Keeping Faith: Letter of Transmittal

Keeping Faith with the Student-Athlete: A New Model for Intercollegiate Athletics

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• Letter of Transmittal
• Introduction
• Reform
• A New Model
• Putting Principles into Action
• Principles for Action
• Appendix A: Acknowledgements
• Appendix B: Meeting Particpants
• Download a PDF of this publication

Letter of Transmittal

Mr. Lee Hills, Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees, Knight Foundation, Miami, Florida 33131

Dear Mr. Hills,

On October 19, 1989, the Trustees of Knight Foundation created this Commission and directed it to propose a reform agenda for intercollegiate athletics. In doing so, they expressed concern that abuses in athletics had reached proportions threatening the very integrity of higher education, which is one of the principal program interests of the Foundation.

It has been our privilege to co-chair this endeavor and on behalf of the members of the Commission we are pleased to transmit this report, Keeping Faith with the Student-Athlete: A New Model for Intercollegiate Athletics.

In developing its recommendations, the Commission spent more than a year in study and debate, and benefited from the advice and suggestions of more than 80 experts. During a series of public meetings, we heard from athletics administrators, coaches, student-athletes, scholars, journalists, leaders of professional leagues and others.

The demanding task of monitoring college sports is made all the more difficult today by a confluence of new factors. These include the perception that ethical behavior in the larger society has broken down, the public’s insistence on winning local teams, and the growth of television combined with the demand for sports programming, Clearly, universities have not immunized themselves from these developments.

We sense that public concern about abuse is growing. The public appears ready to believe that many institutions achieve goals not through the honest effort but through equivocation, not by hard work and sacrifice but by hook or by crook. If the public’s perception is correct, both the educational aims of athletics and the institutions’ integrity are called into question.

We have attempted to define the problems as we understand them and to suggest solutions, not search for scapegoats. This report addresses what we consider to be the main issues and does not attempt to treat subordinate matters in any detail. Even in respect to what we see as the major issues, we place less emphasis on specific solutions than on proposing a structure through which these issues—and others arising in the future—can be addressed by the responsible administrators.

The first section introduces the core of our interest: the place of athletics on our campuses and the imperative to place the well-being of the student-athlete at the forefront of our concerns. The second section presents our recommendations. It outlines a new structure for intercollegiate athletics in which the well-being of student-athletes, our overarching goal, is attained by what we call the “one-plus-three” model—presidential control directed toward academic integrity, financial integrity, and independent certification. The third section calls for a nationwide effort, growing from our campuses outward, to put the “one-plus-three” model into effect and suggests appropriate roles for each of the major groups on campus.

The members of the Commission were straightforward in their discussions and are candid in this report regarding both the strengths and the weaknesses of intercollegiate athletics. Although individual members of the Commission may have reservations about the details of some of these recommendations, they are unanimous in their support of the broad themes outlined in this document.

The commission’s commitment to the reform of college sport does not end with this report. We will follow through. We plan to monitor the progress in implementing the “one-plusthree” model. In twelve months we will revisit these issues and define what remains to be accomplished.

On a personal note, we want to express our deep sadness on learning, as this document went to press, of the death of a man who played a pivotal role in establishing the Commission, James L. Knight, Chairman of the Knight Foundation. We speak for the entire Commission in expressing our sympathy and our hope that this report keeps faith with Mr. Knight’s vision of what intercollegiate sport can be at its best.

Respectfully,

William C. Friday, Co-Chairman, President, William R. Kenan Jr. Fund
Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Co-Chairman, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame