Big 12's Bob Bowlsby: Action plan for reformed NCAA in the works

OKLAHOMA CITY — The final decision on increased power for the NCAA's most prominent conferences won't come until August. But the "Big Five" are already working to define what they'll do with it once they get it.

"Fast-forwarding is exactly what we're doing," said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who told Paste BN Sports he is confident the proposal for increased autonomy will pass and that the conversation in his league, as well as the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC, has largely shifted from broad philosophy to more specific details in an attempt to hit the ground running. "We want to make sure that when the enabling legislation is put in place, that we are prepared not only to articulate but act upon an agenda that will be reflective of a new covenant with our student-athletes."

Presidents of the Pac-12 schools sent a letter last week to their counterparts in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, outlining items for change. Most were already a part of the power conferences' collective wish list, broadly outlined in a "vision document" compiled a few months ago. But the Pac-12's letter, first reported by The Associated Press, served in part as a snapshot of a complicated agenda for change that is being formulated, Bowlsby said, with a sense of urgency.

In April, the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors endorsed a draft proposal for change, created by a steering committee composed of presidents, that would give the 65 schools in the Big Five conferences the ability to provide athletes with unprecedented benefits and resources. A comment period for feedback runs through late June. But as the Big 12 conducts its annual business meeting next week – and as other leagues have done or will do the same – much of the discussion will focus on "fleshing out the nuts and bolts," Bowlsby said, "of, 'What are we going to do? What is the early agenda and what are we going to do?"

The Pac-12's letter included a call for full cost-of-attendance scholarships, continuing education and medical care and a decreasing of time commitments and demands placed on athletes, both in and out of season.

"All of those things have been around for a long time, but none of them are fleshed out to the point to where we could say, 'This is the proposal we're going to advance,' " Bowlsby said.

Bowlsby said he remains confident the Big Five will get their way – including the reduction of a proposed supermajority requirement to enact legislation – when the board of directors votes on the final proposal in August. On Wednesday, Boise State president Bob Kustra released a four-page letter to media outlets that criticized the push for NCAA reform as an attempt "to create a plutocracy" and accused the Big Five commissioners, rather than university presidents, of "calling the shots" while pulling away from the NCAA's long-held ideal of attempting to create a level playing field.

Bowlsby said he hadn't read the entire letter, but said: "There seemed to be plenty of bluster in there."

Bowlsby is perhaps uniquely positioned, at least among the commissioners, to respond to Kustra. His career path included seven years as the athletic director at Northern Iowa, 15 at Iowa and six at Stanford. He served on the NCAA's Basketball Committee, and called the concept of a level playing field "largely a mirage."

"We've tried to legislate competitive equity and it really has never existed," he said. "We win more than 90 percent of the national championships in those 65 schools, and it's been that way for a very long time. That's not to say they're not doing great things at a lot of those other universities. We just have to, on this occasion, vote an enlightened self-interest."

Bowlsby reiterated, as have his peers at various times over the last year, that the Big Five conferences have attempted to make changes while remaining within the existing Division I umbrella rather than "much more draconian approaches" like creating a separate subdivision or a complete breakaway from the NCAA. As for Kustra's assertion that the changes are being driven by the Big Five commissioners rather than school presidents?

"The steering committee has been driven by presidents," Bowlsby said. "The discussion in my conference and the other conferences is being driven by presidents. I just think our presidents disagree with his position."

The Pac-12 presidents' letter included a call to expand the role of athletes in NCAA governance; to adjust rules regarding athletes' relationships with agents; to loosen transfer rules; to further strengthen current Academic Progress Rate requirements that were increased this year; and to examine the "one-and-done" issue in men's basketball, with a possible remedy an exploration of making freshmen ineligible to play.

Bowlsby said the Big 12 would discuss at its meetings whether to propose additional items, including: consideration of limiting sports to a single semester; expanding the Pac-12's call to consider whether freshman ineligibility should be reinstated in every sport; and a complete reexamination of recruiting.

The underlying message: The Big Five conferences have moved beyond whether increased autonomy should or will happen – Kustra's topic – to what they'll do once they have it.

"I feel I've worked very effectively with people from all size universities and really respect colleagues at all levels of Division I," Bowlsby said. "But we have critical issues – we being the five conferences – that need to be dealt with, and they aren't the same issues as those that are hot topics for the rest of Division I. … We're at a juncture where we need to do what is right for the five conferences and 65 schools and the thousands of student athletes that are really the faces of college athletics. … Some of the changes we need to make are too important not to get right."