guncurug

Conference roulette rolls on with VCU leaving the CAA for the A-10 and Big West open to Boise State joining along with SDSU (ESPN)

FAMUBoard of Trustees suspends marching band for at least the upcoming school year in the wake of band hazing death (Orlando Sentinel)

Key to the Northwestern soccer dynasty may be summer camps in the Northeast (NYT)

Bodemeister is 8-5 in post 7; I'll Have Another at 5-2 in post 9 . My money is on Went the Day Well and Creative Cause with I'll Have Another in the Exacta box.  Bodemeister may just be too tired.(WaPo)

For MOT soccer fans, a guide to the Champions League Final (Forward.com)

Remember Skechers toners endorsed by a Kardashian? Surprise, FTC says they won't make you thinner (The Post Game)

Big XII and SEC champs to meet in bowl game if not in football playoff: "good for the game" (Statesman.com)

Boise State remains committed to Big East (Hartford Courant)

Saints Vilma sues Roger Goodell for defamation over bounty case (SI)

The NCAA Board of Directors approved a proposal to allow schools to distribute up to $2,000 a year or the full cost of attendance, whichever is less, to student-athletes in "head count" sports, i.e. men's and women's basketball, football, and those in " equivalency sports" who reach the full value of a scholarship. Amazingly, the NCAA Board, which is composed of member university presidents actually followed through on a pledge to reform its policies in student-athlete friendly ways,

While the full cost of attendance change is likely to garner most of the headlines, the Board passed what potentially could be a more impactfull change, finally authorizing multiyear scholarships up to the full term of eligibility. This should help stop the oversigning problem which plague the SEC., and the disgraceful practice of wholesale running off of players that seem to accompany every coaching change. Additionally, the presidents voted to allow institutions to provide aid to any athletes who came back to school to complete their degrees following exhaustion of of their eligibility. They also raised the Academic Progress Rate required for postseason eligibility. Taken as a whole, this was probably the single most student athlete friendly day ever at NCAA headquarters. The presidents made good on a number of commitments they had made over the years and NCAA President Mark Emmert made a significant down payment on his credibility as a student athlete friendly reformer. Much is left to do, but we must always stop and recognize progress when it occurs. I've bashed the NCAA on many occasions for ignoring the welfare of the students in favor of the sports administration complex (similar to the military industrial complex.). These steps don't end the arms race, don't begin to reign the outrageous salaries being paid to coaches, or the sale of the programs to corporate sponsors, but they took significant steps toward making the student athletes lives better, both while at school and, importantly, after they have left without a degree. For that, they deserve our praise.

I feel compelled to say something about "The Vest's" departure from tOSU since it has dominated the discussion in American sports this week.  It has even overshadowed to a significant degree the opening of both the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals (the opener proving just how exciting a 0-0 game can be  the only goal was scored with 16 seconds left in regulation), So, where to begin?

I was not terribly surprised at what was his likely forced resignation, something which I believe should have happened months ago. This was far from Tressel's first brush with the NCAA.  He had problems at Youngstown State, for scholarship and recruiting violations.  After his arrival in Columbus, there was Maurice Clarett, followed by a steady stream of players, with the most prominent and public being the suspension of  Troy Smith for the Fiesta Bowl following the 2004 season, for accepting $500 in cash from a booster. President Gee and Athletic Director Gene Smith were much too lenient when it first beacame known that Tressel had lied to the NCAA and to his bosses.  With his compliance track record and for the lies, he should have been immediately terminated.  It would have been in the best interests of the institution and set a better example of how a school should react when something like this happens, and rest assured it will happen again, somewhere.  It wasn't until the Columbus Dispatch was about to go public with stories concerning additional violations that Gee finally decided to act, assuming as I do, that the resignation was not voluntary.  I'm also convinced that Leslie Wexner, founder of The Limited and Chair of the Board of Trustees, saw the continuing controversy as adversely affecting the school's major capital campaign that President Gee was forced to act.  This did nothing for his reputation either, but solidified the feel who went to B1G Ten that tOSU is really a SEC in witness protection.

Zach Price  in a piece for Sports Illustrated, links the Terrell Pryor portion age limit, which, in this case, would be the stricter NFL limit once the players and owners sign a new collective bargaining agreement. While I don't really buy the connection, I do believe that the age limit is a bad idea from the colleges standpoint, particularly in basketball.  The NBA and NCAA should adopt the baseball limit at all.  Baseball allows a player to be signed right out of high school, but if he doesn't sign a pro contract before he enrolls, then it's three years before the MLB can get him.  The advantages of this rule are: (1) it gives the student an option not to go to college if that's really what he wants, (2)the colleges know that they have a player for three years and can better build a team, (3) the athlete knows he must be a diligent student since he will want to stay eligible for three year, thereby significantly raising the change that college will actually be meaningful for him.

