	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 30, 2006

Myles Brand

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

I think no one could doubt that college basketball is in great shape. We're having another terrific tournament. There are no easy games in this tournament. Everyone has fought hard. Parity has obviously increased. I think that's healthy for the game. I expect that will continue for some time.
Last year obviously was a great tournament. This year is, as well. There's some terrific stories, whether it's the young men from Louisiana who helped during the Katrina crisis or George Mason coming on. Florida, UCLA, two high-powered athletic departments now reaching the Final Four. It will be a great final and we're looking forward to it.
The NCAA continues to work on academic reform. Our APRs are in their second year. Last year was a warning year. This year we created some sanctions for those who didn't meet the requirements of the APR.
We learned at those schools that have the financial wherewithal to provide support for academic achievement do better than those who are financially challenged and can't provide that support.
We are seeing dramatic change as a result. In the past it took us six years to measure how well an institution was doing. By that time a coach could be gone, a number of the players could be gone, the AD and even president. Right now we have a real-time measure of how well a team is doing academically.
We are putting together, as you know, our graduate success rate, which is a more accurate six-year measure of graduation rates that takes into account transfers in and out. We will soon have a cut score developed by our committee to determine those who are succeeding and those who are not. That's designed to catch long-term, problematic cases, the worst of the worst as we sometimes say.
But there's some untold stories here. The one that attracted my attention was a story about significantly stronger academic performance by African American student-athletes over the time at which we've been collecting data on graduation rates. We started collecting the data because of a federal mandate in 1984. The last date we have graduation rates for using the federal means of counting is 1998. Remember, it takes six years. The class that entered in 1998, we would have data for it at the end of 2004.
We've seen African American student-athletes during that period of time increase their graduation rate by 17 percentage points. That's an untold story that's quite significant. I know from days I sat as university president, if you see a graduation rate increase by two or three points, you consider that very significant. 17% graduation rate increase for this population between '84 and '98 is incredible.
African American male basketball players increased by nine points during that time, football players 15 points during that time. We're not through with academic reform. We still have much work to do. We're not at the beginning any longer; we're at the middle, probably the early parts of the middle, as we work our way through it the next few years.
Another issue that I've been working hard on and I know our university presidents and chancellors are as well is fiscal reform and responsibility. We have a task force of 50 university presidents and chancellors who will meet again in April in preparation for a report likely to be published in the fall that will set the agenda for the next five or more years for the NCAA Division I.
This presidential group is looking at a number of issues. One central one is fiscal responsibility. They have designed new methods of collecting data, analyzing the data, and will be working through that in the near future.
The short summary of where we are is that the enterprise of intercollegiate athletics in Division I is under financial stress but not in crisis. We cannot sustain the current business model of expenditures significantly exceeding revenues. Indeed, the last several years we've seen in a number of institutions, not all, but a number of institutions, expenditure rates of increases two to three times that of the general university budget. While athletics has revenues that are increasing slightly more than general university budgets, we're still seeing the rate of increase on an annual basis of expenditures in intercollegiate athletics exceeding that of the revenues, which means that universities will over time need to transfer money from the academic side of the institution to the athletic one or charge additional student fees perhaps through tuition. Neither of those avenues will be welcomed on the campuses, nor should they be.
While we don't need to move to cost cutting, we don't even need to stop growth. We need to moderate growth in accordance with the expectations of revenue increase. That is the issue the presidents are working on.
With that, Bob, I'd like to spend the rest of the time dealing with the questions that the media has.
Q. Jim Boeheim a few minutes ago was talking about what he felt was a need to expand the Division I NCAA men's basketball tournament. Given the success of a lot of programs, the increasing parity, would you agree with Coach Boeheim that maybe the selection committee needs to look at expanding the tournament, and as well, do you think it's maybe time that football at the Division I level have its own playoff?
DR. MYLES BRAND: I think -- I'll take the second question first.
One of the beauties of college basketball is all of Division I is engaged. We've seen that so-called mid-majors are quite competitive these days. I think it would be a bad idea, certainly one I would not support, to divide the tournament in any way between football playing schools Division I-A and other schools that don't have as high-powered football at I-A. BCS now is equivalent to I-A football.
Q. I meant having a tournament, a playoff of Division I-A in football. Is it maybe time for that?
DR. MYLES BRAND: I thought you meant to divide the basketball.
Q. No, we already have that, unfortunately.
DR. MYLES BRAND: Let me go back to your first question, and I'll do the football one.
In terms of expanding the tournament, there was some discussion of it in the last couple years, and there hasn't been much enthusiasm for it at this point. I think that discussion needs to continue, but I don't see any movement in that direction.
