University trustees should review coaches’ contracts and learn the business of college sports to get a better grip on their athletic departments, according to a Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics report released Tuesday.
The boards that govern universities must set policy for sports programs in everything from academics to compliance with National Collegiate Athletic Association rules and make sure they are enforced, the report said.
“If boards do not act to ensure an appropriate balance between athletics and academics in our higher education institutions, policy makers or others will do it for us,” according to the commission, composed of 19 university and university system presidents, trustees, former athletes and journalists dedicated to reforming college sports.
The study was released during a Knight Commission meeting in Washington, D.C., on the same day that former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for abusing 10 boys.
The project on board responsibilities was conducted during an eight-week period in spring 2012, just before a report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh condemned Penn State administrators for not taking action quickly enough to stop Sandusky.
Gary Schultz, a former Penn State vice president of finance, and Timothy Curley, the school’s former athletic director, are scheduled to be tried in January on charges they lied to a grand jury about a 2001 sex-abuse allegation against Sandusky and failed to report it.
The Freeh report said former Penn State President Graham Spanier and other university leaders “failed to report timely and sufficiently the incidents of child abuse against Sandusky to the Board of Trustees in 1998, 2001 and 2011.
“It was, instead, a painful reminder that all boards need to be well-informed and must clearly establish the appropriate role of athletics in relation to the core values and academic mission of their institutions,” the Knight Commission said.
The authors of the Knight Commission study, John T. Casteen III, president emeritus at the University of Virginia, and Richard D. Legon, president of the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, interviewed 143 presidents, 15 university system heads, nine system board chairs and 25 board chairs.
Casteen said that although most boards understand their responsibilities and do a good job, some have given the president too much control.
According to the survey, 27 percent of university presidents don’t consult their boards on major policy issues coming before the athletic conference’s governing body; 14 percent said the president doesn’t approve the salaries of athletic director and coaches; and 26 percent said the board doesn’t have sufficient financial information on income and expenses for each revenue-generating sport.
“Powerful interests that benefit financially from big-time sports, as well as fans and booster clubs with emotional investments, can distort the clarity of mind required for effective governance,” the commission said in the report.
“While we urge boards to delegate the administration of their sports programs to their chief executive, boards must still become aware of the issues and engage actively and appropriately in policy considerations.”
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