A panel of seven prominent ADs expressed a lot of concern, and a little optimism, over the state and direction of college sports during Day 1 of the ’14 IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. Duke's Kevin White said the AD position itself has changed dramatically in his 33 years in the role. “When I started out, I really felt I was an educator and had a chance to dabble in the entertainment side,” he said. “Over these years, I feel like I’m now in the entertainment business, and I’m working like hell to hold on to the educational side. I really worry about where we’re heading. We’re becoming so commercialized. I have this fear that college sports will become semi-pro. I think that’s the biggest challenge we have in front of us, to save us from ourselves. I think we’ve got to be really careful as to where we’re headed.” The panel -- which also included Missouri's Mike Alden, Kansas State's John Currie, Rutgers' Julie Hermann, Georgia's Greg McGarity, Vanderbilt's David Williams and Florida State's Stan Wilcox -- also discussed the future of college athletics, the state of Olympic sports and challenges they are facing.
A BALANCING ACT: Williams was one of several panelists who agreed with White. “I have some of the same concerns,” he said. “We’re in an entertainment business, let’s make no mistake about it. We’re also trying to maximize the revenue, make no mistake about it. We get our joy from working with the student-athletes, but we have to take care of those other things. We have to remember we’re part of a system called higher education. I’m worried that we may have taken something that was good and pure, and we may have hurt it. I agree, we’re our own worst enemies. I battle with how do I keep these relationships so I can make sure I give these young people what they came here for, a college education.”
QUICK HITS
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Alden said giving Power Five conference schools more
opportunity to help student-athletes is a good thing
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* Alden, on Power Five Conferences having different interests than others: “Giving those conferences or schools an opportunity to benefit the students more so than they have in the past, I think that’s a good thing. My biggest fear is, we have 351 athletic directors at the Division I level in this country, and I promise you every single one of them is busting their tails just like these people up here. How do we make sure all 351 feel that we’re all a part of the same enterprise, we all have the same interests in mind, and we don’t try to disenfranchise them simply because they may have some resources that are different? Have we solved that? Absolutely not. That, to me, is going to be the biggest issue going forward: How do you make us all feel a part of the same neighborhood?"
* Williams, on the state of college athletics: “Is college athletics in a crisis or (at a) crossroads? I say both. It’s a fork in the road, and we need to figure out which way it’s going to go. The easy answer is, we don’t know the answer to it. We’re trying to get it right. The crisis is that everybody is now in our business. Congress is in our business. The courts are in our business. The media’s in our business. Everybody is in our business because it’s now their business. Any time everybody gets in your business, you have a crisis. We’re going to have change done to us if we don’t do it ourselves.”
* White, on the future of college sports: "I believe that we’ll be bigger, faster, stronger 10 years from now. I think we’ll figure it out. I have a lot of confidence in the leadership and the people that are at play at every level. We will find a way to create a better day. I think people are really earnest in providing kids a great experience. We’re all different shapes, sizes and colors. We’re not a cookie-cutter type of organization. We’ve got to stop apologizing for that, because we’re never going to be what we’re not, and that’s what makes college sports great."