I think the tournament is getting far more competitive because teams that in the past may not have moved towards the Sweet-16 or beyond are now playing well enough to get into that because of the parity. Everyone is challenged to play their best at every game. I think that's healthy and good.
Whether we want to take something that's not broken and fix it in some way, I think that's an open question. We should be willing to talk about it and discuss it, but I don't see it as imminent.
Now, the football playoff (laughter). You know, FOX has a contract that I believe starts next year, goes for four years with the so-called piggyback game. Will we see in the short run a movement towards a tournament of I-A football? I doubt it very much, although I don't think it's closed.
Would we move, for example, towards a four plus one? It's possible. I think some discussion may take place. I doubt very much that we'll move to a large-scale tournament in any case. 12 games of regular season makes it a very difficult thing to do.
Moreover, the presidents, not the NCAA, the presidents of those 11 conferences are the decision makers. To date, they've shown no inclination to engage in a I-A football tournament.
The NCAA stands ready to assist and help. We do do championships well. But we are in a supportive role and will take our cue from that group of presidents and commissioners.
Q. How much are you kind of monitoring this deal at the Final Four, this selling of the corporate packages, the $55,000, to make sure it doesn't become too much like a Super Bowl situation?
DR. MYLES BRAND: That's a good question. You know, I think we have some opportunities in the way we present the games, the NCAA to become engaged in some of the activities that are already taking place by third parties. It isn't new by a longshot. That kind of hospitality package for the NCAA has been there for a while.
I would hope that by the NCAA playing a role, we will actually prevent and inhibit moving towards a Super Bowl environment. I went to the Super Bowl. I enjoyed it. But it's a very different environment. There's something special about college basketball and the way we conduct the men's Final Four that I would work very hard not to lose, and that includes the way we conduct any hospitality packages.
Q. Is there money that's not being brought in, revenue streams that you're looking into, to try to enhance the money that does come in here?
DR. MYLES BRAND: Yes, yes, there are. I think the NCAA has a fiscal obligation to create revenues that we pass on to the colleges and universities. The vast majority of colleges and universities are not able to support their athletic programs even with the revenues that they now generate, and therefore have to use subsidies. To the extent we can relieve some of the pressure for them, we are assisting them. That is our job.
But going back to your first question, we need to generate revenues with the understanding that we're following the mission and values of higher education. So within that context, we will take those steps, but we will be very careful about not going outside the mission and values of higher education, as we do seek more revenues.
Q. You mentioned earlier you did not sense much enthusiasm when the idea of an expanded basketball tournament was discussed in the past. Who did you get that sense from? Who were you talking about when you say you didn't get a sense of enthusiasm about that possibility?
DR. MYLES BRAND: I was talking about those folks who are on our committees in the NCAA. I'm talking about our media partners. I'm talking about our basketball committee, our basketball issues committee, those in the NCAA group. I think some of the coaches, particularly this year, are beginning to think there should be more opportunities available maybe. I mean, I listen very carefully when the coaches speak. They're on the frontlines. I want to make sure I understand what they say and why. So it didn't fall on deaf ears.
At least in the past when we've had our conversations in our management council, with our athletic directors, our commissioners, staff, media partners, so on, there has not been enthusiasm for that increased number of participants. But it has been discussed.
Q. You mentioned fiscal responsibility. It's no secret to anybody who covers college athletics that a lot of the problem is facilities expansion running out of control. When you go through this process, arrive at a baseline, how are you going to be able to prevent people from spending when they say, "Gosh, State and Tech have this beautiful facility, we need it to recruit"?
DR. MYLES BRAND: That's a very important question. Approximately 50% of the incremental increase of the last several years in expenditures in Division I-A have been on facilities. Now, in many cases we have old facilities that don't even meet code. If you've been in some of these older football arenas, you know that's the case.
But in addition to that, there's been a lot of new construction. And I think presidents, particularly on this task force as they look at it, are most concerned about facility development because those expensive facilities create long-term bonded indebtedness 15, 20 more or years. If the institution doesn't have continued revenue streams from athletics, for example, media opportunities change over time, with the development of new media, or they're not winning as much as they used to, who is going to pay the bonds? Who will pay the bonds is the rest of the institution, mainly the academic side.
So by taking on this facility bonded indebtedness, you do increase the risk to the rest of the university. The presidents are well aware of that.
