During a City Club of Chicago address on Monday, NCAA President Mark Emmert discussed the need for his organization to reform how it protects student-athletes and prepares them for careers on and off the playing field.
Emmert explained that although the NCAA has frequently been compared to the NFL and NBA in recent debates, his organization is actually “starkly different” from those professional leagues. One major contrast the NCAA president pointed to: the NFL has 32 teams comprised of 53 players each for a total of about 1,700 athletes while the NCAA contains approximately 19,000 college teams made of up 470,000 students from 1,100 colleges and universities.
And even though some perceive most NCAA sports programs to be profitable enterprises, Emmert stated that only 22 of the NCAA’s 1,100 colleges and universities reported a positive cash flow from their sports teams.
Emmert told the City Club audience that the NCAA’s primary mission is to help students transition into the workforce after college, and he acknowledged that there needs to be a change in the relationship between schools and student-athletes. But he explained that reforms have to take into account the fact that a very small fraction of the NCAA’s 470,000 student-athletes, “probably one half of a percent,” would go on to play professional sports after college.
The NCAA president said implementing reforms that ensure student-athletes receive proper medical care during and after their college careers is an important step. Emmert hopes to ensure colleges and universities adopt proper practices for treating and preventing injuries, including concussions. He also said more needs to be done to address mental health issues because students are “showing up on campus with more stress and strain on them than probably ever before.”
Emmert emphasized the need for universities to provide student-athletes with an education that prepares them for life after college sports. “Our goal is to have them finish a degree. It’s not about having four years of eligibility or five years of eligibility,” he said.
To that end, some universities are beginning to explore post-eligibility scholarships, which allow athletes to come back to college and finish their degree even after they are no longer eligible to play sports.
“We’ve got to make sure that student athletes have all the things they need to be successful academically, athletically and in life,” Emmert said.
-Katie Cliff