Nancy Armour

USA TODAY Sports

Annual address moved from Thursday to Sunday morning

Last year%27s address was contentious

College sports changing%2C and NCAA appearing slow to adapt

ARLINGTON, Texas — Rarely does a day go by without something happening that threatens the future of the NCAA.

Players unionizing. Players suing the governing body. Big conferences agitating for more power. Concussions. Doping. One-and-done. And on and on and on it goes.

The NCAA needs a strong leader now more than ever, someone with vision and backbone. So far, President Mark Emmert hasn't shown any signs of having either.

Had Emmert held his state of the union Thursday, as has been the norm for years, he would have been front and center on a day when little else was going on. He would have had the chance to change the conversation, or at least mount a vigorous defense of his organization.

Instead, he's not speaking until Sunday morning, a time slot that guarantees no one will hear a word.

The move was made to accommodate schedules, with three members of the NCAA's Board of Directors joining Emmert. Never mind that the Final Four has a fixed spot on the calendar, as established as the Fourth of July or Halloween.

That these folks couldn't — or wouldn't — clear their schedules is further proof the NCAA doesn't grasp how dire a situation it's facing. Like it or not, the collegiate athletic system is going to change — drastically. But rather than being proactive and taking the lead, Emmert and the NCAA seem content to let others dictate their fate.

That, or they're burying their heads in the sand in hopes all this will go away. I'm not sure which is more irresponsible.

There was a time when the NCAA president used his Final Four news conference to announce new initiatives or tackle contentious issues. Myles Brand will never be confused with Winston Churchill, but he used his last Final Four appearance in 2009 to announce that in addition to tracking academic progress rates by school, the NCAA would now do it by coach, too.

And when he was asked about Kentucky giving new coach John Calipari a contract that would pay him a jaw-dropping $4 million a year, Brand had harsh words for the member institutions.

"You have to ask some very hard questions, whether this is really in tune with the academic values, whether we've reached a point already that these high salary and packages for coaches has really extended beyond what's expected within the academic community," Brand said then. "Those questions really have to be asked.

"Now, we can't answer them. It's anti-trust if we were to try to regulate any salaries. But I would hope our university presidents and our conferences would ask those questions themselves."

Contrast that with Emmert's news conference last year, in which he patted himself on the back for being a reformer, then got testy when challenged about what changes he'd actually brought. Rather than using his platform to rail against NCAA members who stonewalled efforts to close the gap between the value of scholarships "student-athletes" get and the true cost of their education — an idea he'd championed, no less — he threw up his hands and said it was beyond his control.

"We'll see if that piece can be done," Emmert said. "I'm hopeful. I've been outspoken that I'd like to see that happen, but of course it's not my decision. It's up to the board. We'll have to wait and see."

And when he was asked about the many lawsuits the NCAA was facing from players and former players, he was downright flip.

"If you're not getting sued today," he said, "you're not doing anything."

Not exactly Mount Rushmore material there.

There's no question Emmert is in a tough spot. The NCAA members are an unwieldy bunch with more conflicting interests than Congress. About the only thing they agree on is that they don't want another Roger Goodell, who acts at the behest of NFL owners yet still manages to get things done.

But that's no excuse for being a lapdog.

Take a stand. Give an opinion. Find a way to make the university presidents see that the cash cow that is college athletics is going to wind up in someone else's hands if they don't find a way to adapt. Protect the "student-athletes" you claim to prize so much.

These are tough times in college athletics, and they're only going to get more challenging. The NCAA needs someone who is up to the task.

Or, at the very least, someone who's willing to show his face when people are paying attention, rather than when it's convenient.