Abolish the NCAA (cont.)

As if we needed any more evidence that the NCAA is a corrupt and destructive organization, here is the word from the horse’s mouth: comments by Walter Byers, the former long-time executive director of the NCAA, who died recently at age 93. In his New York Times obituary, Byers is described as both a creator and a destroyer — he is hailed for having “forged a moneymaking colossus” only to see the NCAA develop into a racket that Byers himself considered “corrupt and unfair.”

Some excerpts from the obit:

Mr. Byers is often given credit for coining the term student-athlete, and it’s possible he did (he was known to deflect both credit and the spotlight), although, as he put it in his 1995 memoir, “Unsportsmanlike Conduct,” “We crafted the term student-athlete, and soon it was embedded in all N.C.A.A. rules and interpretations.”

And this:

But as his tenure grew closer to its end, he viewed the college sports landscape with increasing cynicism, recognizing, he said, that the high stakes of the sports business had led to rampant corruption, made the notion of amateurism quaint and outdated, and gave an air of hypocrisy to the N.C.A.A.’s insistence on maintaining it.

In 1984 Mr. Byers told The A.P. that he believed that 30 percent of big-time college athletic programs were cheating and that he despaired of bringing the problem under control. He suggested the creation of an “open division” within the N.C.A.A., in which colleges could opt to operate their sports teams as semiprofessional programs.

“I don’t think the fabric of higher education as we believe in it and would like to see it function in this country can stand the strain of big-time intercollegiate athletics and maintain its integrity,” he said in a subsequent interview with Sports Illustrated.

former NCAA exec director Walter Byers