That said, my real answer is to eliminate athletic scholarships altogether.  But wait, then all of the disadvantaged kids who had trouble getting through high school would not be able to go to college. That would only be true for those kids who are marginal students.  For everyone else, there would be adequate financial aid available on the same basis as it is to the rest of the student body.  It has worked in the Ivy League and Patriot League (although the Patriot League has recently crossed over to the Darkside) and works in Division III.  Now, I know that Ivy League and D-III schools don't have stadia that seat 1000,000 and aren't on TV all the time, but that is what college athletics should be.  Instead, we all have gifted the top five major professional leagues, free of charge, a minor league system that would cost billions to replicate.  It is a system that has been designed to enrich its administrators and coaches at the expense of the colleges and universities and on the backs of the student-athletes.  Real and lasting reform of the NCAA won't take place until system and the role of the big five major leagues is addressed.

I know I haven't done this in a while but I will try to be a little better about it going forward.  In any event, here is this week's installment, which started on Tuesday but didn't get published until Wednesday:

Tonight, we have a national championship game that in some sense presents the dilemma facing the NCAA in microcosm.  On the one hand, you have UConn, a relative power in the game representing the Big East, a BCS member conference, the best conference in basketball and one that is deep in bed with both ESPN and CBS.  It is presided over by a coach who had his hand slapped by the NCAA for "failure to maintain an atmosphere of compliance" earlier this season.  The NCAA punished Calhoun for violating one of its core principles - the institution and its leaders are to be held accountable for compliance, i.e. institutional 

There are as many ways to fill out March Madness brackets as there are people filling them out.  In fact, according to the Houston Chronicle, there are 147.5 quintillion ways to fill one out. And that's just the office pool variety.

The NCAA bracket lends itself to all sorts of quick analysis or examples of different ways of looking at college athletics or colleges in general.  There are the academic performance brackets (Butler if you're scoring at home) and graduation rates (seven schools with 100% - the highest seed being Notre Dame and Arizona at the bottom with 20%), but the most novel one I found this year revolves around money.  It's not the money that each program makes, although that is an interesting one as well (see, Forbes study of 2009 basketball revenue - Duke, Louisville and North Carolina on top), it's one that is based on the median salary of each school's graduates.

In this bracket, not surprisingly Princeton beat Kentucky.  Actually, the bracket only begins with the Sweet Sixteen but since Princeton is in it, we can assume that win.  It's a fun look and a Final Four of Princeton, Duke, UCLA and Georgetown is not all that surprising,  Neither is Princeton's ultimate victory.  Here's the bracket:

Today was decision day in Storrs as the NCAA Committee on Infractions handed down its alleged punishment of the UConn men's basketball program and head coach Jim Calhoun for violations of NCAA rules in the recruitment of Nate Miles and for failing to create an atmosphere of compliance.  The headline sanctions include the suspension of Calhoun for the first three Big East next season and placing the team on three year's probation.  Other penalties include reduction of scholarships from 13 to 12 for three years, limitations on official campus recruiting visits and limiting the number of coaches allowed to recruit off-campus.

UConn and Calhoun should consider themselves lucky.  Failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance is one step removed from lack of institutional control, which is the NCAA's least favorite violation.  nevertheless, the sanctions will not have any material effect on the way in which UConn conducts its program.  Probation is a joke these days since the NCAA has not done anything serious to repeat offenders since it dropped the death penalty on SMU back in the 1980s.

Suspending Calhoun for three Big East games is equally meaningless. First, no one knows what those games will be since the Big East schedule isn't made until the summer.  You can be sure that suspension will be taken into account when the UConn portion of the schedule is made up . The Huskies are not barred from the postseason, nor are they barred from any television appearances, not even non-conference games.  Without hitting a program where it counts - television and the NCAA tournament - the Committee on Infractions is doing little more than slapping the school on the wrist and telling it to go play nice and not to do it again.

If the NCAA is serious about enforcing its rules, it needs to hold head coaches accountable for everything that happens in a program.  No more hiding under the ridiculous notion that he just didn't know what was transpiring right under his nose.  A three game suspension is not enough to get the attention of the average coach.  Some argue that Calhoun takes the suspension hard because of a perceived stain on his legacy and reputation and he, indeed, has implied that he may at least appeal the decision if not sue the NCAA.

