For the most part, some good ideas. One of my concerns has always been Emmert's "one size fits all" approach to all 1,260 universities, conferences and agencies.
Does everyone remember, when Dave Hart was AD and the power 5 AD's went through a drill to determine "the full cost of education."
Hart came up with all 400 plus of Tennessee's student athletes would receive a direct payment from the university of $500 plus a month. That included 2 trips home for each athlete per semester. Of course there was a lot of consternation and
accusations of padding the assessments for recruiting purposes. The reports were filed with the NCAA HQs and never saw the light of day. That is about the time we saw the power five conferences ( approximately 64 teams) threating to leave the NCAA. The power 5 conferences were given more autominity but still Emmert tried to make Tennessee play by the same rules as Longwood.
With SCOTUS' ruling in favor of universities paying the full cost of college for the Student Athlete's education...the power 5 AD's were validated and Emmert's business model was in trouble.
When California's Governor Newsom went around the NCAA and Emmert's stonewalling of NIL, and all states followed the NCAA's long standing policy/definition of what amateurism was/is was destroyed/imploded. In the vacuum that has been created, Tennesse'Governor Lee signed an executive order last week allowing coaches to meet with the NIL deal makers. Not sure what folks like Jay Billus and his Ilk thought NIL would look like but...this isn't it.
Although, Emmert's lucrative contract was good until 2025, he realized his tenure was over and now has tendered his resignation. However, to think college athletics can move forward without leadership is naive. For every Coach Rick Barnes there are Two Coach Will Wade's. College sports will suffer untill we get competent leaders and administrators in indianapolis. But the NCAA committees' leadership is made up of all 1260 University AD's, Coaches and Commissioners. Part of the reason we could not resolve the "full cost of education" was some of the 1260 universities could not afford the costs. Of course, Under Emmert, this violated his "one size fits all" model and that's why it went away until SCOTUS ruled against the NCAA. For those who think this is a good thing... be careful. We could see as many as 100's of universities drop all sports.
In my opinion:
Title IX needs to be reviewed. I don"t want my daughter to get short changed but goodness, Tn has 20 plus young women on rowing teams to meet the intent of the law. I'm not sure that is a wise use of scholarships money as fans struggle to participate but it's the law.
Baseball, softball should have full scholarships. Both should have another coach on the field.
The portal is a good idea gone haywire. Transfer rules need to be reviewed and tightened up. For example, Tennessee's Soccer Coach just left for Flordia State. There is no way any Tennesse player should be allowed to follow him without sitting out a year. If they want to transfer somewhere else with out penalty...fine. But Tennessee Soccer should not be destroyed because Penksy had a mid-life crisis. Just my opinion. Love to hear other opinions.
