A Call to Action: Letter of transmittal A Call to Action: Reconnecting College Sports and High

A Call to Action: Reconnecting College Sports and Higher Education

• A Call to Action: Letter of transmittal
• A Call to Action: Foreword
• A Call to Action: Ten Years Later
• A Call to Action: A Call to Action
• A Call to Action: Appendix A: Additional Issues for Consideration
• A Call to Action: Appendix B: Action on Knight Commission Recommendations of March 1991
• A Call to Action: Appendix C: Meeting Participants
• A Call to Action: Appendix D: Acknowledgments
• A Call to Action: Appendix E: Statement of Principles

Letter of transmittal

Dear Dr. Austen:

With the approval of your board, the Knight Commission reconvened last year for a fresh look at what has happened in college athletics since our three reports were published in the early 1990s. After a series of meetings with not only a broad range of sports representatives but higher education leaders as well, we are pleased to submit our findings and recommendations.

Our earlier reports, as you know, proposed a new "one-plus-three" model for intercollegiate athletics - presidential control directed toward academic integrity, financial integrity, and independent certification of athletics programs - and urged its implementation by the NCAA.

The Commission now finds that the NCAA has made considerable progress toward achieving the goals the Commission laid out in its earlier reports. Many reform efforts have been undertaken with sincerity and energy. It is clear, however, that good intentions and the reform measures of recent years have not been enough.

We find that the problems of big-time college sports have grown rather than diminished. The most glaring elements of the problems outlined in this report - academic transgressions, a financial arms race, and commercialization - are all evidence of the widening chasm between higher education's ideals and big-time college sports.

Clearly, more NCAA rules are not the means to restoring the balance between athletics and academics on our nation's campuses. Instead, the Commission proposes a new "one-plus-three" model for these new times - a Coalition of Presidents, directed toward an agenda of academic reform, de-escalation of the athletics arms race, and de-emphasis of the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics.

Although individual members of the Commission may have reservations about some of the details of this agenda, we are unanimous in our support of the broad themes outlined in this document.

Given the enormous scope of this reform effort, the Commission recognizes that change will have to be accomplished in a series of steps over time. The hard work must be accomplished by a concerted grass-roots effort by the broader academic community - in concert with trustees, administrators and faculty. Nothing less than such a collective effort can accomplish the reintegration of college sports into the moral and institutional culture of the university.

Despite widespread cynicism, the Commission remains hopeful. Several positive developments have emerged in the year since the Commission reconvened. Among them: The University of Nebraska Board of Regents adopted a resolution urging national limits on athletic program expenditures; a state of Washington ethics board has disallowed a direct contract between Nike and the University of Washington's football coach for performing what the board considered state business; and to date seven of the Pacific-10 Conference faculty senates have adopted a resolution urging their presidents to curb commercialization and the athletics arms race and to bring about academic reforms.

Perhaps most encouraging are plans for a meeting scheduled immediately following the release of this report. Presidents from colleges and universities in several Division I-A conferences will meet with conference and NCAA officials and leaders of higher education associations to discuss the ongoing reform of intercollegiate athletics. This is the kind of collective approach needed to correct the problems identified in this report.

We wish to express our profound gratitude to the Knight Foundation trustees for their long and steady commitment to creating a new climate for intercollegiate athletics. Knight Foundation has been an invaluable partner in working to move college sports into the mainstream of American higher education.

Assuming the Coalition of Presidents or some similar body is established by the higher education community, we see no reason to continue the life of the Knight Commission as it is now constituted. We do recommend, however, that the Foundation consider two ways in which it could make a significant contribution to the critical work that lies ahead. One would be to help fund the Coalition with matching grants to the American Council on Education, based on performance. The other would be to establish, perhaps with other foundations and the Association of Governing Boards, a separate and independent body - an Institute for Intercollegiate Athletics. The Commission envisions the Institute not as an action agency but as a watchdog to maintain pressure for change. It should keep the problems of college sports visible, provide moral leadership in defense of educational integrity, monitor progress toward reform goals, and issue periodic report cards.

Such steps can complement the work of college and university presidents but not substitute for it. In the final analysis, it is the higher education community that must finish the task. If not, it is not the integrity of intercollegiate sports that will be held up to question, but the integrity of higher education itself.

Respectfully,