What a bizarre rent. The dumpster-fire group often known as the NCAA needed to make the correct transfer in naming its subsequent president. Mark Emmert’s tenure left the NCAA a multitude so unhealthy folks questioned why the group even existed within the first place. To repair all the problems at hand, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is on the job. The Republican chief of one of many bluest states in America will depart the political spectrum (kind of) and head to Indianapolis to be the czar of faculty athletics.
Baker, who has by no means labored at a school or in training in any respect, will begin his time period because the NCAA’s sixth president in March, inheriting the group that horribly mismanaged the college basketball bribery scandal, whereas having basketball be what drives most of the group’s income. There are a plethora of different points the NCAA will face within the coming years together with the implementation of name, image, and likeness, the inevitable formation of tremendous conferences in addition to whether or not the NCAA ought to stop to exist in any respect.
To steer that endeavor somebody whose strengths haven’t confirmed to be in sports activities, enterprise or training, and who doesn’t seem to have robust connections with school athletics in any respect, is the person to do it. Baker’s an odd, unconventional rent — an outsider to say the least. The NCAA zigged when it may’ve zagged. And in a number of years, it would’ve been the precise proper transfer. There’s motive to consider this actual serpentine wasn’t the correct route, particularly if the group wished to plaster an anti-Emmert rent. There may be an extremely low bar for Baker to look higher than his predecessor, however being a non-traditional candidate is a dangerous transfer.
Let’s state the plain right here. The hypothesis of who the following NCAA president was going to be wasn’t like hiring a soccer or basketball coach. The large hypothesis of up-and-coming coaches who deserve their probability with a big-time alternative was by no means going to be the trajectory of how this performs out. This was by no means going to be Brian Kelly spurning Notre Dame for LSU. Appointing somebody who turns into the brand new face of blame got here together with the search, evidenced by this quote on the transfer portal at his introductory press convention: “I believe the switch portal is one factor of an entire collection of components that must be a part of the dialog going ahead.”
Possibly he’s good for the position, as a result of I don’t know what which means. Baker had no less than 24 hours to prep a solution to an apparent query he’ll get and that was a spectacular politically acquainted nothing-burger. Two all beef patties, particular sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun maintain one all beef patty, particular sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. It’s a singular piece of thriller meat, simply as meant. Not precisely the assuaging of murkiness you’d hope for in a post-Emmert NCAA.
The place I believed the rent was going was inside school athletics itself, somebody with a ton of enterprise expertise and experience on how you can handle an uncountable variety of initiatives without delay. That somebody who understands the scope of the job and wouldn’t thoughts admitting operating school athletics isn’t a one-person job. I’d need a Brett Yormark-type rent, who would’ve been nice if he wasn’t employed as Massive 12 Commissioner. The expertise of working at Brooklyn Sports activities & Leisure in addition to Roc Nation would have served him fantastically. Heck, to serve the better good, having the Massive 12 discover a new chief isn’t an inconceivable possibility. Somebody with phenomenal enterprise expertise would’ve been too easy. Baker must spend a while in Washington throughout his tenure due to Congress’ involvement with the group over the previous couple of years. However power in having associates within the nation’s capital shouldn’t have been sufficient to place him excessive for this rent.
The mind-boggling factor about Gov. Baker’s rent is that I’m unsure of his imaginative and prescient to vary issues for the higher. He deserves time to show it, however this might find yourself being more of the same from the NCAA. With the flexibility to select a candidate from such a variety of backgrounds, going pure political science, with no observe document of sports activities or training, is a questionable choice from the governing physique of faculty athletics that loves the phrase student-athletes. Baker’s not liable for this mess. His mop alone received’t cowl this spill.
