White House to meet with college athletics officials

Steve Berkowitz and Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports | USAToday

A meeting including Obama administration officials, NCAA executives and college athletics directors is scheduled to occur at the White House this week, according to three people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The people spoke on the condition of the anonymity because the meeting had not previously been publicized. According to those people, the meeting is expected to precede the announcement of a so-called "Coalition to Save College Sports" spearheaded by the 10 conference commissioners in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

The specific agenda for the meeting, as well of the purpose of the coalition, is still being developed. The meeting, however, is expected to cover a range of topics possibly including discussion about the prospect of a presidential commission to review the state and direction of major-college sports, as well as a campaign against sexual violence on college campuses in which the NCAA and several major conferences were partnering with the White House.

A White House official said the meeting also will cover a mentoring initiative the administration unveiled this past September. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was authorized to speak publicly.

Several participants are scheduled to discuss plans for the meeting in person in Dallas prior to Monday's College Football Playoff championship game and in advance of the NCAA convention being held near Washington this week.

NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said Sunday the association had no comment.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan previously has expressed concerns about the academic progress of college athletes. Several members of Congress in both the House and Senate have echoed those feelings, questioning the academic rigor of some athletes' coursework as well as schools' commitment on an array of athlete-welfare issues, including scholarship guarantees and health care.

Some of those issues are likely to be addressed in rules-making votes at the convention, which will be the first conducted under a Division I governance setup that allows schools from the five wealthiest conferences a significant measure of autonomy in rules-making. For example, the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pacific-12 and Southeastern Conferences have jointly sponsored – and their schools will be able to enact – rules that will expand an athletic scholarship to cover not only tuition, room, board, books and fees, but also the incidental costs of attending school.

However, a variety of university officials have expressed concern about how increased scholarship costs – and ongoing antitrust litigation related to what athletes can receive while playing college sports -- will affect their schools' ability to maintain the number of teams they now field. In an October appearance the National Press Club in Washington, U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun also expressed concern about the future of colleges' Olympic sport programs.

A presidential commission on college sports would have been created under a bill introduced toward the end of the last Congress by now-former Rep. James P. Moran, a Virginia Democrat who had announced last January that was retiring. Because of bill's timing, it was essentially symbolic, but it drew 12 co-sponsors in the House, including four Republicans.

It was the last in a series of legislative proposals related to college sports that were offered during the previous Congress, which also saw a Senate Commerce Committee in July at which NCAA President Mark Emmert was closely questioned by members from both parties, as well as a House committee hearing on efforts to unionize Northwestern University's football team.

Moran said in an interview with USA TODAY Sports on Saturday that he had discussed the idea of the presidential commission with Duncan during a meeting late this past fall and that Duncan "has a keen interest in this."

In interviews with USA TODAY prior to the 2010 and '11 NCAA Division I basketball tournaments, Duncan – who played basketball at Harvard -- proposed that teams failing to meet certain graduation-rate benchmarks should be banned from postseason play.

Moran said Saturday he has not been invited to next week's meeting, but that "I think (Obama) would be willing to establish some platform within the executive branch" to examine college sports.

"I think he can do it without asking Congress to make a heavy lift," Moran added. "I think he recognizes the import of this and the opportunity to make substantive reform with bipartisan support."

However, Moran said that getting the NCAA and its member schools to go along with the idea is critical.

"The NCAA has to buy into this," he said. "It's got to, or it's not going to work. (A commission) will not be able to impose a list of reforms without NCAA concurrence."

Moran also said that the prospect of granting some type of anti-trust protection to college sports "clearly has to be addressed. I don't think you can ignore that – in return for some reform. That has to be part of the discussion."

"AD's and university presidents are very much of a mind that (creating a commission) is the right thing to do except for (those at) the few schools that control a substantial amount of the revenue" generated by college sports, Moran said.

The schools in the five power conferences are eager for the opportunity to address a variety of issues, from essentially guaranteeing scholarships for athletes in some sports until they graduate, to concussion protocols and other health-care matters. But they want the opportunity to do this on their own terms through the new autonomy governance arrangement.