Statements of Support

Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports

Secretary Arne Duncan
U.S. Department of Education

"With this report, the Knight Commission has shown once again its steadfast commitment to protecting educational priorities and strengthening accountability in intercollegiate sports. I join the Knight Commission in calling for stronger eligibility standards for post-season play. The commission recommends that teams not on track to graduate 50 percent of their players be banned from post-season competition. Whatever the exact benchmark—I’ve proposed a 40 percent graduation rate cutoff that would increase to 50 percent—the NCAA needs to strengthen its use of the Academic Progress Rate (APR) index to protect the interests of student athletes and the integrity of their parent institutions in a more rigorous and timely fashion. It is so important to get this right. When college athletic programs and universities have their priorities in order--as most do--there is no better place to teach invaluable life lessons than on the playing field or court."

Molly Corbett Broad, President
American Council on Education

"In its new report, Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics builds on its previous research—as well as the good work of the NCAA and others—to lay out specific recommendations for enhancing transparency and accountability in the financing of intercollegiate athletics. I am extremely pleased to see that the academic enterprise and the well-being of student athletes are at the core of their proposals.

There are many constructive ideas in this report. The public release of financing data—including the current NCAA dashboard for Division I college and university presidents—has much to recommend it. I am hopeful that sharing such information will allow institutions to better self-regulate in an important but often misunderstood area of higher education administration. Also important are recommendations that would strengthen post-season program eligibility standards and additional reporting requirements that could help monitor potential campus spending imbalances between athletics and academics.

I commend the members of the Knight Commission, particularly University System of Maryland Chancellor William E. Kirwan and Southern Methodist University President Gerald Turner, for their commitment to this very important work. I believe they have produced a report that is worthy of much consideration and discussion and am sure that when Mark Emmert joins the NCAA this summer, he will engage the higher education community in a constructive conversation about these and other pressing issues."

Founded in 1918, ACE (www.acenet.edu) is the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents, and more than 200 related associations, nationwide. It seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives.

Former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini
Member, Arizona Board of Regents

"Athletics are an integral part of many colleges and universities and bring camaraderie to campuses across the country, but in recent decades the competitiveness of college sports has led to an imbalance between spending on athletics and academics, with the former often times getting a bigger piece of the pie," stated Arizona Board of Regents member and former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini. "The Knight Commission’s recommendations are clear, common-sense measures that should be embraced by athletics departments across the country. I look forward to a full review and discussion of these recommendations with my colleagues, and would encourage university trustees across the nation and the NCAA to study them as well with an eye toward possible implementation to provide stronger accountability to the public and to our stakeholder groups."

Richard D. Legon, President
Association of Governing Boards

"The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) has been supportive of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics since its inception nearly 20 years ago. The commission has provided important leadership throughout its existence. AGB and the AGB Board of Directors commend the commission’s ongoing efforts to bring about essential change in intercollegiate athletics.

It is important to place this new report in the current environment for higher education. Our institutions are under increased scrutiny by the public and policy makers at the state and federal levels to be more efficient, to graduate more students, to be more competitive globally, and perhaps most importantly, to be more transparent and accountable. The financial crisis has wreaked havoc on our institutions; public and private institutions are operating in an unprecedented fiscal environment that has already required serious changes in what we do and how we do it. Intercollegiate athletics is not immune from the need for change.

I am pleased to see that "Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports" makes a poignant case for bringing intercollegiate athletics back into balance at our institutions. The report’s data show that if we continue on our current path, the business model for our institutions – not just our athletics programs –is not sustainable. The recommendations are bold and workable. I commend the members of the Commission for their dedicated work and their willingness to advance important principles. I am confident that the AGB Board of Directors will endorse the commission’s work.

College and university boards play a central role in bringing balance and rational oversight to the management of college sports. AGB has made formal statements on the importance of appropriate board engagement and understanding concerning athletics, urging clear delegation of administrative leadership of athletics to institution presidents. The Knight Commission’s current report is consistent with AGB’s position. I am particularly impressed with the section on "Strengthened Oversight" and the reference to board responsibilities in monitoring athletics expenditures and revenues, transparency and accountability, and protection of academic values. Appropriate board engagement and support are key to implementing the commission’s recommendations.

Since the release of AGB’s first statement on the subject in 2004, AGB’s Board of Directors has been on record about the appropriate role of governing boards in the oversight of intercollegiate athletics—the AGB statement was updated in 2007, and again in 2009 –most recently with the endorsement of the Knight Commission.