�I am very disappointed with the NCAA�s decision in this case,�� Calhoun said in a statement. �My lawyer and I are evaluating my options and will make a decision which way to proceed.��

Nevertheless, the average coach is not Jim Calhoun and for the sanctions to truly be effective the NCAA should hit coaches where their attention is most likely to be drawn - their wallets.  Suspend coaches not for a few games during the season, conference games or not.  Suspend them for NCAA tournament games, or other post-season games if the team doesn't make the field of 68.  In the event a school under sanction fails to make the post-season, then the suspension can either carry over to the following year's post-season tournament or could be enforced in the following year's conference tournament with any remaining games to be enforced during the post-season.  That may play havoc with Vegas' college basketball predictions, but that is just an added bonus as far as the NCAA is concerned.

Coaches make their reputation and their big bucks by what they do come tournament time.  If they have to sit out the tournament, they may begin to realize that there is a real price to pay for violating recruiting regulations.  Right now, the only problem with NCAA violations is that the player that usually causes schools to get caught rarely proves worthwhile.  Nate Miles was expelled from UConn in October, 2008 without ever playing for the Huskies.

The first Wednesday of February is the first day of the annual signing period for NCAA Division I football players during which prospective student athletes sign copies of the National Letter of Intent indicating their commitment to attend the school of their choice and fax the letter into the football coach of the chosen school.  It's an annual rite in which we all get to witness hundreds of grown crowded around fax machines in various states of panic for periods of several hours, awaiting faxes from all those kids who verbally committed to their program. Some schools, notably Alabama, have live webcams fixed on those same fax machines to satisfy maniacal fans who want to see the faxes spit out even though they can't read the names.

The great conference realignment that college athletics has been undergoing over the last five or six years, triggered first by the ACC raid on the Big East and most recently by the Big Ten's decision to expand to twelve, has led to some interesting geographic permutations.  A legacy of earlier conference shuffling left the WAC stretching from Hawai'i to that decidedly western state of Louisiana, home of Louisiana Tech.  Similarly, the Sun Belt includes those noted warm weather locales of Denver and Bowling Green, Kentucky (OK, Kentucky is a southern state but Denver?).

However, some of the latest conference memberships really stretch the idea of geography to its limits.  With TCU's move from the Mountain West (you've seen the mountains in Ft. Worth right) to the Big East, we're now supposed to believe that Texas is in the east.  However, no school more represents the absurdity of certain conference memberships, and how far removed we are from the days when conferences represented regional associations, than the relatively new Division I Great West Conference.

The Great West is basically a collection of schools around the country who recently upgraded their programs to Division I and consists of schools located in California, Texas, Utah, the Dakotas, Chicago and New Jersey.  It began life as a football conference and now has ten members, three of whom are football only members.  All of the schools have relatively small athletic department budgets which are strained by the travel costs associated with playing in a conference that is not only this spread-out but also includes several cities not regularly served by nonstop airline routes.  It's college athletics' version of the high school losers table, and until one of the cool kids takes pity on them, the member schools are stuck with each other, absurd travel costs and all.  Such is the price of admission to the pot of gold associated with March Madness.

Okay, the headline is a bit misleading - Boise State didn't officially rejoin the WAC, but with Hawai'i now joining the Mountain West for football only that makes four schools that have left the WAC for the Mountain West.  With Utah, BYU and TCU leaving the MWC, the reputation of the conference in the eyes of the football world now rests on Boise State and Nevada, just like the WAC did before the four schools decamped.  I know this is not the conference they all had in mind when they left. 

I know it's been quite a while since I posted anything but a combination of family matters and personal health issues has kept me away from the keyboard.  Hopefully, that's behind me now and posting will resume on a more regular basis, if not quite as frequent as in the past.

Upper Deck is bringing out a new line of trading cards which will, for the first time, feature more than 30 active college basketball coaches, including Bill Self, Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Tubby Smith, Bobby Huggins and Jim Calhoun. The coaches cards will be part of a 400 card set covering multiple sports and featuring autographs and memorabilia inserted in the packs. Other stars featured in the set range include Tiger Woods, Landon Donovan, Dara Torres, Amanda Beard (no word on whether the card features her Playboy shoot), Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan in his UNC days, Sasha Cohen and inexplicably Jose Conseco representing baseball.

It's often said about departmental politics in colleges and universities that the politics is so brutal because the stakes are so small.  Maybe that's why the conference realignment game being played out among the Mountain West, WAC and West  Conference Conference seems to be on a whole other plain of duplicity and hard feelings than even the infamous ACC midnight raid on the Big  East.  At least in that raid, with the exception of the Boston College, there were no expressions of fealty to the league being abandoned before the jump was made.


