Influences of independent entities on Associations Rules: A response to "Reform and Renewal in College Sports"

Reform and Renewal in College Sports is not necessarily your typical article on sports and legal issues where a decision is decided in a court or a university has to follow a certain standard passed down by legal authorities. However, this article by Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. and Dr. Judith Albino, is a good example of Association Rules. In the case of this article, the association in which many universities seek recognition and approval from for intercollegiate athletics in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA).

The article, however, is actually a transcribed speech between the two contributors who represent independent entities that suggest standards and rules that are adopted to the NCAA’s bylaws and regulations for member institutions. The topics at hand is the reform of intercollegiate athletics and returning athletic programs back within the umbrella of the overall goals of higher education institutions.

Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame, co-chaired the Knight Commission at the time of publication. The Commission was an extension of the Knight Foundation and was comprised of university presidents, university administrators, athletics administrators, members of the sports media and senior businessmen and women. The goal of the Knight Commission was and is to implement reformation in intercollegiate athletics and to help prevent the commercialization and corruption of big-time college sports that keeps programs from adhering to the original academic missions of postsecondary institutions.

Hesburgh spells out many of the issues in collegiate sports that the Knight Commission has tackled and boasts the commission’s efforts that have been adopted by the NCAA. Those efforts included formal adoption policies by the NCAA for requirements for satisfactory progress toward the degree, new academic requirements for entering student-athletes including SAT results of 700 and high school GPA’s of 2.0 ore more, and reduction of athletic grants-in-aid among other

In the Knight Commission’s original publications calling for reform, the commission laid much of the responsibility for reform in college athletics on the university presidents. As a result, under the umbrella of the NCAA, the NCAA Presidents’ Commission though formed before the Knight Commission, began to take more serious action.

Albino, the chair of the presidents’ commission at the time of publication, reported that the commission tackled issues of time-demands on student-athletes, academic requirements for initial and continuing athletics eligibility, presidential authority and control, and gender equity. All of the commission’s efforts were documented at the end of the article with policies adapted by the NCAA thanks to the commission’s recommendations for reform.

Legally, the Knight Commission and the NCAA Presidents’ Commission have no direct authority over institutions and its respective governance over athletic programs. However, the NCAA with its listening ear to these two commissions and with direct authority over membership institutions, were able to implement policies and standards to establish reform.

The contributors, Hesburgh and Albino, do a solid job of explaining the successes as well as explaining that the fight is not over in collegiate athletics and reform. The Knight Commission followed up with reports for their proposed reformations and documented them in publications released in 1991 and 2001 documenting the improvements and laying out the challenges for the future. This article pertains to any institution, public or private, and is recommended for any university administrator and athletics administrators concerned about intercollegiate athletics’ place in the overall missions of higher education.

- Kyle Robarts

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Hesburgh, T., & Albino, J. (1995). Reform and Renewal in College Sports. Journal of College and University Law, 22(1), 63-76.

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