The AGB Statement on Board Responsibilities for Intercollegiate Athletics (2009) states in part:

"There is a growing sense among academic leaders, the news media, and the public that our society glorifies athletic accomplishment far more than academic achievement. At some colleges and universities, intercollegiate athletics programs may be detracting from the institution’s mission. What’s more, the increasingly commercialized nature of major sports at the highest competitive levels and a widening gulf between the athletic and academic cultures at some institutions and in some communities have negatively affected the reputation and public standing of higher education as a whole. Restoring balance between sports and education continues to be elusive. If efforts to achieve an appropriate balance are to succeed, governing board members will need to lend consistent and public support to their chief executives and academic leaders who are at the forefront of such discussions…Given their responsibilities for ensuring the academic integrity and reputation of the institutions they serve, boards should be engaged in the search for balance."

As part of their responsibilities, board members need to be oriented to the relationship between athletics and institutional mission, and the finances of intercollegiate athletics programs. Boards and individual board members need to remember that they hold the institution in trust – and the institution’s most important duty is to educate. The definition of athletics success must not be based on wins and losses, but rather should emphasize graduation rates, manageable budgets (including coaches’ salaries), acceptable capital expenditures, and the well-being of student-athletes. As a practical matter, boards should review and approve athletics budgets as part of their institution’s regular budgeting process; boards should consider whether institutional revenues and expenditures for athletics programs are appropriate and whether institutional values are reflected in those financial decisions.

We all can play a role in changing the trajectory of our athletics programs. I hope the ideas and recommendations in the report will be given active consideration by institutions and their leadership (presidents and boards), accrediting agencies, NCAA’s leadership, the media, the general public, and other higher-education associations.

We look forward to working with the Knight Commission and the NCAA to advance the commission’s specific recommendations which will help produce meaningful change through greater transparency and accountability."

Founded in 1921, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) is the only national association that serves the interests and needs of academic governing boards, boards of institutionally related foundations, and campus CEOs and other senior-level campus administrators on issues related to higher education governance and leadership. AGB serves more than 1,200 institutions and 34,000 individuals. Its work advances the practice of citizen trusteeship and helps ensure the quality and success of our nation's colleges and universities.

Peter Likins, President Emeritus
University of Arizona

"The 1991 report of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics had an immediate impact on the policies governing college and university athletics, and more importantly it had a long-term transformational influence on the culture of college sports.

Despite many improvements in the system’s integrity and the elevation of academic performance requirements for athletic competition, the current financial trends have led to increasing imbalances between athletics and academics and the threat of financial destabilization of the national enterprise.

Recognizing that current economic trends are unsustainable and potentially destructive, the Knight Commission in its new report offers recommendations designed to halt and even reverse the trends that increase the growing divide between athletic and academic interests on college and university campuses.

In the tradition of previous Knight Commission reports, Restoring the Balance offers ambitious but achievable goals that will if adopted greatly improve the athletic enterprise for the nation as a whole and increase the likelihood of continuing success in the world of intercollegiate athletics. With varying degrees of intensity, I can endorse every recommendation in the report.

Powerful interests will oppose the reforms recommended here, arguing that they know how to solve current financial problems by increasing revenues. Such strategies may indeed succeed in the short term for some conferences and their member universities, but financial problems will be exacerbated for other universities and the gap between athletic and academic interests will widen further.

I expect that the NCAA as an organization will want to support these recommendations, but the responsibility for reform lies with individual university CEO’s and their governing boards."

Peter M. McPherson, President
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

"Intercollegiate athletics offers opportunities and experiences that students deeply value. Moreover, athletics provide visibility and support from alumni and the public, support that is frequently of great benefit to universities.

It is also true that public universities are under greater fiancial stress in the delivery of their core education mission than at any time in decades. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has been and is deeply involved in the issues of education costs. Athletics costs per student have gone up much faster than education costs, and university presidents and chancellors are striving to contain all these costs while maintaining the quality of education. I support the Commission's recommendation that universities make available the ratio of cost of education per student to the costs of athletics. Transparency in costs is important. There is some work that the NCAA must do to provide guidance in the collection and reporting of the athletic costs for that information to be helpful and that work should be done.

The report strongly supports the need for university athletics to be student focused and brings important focus to this matter. Students as athletes, not athletes as students, should be touch stone."