How are you going to solve that problem? That's the problem. You're right to point it out. The question is, how are you going to solve it? This task force is looking at it. There are certain things the task force won't recommend and we can't do. For example, we're not going to seek an exemption from Congress. We don't think that anti-trust exemption will be forthcoming from Congress, and it's probably inappropriate for us to do it. We cannot pass rules like we do about eligibility for this because that is anti-trust, and we won't do that either.
What tools do we have at our disposal? I think the primary way this commission or task force is looking at it is that they want to arm the presidents and the boards at each institution with transparent information that enables them to make good decisions. The decisions are going to have to be made institution by institution. There is no choice but to do that. They can't even be made on a conference level. That's still anti-trust. They have to be made institution by institution.
That I think is going to require much better information, and management tools, and decision tools than we have now. A lot more openness and transparency than we have now, as well.
I think the idea of providing the decision-making tools to the presidents is critical. Now, what form they should take, how this information should be collected, revealed, used, all those are open questions. That's what the task force is working its way through.
Q. I believe each of the four programs here had an APR of less than 9.25. None received punishment. Is there any thought there might be too many ways that exist to avoid penalties even if you're under 9.25?
DR. MYLES BRAND: 9.25 equates with a approximately a 60% graduation rate when you count accurately through the GSR. It's a substantial benchmark. It's not trivial, given that that's the average of the graduation rates of all Division I students across the whole board, and not just athletes.
The squad size adjustment has to really be taken into account. It's a margin of error, the same sort of thing you see on survey data. But that's going to disappear over the next two years. I think those schools that have sort of fell in the safe area because of squad size adjustments are at risk in the next year or two.
So I think as we're phasing this in, it would have been a mistake for us to ignore squad size adjustment because we would have penalized schools that didn't deserve it just because of the margin of error, but that's quickly coming to a close. So I think the four schools actually, I think they're all below 9.25, as I recall, I think in that case they're at risk.
Now, one school, LSU, actually was not within the squad size adjustment. There's a different reason why LSU did not receive a sanction, a penalty. Think again about how this works. If you're below 9.25, leave bracketing the squad size adjustment for the moment, what that says is you are at risk to lose a scholarship if a student-athlete is neither eligible nor returns, that is flunks out, sometimes we call it an 0 for 2.
LSU was in that category below the squad size adjustment but they did not have any student-athlete that flunked out. What does that tell you? They weren't doing well in the past and they're doing better now. Will they be safe in the future? It depends. I think they're still at risk. But the reason they didn't have a sanction is because all their student-athletes remained eligible academically. That's exactly what we want.
They're working on their program academically to do better, and it showed. There weren't very many schools that were able to do that, make such rapid progress that they didn't have any 0-for-2s. LSU is one of them.
Q. Could I get your reaction to your former university, Indiana, hiring a coach still under investigation for violations with the NCAA?
DR. MYLES BRAND: I don't comment on any particular hiring, even one of my favorite universities. I don't comment on that.
Let me comment in general, not on that particular case, because I think it's inappropriate for me to comment on any particular case. Generally speaking, that institution and their board and president had to think through whether - this goes for all similarly situated institutions - whether the infractions, pending or in effect, indicate a serious history and pattern of behavior or whether it's a one-time issue and whether constructive steps have been taken so that wouldn't occur again.
I think we have to be careful about painting everyone with the same brush. I think we also have to look at patterns versus single instances. Each institution president and board have to work through that whenever they're considering not just basketball coaches but any coach, and will reach a decision.
There are risks involved when you do that. Not all risks are bad. But you have to go into it with your eyes open. I would expect every board and president to look at it carefully in that regard.
Q. Recently the Washington Post and New York Times both had stories about prep schools that appear to be nothing more than diploma factories. What is the NCAA planning to do regarding that issue?
DR. MYLES BRAND: First let me say the New York Times and Washington Post did a superb job of disclosing this problem. We heard of it first from the SEC presidents, their commissioner, brought it to our attention. Shortly thereafter stories began to break. Good investigative reporting. It frankly moved the issue along in a way we can deal with it.
There's a shared responsibility here between three groups that is critical in resolving what I think is a deplorable situation, namely the selling of diplomas at the secondary level. We always had it at the college level, but we've managed to I think keep that in check, mostly through FBI work, when it crossed state lines.
The abuses at the secondary level are relatively new. Think, for example, of the case that the New York Times, disclosed, University High in Florida, we can use that as a good example. The NCAA needs to get its rules in better shape. We are doing that. In fact, we expect emergency legislation before the end of April to resolve all or almost all of those problems. We've had a task force working on it. We're going to take strong steps.
We don't want to inadvertently harm those institutions who are private institutions that are perfectly legitimate and, in fact, do a great job academically. Obviously, there are some that are not. They're frauds. Those are the ones we're after. We're going to be very aggressive about that.
