Our commissioner, Rich Ensor @MAACCommish Tweeted this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education http://shar.es/m4Rws titled “What Jim Delany thinks (About Anything but Expansion)” by Libby Sander.
Here is a guy who’s been around the block. He exists in the big time college sports culture but also remembers “back in the day.” It was a simpler time when an athletic director would attend road games and telephone the two local daily papers with the final score. Handlers have handlers now and big time college sports are as sophisticated as any pro franchise.
My focus, and basis of my new pro-crush, is his discussion of NCAA enforcement. He contends that of the 1,000 NCAA institutions, 95% of enforcement resources should concentrate on the top 100 football and men’s basketball schools. This way, he believes “we should make the likelihood of being held accountable far higher than it presently is.”
I absolutely love his fishing analogy to have the mesh wider so more big fish get caught while the small ones can swim by. I work at a “mid major” school and have been preaching for years that the NCAA spends way too much time holding the little guy accountable while the big guys have huge staff that can work around the rules more easily. The way I see it, we should ALL be held accountable.
A number of years ago the NCAA developed a set of agreed-upon procedures which must be reviewed and signed off by the CEO of the institution by January 15th of every year. Division I schools must have their agreed-upon procedures reviewed by an external auditor annually. Division II must be externally reviewed at least every three years while Division III does not require an external review.
What made this reporting important and new was that it required schools to report third party support. Up until then, schools normally only reported funds that ran through their institutional general ledger. The big guys run most of their athletic finances through athletic foundations so without this third party reporting Big Time University could report the same numbers as College of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Crazy!
Now, I am not saying my books should not be scrutinized as carefully as Big Time University. We should be treated exactly the same. My concern is that a very high percentage of NCAA rules are made because of the big guys and just make it harder for the little guys to get student athletes in the school and get a team on the field.
Jim Delany get’s it.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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