NCAA president Mark Emmert discusses NCAA model, athletic issues at Rockhurst

NCAA president Mark Emmert’s visit to Rockhurst University on Tuesday was a reminder that college sports exists outside of power conference football and men’s basketball.

Oh, Emmert loves big time college sports. But…

“I like to remind people that one thing that’s forgotten in intercollegiate athletics is when you watch college football on Saturday or teams in the men’s basketball tournament that attract the vast majority of attention, you’re watching about 3 percent of the student athletes.”

And of the ones you’re seeing on the major networks, a much smaller percentage go on to play professional sports.

Thus, a visit to Rockhurst to visit with athletes, coaches and administrators in the afternoon and to deliver an evening speech, “The Collegiate Model for the 21st Century.”

The model looks different than it did even a year ago. Last month, the five major conferences were granted governing autonomy. It allows the Big 12, Southeastern Conference, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast Conference the ability to write many of their own rules.

The leagues have more resources to provide benefits to athletes, like the full cost of college attendance, long-term health care and scholarships after expired athletic eligibility.

Some fear those advantages could create a larger disparity between the power conferences and everybody else, especially in basketball.

“We all worry about that,” Emmert said. “But today, if you looked at the differences between the resources between the schools that played this past year, they were gigantic. But Duke got knocked off this year, Butler almost won it a couple of years ago.

“We’ll still have all these wonderful stories because basketball, like most sports other than football, requires a handful of people and a really good coach and the team can have a deep run in the tournament. We see it every year.”

We also see athletes finding trouble in a highly visible way. The latest example was Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, who was suspended for last weekend’s game after yelling a vulgarity about women earlier in the week. This is the same player who was accused of sexually assaulting a Florida State student last year.

The NCAA doesn’t discipline the athlete, the school does.

“Right now, there are domestic policies and behavioral standards at every one of our schools,” Emmert said. “There are about 1,100 members of the association. Every one of them has policies about the expectations of students.

“Every campus has disciplinary policies and a disciplinary system. The most important thing to NCAA membership is students aren’t treated in any privileged or disproportionate fashion. Someone does something silly, they all get judged in the same way.”

This summer, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, took out her frustration with Emmert and the NCAA after learning some colleges turn oversight of sexual-assault cases to their athletic departments.

Last week, the NCAA was part of a White House announcement to help fight campus sexual assault. An awareness campaign, It’s On Us, will spread the message through the NCAA and conferences.

“It’s about trying get to, especially young men, about taking responsibility for themselves and their behavior,” Emmert said. “It’s not a new issue for us, sadly. It’s something that we’ve been wrestling with for a long time.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2014 at 7:28 PM with the headline "NCAA president Mark Emmert discusses NCAA model, athletic issues at Rockhurst."