NYT write-up on a proposed NCAA measure that would give more autonomy to the five biggest athletics conferences, of which (need I say it) the ACC is one:
“It will simply raise the stakes, raise the salaries, raise the expenditures, raise the professionalism, and ultimately we will have more barbells and dumbbells,” said Gerry Gurney, the president of the Drake Group, which pushes for educational reform in college athletics.
Some estimates suggest the new rules will usher in as much as $5 million in new spending on sports, depending on the university.
“This move will take us farther away from any semblance of these athletes being students,” said Gurney, an assistant professor and former athletic executive at Oklahoma — a member of the Big 12, which will be subject to the new rules.
Rice University president David Leebron said he “hopes more benefits will trickle down into the hands of student-athletes,” adding that he agreed with Wake Forest University president and NCAA board chair Nathan Hatch that “the new system combines ‘principle, precedent and some element of politics’ in answering critics of the NCAA while maintaining the organization’s amateurism rules.”