But don't think for a moment that that's going to solve the problem all by itself. The NCAA doesn't have the wherewithal to completely solve the problem. It's a shared responsibility also with the admissions offices of each institution that have to look carefully about what are the credentials the young man or woman coming into the institution are. Do they have the background and the necessary course work in high school that will enable them to succeed academically in that institution? Every admissions office has that responsibility. That's part of the way you solve the problem.
The third component to solving the problem, frankly, is law enforcement. We have a case of fraud. In the case of University High in Florida, the Attorney General's office, State Attorney General's office, got involved. That was appropriate. As you probably know, that particular operation was closed. There are, no doubt, others around that have not been discovered or are not yet closed. We really need to be vigilant on this one.
Think again of that Florida case. There were maybe two dozen athletes involved, but there were literally hundreds, thousands of others who were buying degrees for $399. Those persons were now certified at literate. Maybe some of them went into public safety. I mean, they would then be in the public with bogus credentials certifying a certain level of literacy that could really be harmful. That's a public safety issue. So law enforcement needs to get involved as well.
To solve this critical problem, we really need all three groups working together, and to the best of my knowledge we are working very well together. Namely, the NCAA has to fix its rules. No question about that. The institutions have to do a stringent job in monitoring the admissions office to make sure that everyone who comes in really does have the credentials. And law enforcement has to be involved. I think right now we're on track to do that in a rather rapid way, as I said. By the end of April, we will have in place at the NCAA level the changes in rules. We'll need to do our portion of it.
Q. Would you say college basketball has more athletes missing class than other sports as you progress in the tournament? Is there any way around that?
DR. MYLES BRAND: The sport that misses the least amount of classes is football. I mean, you're home half the time. It's one game a week. The sports that miss the most classes are golf, maybe tennis. A lot of traveling goes on there. In basketball it's probably on the heavier side, a little past middle, not in the extreme. For those young men who are participating, and young women in Boston, who are participating in Final Fours, they are missing classes for several weeks. Each institution deals with it in different ways. Most of them provide on-site opportunities for academic support.
Realistically, I'm sure the players' heads are elsewhere. I think they do pay attention to the academic side, otherwise they wouldn't be able to continue to play. But it's only a small handful of players that, say, are here in Indianapolis or in Boston compared to the 10,000 players that play men and women's basketball in Division I. We have 10,000 players in men's and women's basketball. We have a handful here, a handful in Boston that are missing classes. And the institutions are working hard to make sure they have the academic support.
It is a strain. One of the things that is just so terrific about these young people is they understand what their responsibilities are. By and large, they get it done. I have great admiration for them in this high-stress, time-consuming situation, that they do get their academics done.
Q. Take you back to the new basketball coach at Indiana University. At Oklahoma, the institution had put self-imposed sanctions that included a salary freeze for Kelvin Sampson and no bonuses for a period of time. Now he signs a new seven-year deal at a million and a half dollars a year and would seem to be Scot free or be able to skirt those sanctions. In general, is that a concern in that kind of situation?
DR. MYLES BRAND: My understanding is that the case in Oklahoma has not been resolved, that in approximately a month or a little longer, it will come in front after committee of infractions. One trend that's happening more and more in NCAA committee on infractions is that the infractions are following the coaches. We're seeing that more and more. The coaches are being held to a higher level of accountability in terms of where the sanctions are made than in the past. That's a trend I've noticed.
I believe that's an open question. As I mentioned before, generally speaking, not talking about this particular case, each institution, its board, president and athletic director, have to make a decision about whether this is an anomaly in a person's long career or a pattern of behavior and, on a basis of that, come to understand whether the future looks bright or not and what the level of risk is. Each institution makes that decision for themselves.
Q. Should any sanctions always follow and be responsible with the coach who was there when they were committed?
DR. MYLES BRAND: I'd be careful about "always" because really you have to look at case specifics. Committee of infractions, which consists of our members as well as public members, no NCAA staff is on that committee making those decisions. It includes judges, former judges, professors of law, commissioners and others who are well-acquainted with these issues. They'll make independent judgments. Sometimes it's appropriate. Sometimes it's not. I'd be one to really make a generalization whether they should for every case follow the coach or not. It really depends on what the issues are.
Q. Could you explain your vision behind Final Four site selections. It appears that Indianapolis has a long-term tie into this.
DR. MYLES BRAND: We've treated Indianapolis differently. It is our home city. What we've undertaken is a long-term contract with Indianapolis that guarantees it a major NCAA event every year in a five-year cycle. So one year will be the men's Final Four, women's Final Four, men's earlier round, women's earlier round, or the convention. One of those five events will occur each year in Indianapolis.