The realignment dance out west began when the Pac-10(12) decided to explore expansion.  Shortly after the expansion discussions began, it became evident to BYU that it would not become a member of the PAC-10(12) and that Utah likely would.  At that point, it became clear to the leadership of the WAC that an opportunity was presenting itself to elevate the league's status to becoming the top non automatic qualifying conference in the land, by providing BYU with a spot for all of its teams other than football and working out an arrangement that would allow BYU to go independent in football, which is something that BYU had been exploring for years.  To that end, the WAC asked each member for a five year commitment to the league and each member agreed, whether that agreement was in writing and the nature of the agreement is going to be something that a court will likely decide but I'm getting ahead of myself.  


The Mountain West, now fearful of losing its two best programs, went searching for new members, other than Boise State who had jumped from the WAC before the discussions described above took place.  The league asked Utah State but the Aggies declined in solidarity with its WAC brethren and in reliance on its agreement with the other members.  It might end up paying a very heavy price for that choice.  The WAC then asked both Fresno State and Nevada, who each thought about their commitment to the WAC for about five seconds and jumped to the MWC, probably believing BYU was staying.  Now, Utah State, having been totally deceived by Fresno State and Nevada, wants a mulligan on the MWC decision and supposedly they are in discussions. 


Yesterday, BYU announced it is leaving the MWC to go independent and will affiliate with the West Coast Conference in other sports.  If that doesn't ring a bell, it is the wholly owned subsidiary of Gonzaga basketball.  BYU also announced an eight year agreement with ESPN for broadcast of its games across the ESPN family which justifies its decision.  In fact, it even has Southern Call at least thinking about taking the same route.  Who knows maybe Texas will take its Longhorn Network and go independent as well, although they have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages so I guess it wouldn't make much sense for them to leave the Big XII (X).

The WAC meanwhile is now scrambling to see if they can keep a league together.  The biggest loser in all of this may be Hawai'i who desperately needs a conference to ensure enough games for all of its athletes.  It's bad enough trying to schedule football when the visitor receives and extra game to make up the travel costs, but the Olympic sports have similar travel costs (admittedly the teams are smaller) but no way to make up the additional expense.  If Hawai'i can't count on a conference to fill out its schedule its participation in Division I could be in jeopardy.  The second biggest loser could be the only school that acted honorably in the whole mess, Utah State.  If the MWC doesn't extend membership to the Aggies and they are left with the other WAC schools trying to pull together a makeshift conference, they may just have to return to the Big West.


We would like to think of our institutions of higher education as places where our children go to learn the values that help govern our free society.  Based on the manner in which these schools conduct their business, the values that are being taught to out kids are the very values that embody the Wall Street mentality that put us in the Great Recession.  A college or university athletic department is first and foremost a reflection of, introduction to and manifestation of that particular college or university.  If this is the way that these universities wish to portray themselves to the general public, they should not cry too much when legislators cut the budgets of public schools and when public and private schools have a tougher time attracting donations.  Few people like to be associated with greed, duplicity and the callous disregard for general ethics.  College athletics in particular should be above this.

If you are a college sports fan, you have probably paid money to IMG sometime in the past year, likely without realizing it.  IMG, which is more commonly thought of as a large sports and entertainment management firm, representing Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Roger Federer, among others. However, it began a push into college sports in 2007.  If you bought any officially licensed clothing of your or paraphernalia of your alma mater, then you paid IMG, as IMG bought Collegiate Sports Licensing back in 2007.  That purchase marked the beginning of its assault on the collegiate sports marketing dollar.

Later in 2007, IMG acquired Host Communications which held multimedia contracts with Kentucky, Arizona, Michigan, Kansas and Texas among others. In 2008, CBS chooses IMG to market corporate sponsorships for all of the NCAA championships. Throughout 2008 and 2009, IMG College, the former Host Communications, continues to add colleges to it roster list. 

 Then, this week it announces it has reached an agreement to acquire ISP, its major rival in the business of marketing collegiate athletic programs.  Terms of the acquistion have not been announced and the deal is subject to regulatory approval.  That approval may not be automatic.  If the deal is done, the combined entity will represent 80 schools including 34 out of 65 in the six BCS conferences, plus it will also represent Notre Dame.

 There are also significant conflict of interest concerns that are raised by IMG's client roster.  It represents both the NCAA and its most prominent member schools.  What happens when those schools are brought before the NCAA for rules violations that may affect their marketability. Will IMG have any influence on the ultimate penalties handed down?  Will IMG influence the NCAA basketball committee when it makes its at large selections for the NCAA basketball tournament, a tournament whose corporate sponsorships it marketed and many of whose participants and would be participant's multimedia rights it also holds.  The possible conflicts here are endless and I don't have the energy or time to list them all.  It is something the regulators will look at together with market share.  It is also something the NCAA needs to consider, as dispassionately as it can, given it is in the middle of many of the conflicts.

