitman said he voiced to the Big Ten said that he would like co-regular season champions given there's disparity between Michigan and Illinois. What went into that decision for you guys?

KEVIN WARREN: One of the things we tried to do last year was one of those years that it was not a straight-line year. We were dealing with cases of first impression. One of the things that I really do appreciate about Josh being a former student-athlete at Illinois, from being a professional student-athlete, he's passionate. The University of Illinois has an incredible fan base. I've been able to go to Champaign this off-season.

I feel we made the right decision collectively with all the athletic directors and conference staff. Josh and I have had an opportunity to discuss kind of the events of last year. I have great respect and admiration for Josh and Chancellor Jones, all of their coaches and student-athletes there. I love their program. They got a great team this year, great teams this year. I'm looking forward to see them play.

We've been able to communicate. I told Josh many times before I really appreciate and embrace his passion. I'm looking forward to being able to come to Champaign and watch a couple games this year.

Q. We hear a lot of talk about football and academics. From your viewpoint, what do you see the role of basketball when it comes to potential realignment, teams moving here and there? What role does basketball play in some of those decisions?

KEVIN WARREN: Basketball plays an important role. It's a very popular sport. I just know from the overall college landscape people are passionate about basketball. Especially I think what you're going to see this year, because you've seen it in football, we always have had passionate fans of college athletics, passionate Big Ten fans, it seems like there's an elevated passion this year. That is one of the things I'm looking forward to, is to be able to enjoy that as we get back into our arenas.

But I think from a basketball standpoint, that is a big component from kind of conference structure, realignment standpoint, is the importance of college basketball. I think people are going to see that this year, the interest from a fan standpoint. There is a lot of pent-up emotion. People are looking forward to seeing our student-athletes play and our coaches coach.

Q. In your original statement you talked about inclusiveness, which I like as a lot better word than minorities. Talk about how you are centered and the conference is very centered on let's bring Black, Hispanic, qualified coaches into this league.

KEVIN WARREN: You will rarely, if ever, hear me use the word "minority." I think we're all majority and important together.

I also am a big believer in the importance, as you alluded to, of diversity, equity and inclusion. The more diverse we can become, from a thought process, from gender, from sexual orientation, from religious beliefs, from color, the better we are.

If you just look at my staff, I want to look around the table to see women, to see men, to have people from different backgrounds because it helps you to be stronger, to be able to learn.

That's one of the reasons why I'm so proud, the many reasons so proud, to be associated and to lead the Big Ten Conference is the fact when I look at our chancellors and presidents, our athletic directors, when I look at our coaches, it really warms my heart to see of what we're doing, of what we're building, what we're teaching.

You look at the student-athletes. I'm a big believer, not only in my own family, that it looks like united nation, but in the Big Ten Conference that it looks like the United Nations.

I look for or diversity, inclusion and equality as we go forward. That's one of the reasons we started the Equality Coalition. The more diverse thoughts that we can have that can come to the table, the stronger we'll be as a conference, the stronger we'll be as a country. That's something that's really important to me for various reasons.

Q. The last time we had a chance to hear from you was when you announced the alliance. Is there anything that you can share on those initiatives?

KEVIN WARREN: I think the biggest thing is it was done and the rationale for it was to kind of steady and stabilize college athletics. I strongly believe since we announced it you've seen some stabilization from that. Although we will work together from a scheduling alliance with the Pac-12 and ACC, there's so many other things that you're going to start seeing us amplify, issues around social justice, around diversity, equity and inclusion, mental health and wellness, academic components.

As we get deeper into the fall, you'll start seeing those. We want to make sure we stabilize college athletics, we work together. Yes, we build a scheduling alliance together, but we also bring to the forefront so many different things that our student-athletes are passionate about, that they want to talk about, that they deserve a platform to discuss.

Now instead of us only doing it in the Big Ten Conference footprint, now we go from 14 schools to 41 schools. We go from Boston to Los Angeles to be able to talk about these issues.

All you have to do, every single day there's something in the press about the mental health of our student-athletes. I think we'll be able to work together through this alliance and help our student-athletes to work together to address a lot of these issues.

Thanks for raising that question. As we get deeper into the fall, you'll be able to see it.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time today.

KEVIN WARREN: Thank you.