We believe as good citizens of Indianapolis that we should provide that opportunity to the city on the basis of their hospitality, inviting the NCAA to Indianapolis, the use of a major facility, a building, for $1 a year. I must say that when that decision was made to move from Kansas City to Indianapolis, I was not part of the NCAA, but I was on the other side of the street trying to attract the NCAA to Indianapolis.
I would add in honesty that Indianapolis does a great job in terms of putting on events. I think it's one of the better cities - not unique, but certainly one of the better ones in doing a great job. The volunteers of Indianapolis are tremendous. Last year's women's Final Four here was very well-handled. I expect the Final Four here will be very well-handled, as well.
We do have a special arrangement with Indianapolis for every other year. For all those other events they're bid out in a competitive way.
Q. Yet you've had some conversations I understand earlier this week with some people in Kansas City about the possibility of a Final Four there if they get the roof. Could you speak to the nature of those conversations you had.
DR. MYLES BRAND: Kansas City was not meeting the minimum standards in the past for having a Final Four, which frankly is a dome stadium or something equivalent to hold as many as 45,000, 50,000 people or more. I think they have before them now a public referendum, which if it passes, coming up in the near future, I believe Tuesday, if it passes, will create facilities that are consistent with having a Final Four there. They weren't eligible in the past. They will be eligible in the future if that passes and is completed to be competitive for a Final Four.
Q. Could you talk about security in general, not just this event, but throughout all the schools. Right after September 11, I think a lot of schools were very vigilant in checking bags, fans. Seems that's lapsed a bit. Anything the NCAA is thinking of doing to encourage them to strengthen that, especially in light of the threats that were made earlier this month to basketball events supposedly?
DR. MYLES BRAND: The NCAA has not been lax. We have continued from that time forward of having very tight security. There is no laxity on our part. I won't try and go through all that we're doing. That would not be appropriate. The fact of the matter is the security is as tight as it's ever been and maybe even more so now - not because of any threats, just because we believe it's the right thing to do to protect our players, coaches and fans.
We almost had a test case in San Diego, I believe it was. Turned out it was a condiment cart, and some dogs were interested in it. The fact of the matter is I thought the group there, because of past training and our procedures, acted entirely appropriately. It was handled extremely well. Local law enforcement did a great job. That was just an example of our seriousness about security.
We are working very hard in the City of Indianapolis and in Boston for those two games. I should tell you, we do that at all our championships.
What happens on campuses, we advise the campuses and the conferences to take security very seriously. I have no information that they've become more lax in recent -- in the last year or two as compared to immediately after 9/11. I would be shocked if they were.
We do have to take security very seriously. We live in a world, unfortunately, that that's the case. We'd be remiss if we didn't do the very best possible job we could in terms of security. That is not the place to save money. We need to be alert and do everything within our power to create a secure environment, but also respectful of the games and the enjoyment of the fans. Within that context, there's a great deal we can and do do.
Q. To review the mascot issue, did the NCAA move too quickly on that? If that's the case, why did that happen? Can you assess how it's unfolded since?
DR. MYLES BRAND: We've been at this for five years. I think sometimes the NCAA is accused of moving too slowly. The study of the Native American mascot issue really started five years ago, went through a number of committees, required reports from each institution, over 50 that were involved. That got reduced down to 33. A new set of reports was required. Reduced it down to 18. A number of those institutions have given up their Native American symbolism, mascots. A number have not and are appealing.
I think we're making progress on a very difficult issue. It's a sportsmanship issue in many ways. It's about the values that we expect to be exhibited within our venues during championships. We have no authority, nor should we, on what happens on an individual campus, what mascots, images or names they use.
When they come to the championship games, our games, we expect all people to be treated with respect. Here in America, we've done a good job in the last decades on treating minorities with respect. There are things we wouldn't say or do, certain representations or images we wouldn't use, but not so in the case of Native Americans.
For some reason Americans find that use of Native American imagery acceptable, at least some Americans do, where they wouldn't for any other minority group. We've been working hard to make sure all are treated with respect.
Q. Does the name Indianapolis or Indiana ever bother you at all?
DR. MYLES BRAND: We're not talking about place games. We're talking about making fun of people through caricatures, silly dances, costumes. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about place names. These are real people who have real feelings.
THE MODERATOR: If there are no other questions, that concludes the press conference.
DR. MYLES BRAND: Thank you. Enjoy the games.

End of FastScripts...

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297