Here are some links to kick off your week:

This morning's papers were full of the stories that broke yesterday announcing Nebraska's imminent move to the Big Ten, a move which  no doubt filled the DeLoss Dodds and the other folks in Austin Texas with a mixture of glee and sadness.  Glee that at long last they were rid of the Huskers continual whining about the bad deal they were getting from the Big XII anad sadness that Texas' sweet deal is about to end.  Of course, Dodds and the Longhorn faithful can console themselves with the thought of all the money that a new, expanded Pac-16 TV Network will bring them.

The first entrant in the new and improved Pac-10 will be Colorado, which is taking no chances and leaping now before the Pac-10 folks get a chance to reconsider expansion and change their mind.  Actually, even if the Pac-10 stops here, it's not a bad move.  They will have added the Denver market which should help get the network off the ground plus help pay all the additional travel costs.  However, with Nebraska and Colorado both gone, the Big XII is toast and I expect it to be formally laid to rest this weekend when the three Texas public schools and the two Oklahoma schools join up with Colorado.  Where Baylor, the Kansas schools and Iowa State go is a really good question.  Who would have thought a basketball program like Kansas would be left twisting in a great plains cyclone.  Oh well, there is always the Mountain West.

One thought to ponder is what happens to the BCS contracts when the Big XII and possibly the Big East implode.  Those contracts run through 2015 although I'm sure there are clauses calling for renegotiation in the event of a substantial change in circumstances, which the disappearance of two out of six conferences surely is. The BCS Commissioners may just try and substitute a reconstituted Mountain West for one of the two and call the other spot an at-large spot and see if they can convince ESPN to go along.   I don't see them giving the spot to any of C-USA, WAC, MAC or the Sunbelt.

The University of Louisville basketball program has been well known for years as a terrific revenue generator.  In fact, for the last several years it has been the highest grossing and highest netting program in the country, however, it outdid itself last year.  The Cardinals had revenue attributed to basketball of      $25,494,904, with expenses of $8,625,245 for a profit of $16,869,659.  That is a profit margin of 66.2% if you're scoring at home.  Oh, and remember, this was while the Cardinals were playing in Freedom Hall, their home for the last 54 years which they said goodbye to this past season as they prepare to move into the new $238 million KFC Yum! Center this fall.  Freedom Hall did not allow the Cardinals to maximize their revenue opportunities as athletic department officials put it during discussions on a possible new arena.

If you're interested in the phenomena that is Woldwide Wes, William Wesley, thought by many to be the key to the next location of LeBron James, go read this post. For years, Wes has operated in college and NBA circles as the man with the largest rolodex in basketball, but without any apparent source of income from it.  He has now received his agency credentials from the NBA and, according to the post above, is now negotiating with Creative Artists Agency, the best and perhaps the most powerful agency in the entertainment industry, to join them as an agent.

Overcoming spirited bidding from Fox, ESPN landed the football and basketball rights contract for the ACC for the next 12 years.  That bidding by Fox drove the price up from an expected $125 million per year to $155 million per, still well south of the SEC's $205 million from its new CBS and ESPN contracts.  The new contracts take effect with the start of the 2011-12 season and represent a substantial increase from the existing contracts with Raycom and ESPN, paying the conference an average of $73-$75 million.  Each member school will go from earning about $5.6 million to an average of $12.9 million.

Although Sports Business Journal indicated that Fox helped drive up ESPN's bid, as mentioned above, according to ACC sports.com, Fox was not given a chance to match ESPN's bid, as the league decided that ESPN's reach was too broad to give up.  That may prove a problem for Fox as it looks to the Big XII and Pac-10 down the road.

The ACC has the misfortune of its contracts expiring with the end of the 2010-11 season and therefore being in a position of having to act now before the after-effects of Big Ten expansion will completely sort itself out. Whether the contract takes into account the possibility of future expansion of the ACC is not known, but if it does not also add an additional $13-$15 for each additional school added to the league upon expansion, then this contract will be a major hindrance to the league when it comes time to deal with the after the Big Ten announcement.  Since the ACC chose not to pursue the establishment of its own network when the option was presented to it by Comcast, it will be all the more vital that this contract have the flexibility to reward the league for improved numbers in the event of expansion.

 The NCAA recognizes schools each year for their exceptional work in the classroom as part of the its academic performance program. The Public Recognition Award is  given to each school that performs in the top ten percent in each sport on the APR. A total of 841 teams are being recognized this year.