Armour: Emmert leads the way on anti-discrimination

INDIANAPOLIS – Mark Emmert, hero of the hour.

Who would ever have imagined?

The NCAA president has been a convenient target over the years, slammed as clueless, powerless or both when it comes to answering the major challenges confronting the governing body. But faced with what surely will be one of the biggest and most important issues of his tenure, Emmert has been decisive, he's been proactive and he's been resolute.

Most importantly, he's been right.

Emmert was reluctant to take credit Thursday for Indiana's decision to clarify a religious freedom law that many believed would allow for discrimination of gays and lesbians. But it is not an overstatement to say it was Emmert's quick and forceful disapproval last week, along with his not-so-veiled threat of pulling the NCAA and its events out of Indiana, that ignited the firestorm that forced lawmakers to backtrack.

"The reality that no one could offer any reassurance that this bill would not protect people from discriminatory acts based upon sexual orientation (and) gender identity was completely inconsistent with all of the things that I know the membership values," Emmert said.

"There really wasn't a reason to debate it further."

While the NCAA takes the occasional stand – it won't hold championships in South Carolina because the Confederate flag still flies at the capitol – no one will ever mistake it as an agent for change. That has been particularly true of Emmert.

Two years ago, he threw up his hands when he was peppered with questions about closing the gap between the value of a scholarship and the true cost of attendance, claiming the matter was out of his control.

Last year, with the NCAA under siege from lawsuits, players unionizing and the power conferences agitating for more power, Emmert essentially hid. Rather than hold his state of the union in its traditional Thursday time slot, it was moved to Sunday morning, guaranteeing it would be all but ignored.

But he has shown no hesitation in wading into the fray over Indiana's Religious Freedom Reform Act. Quite the opposite.

While it took the NBA two days to weigh in and the NFL has said as little as possible, the ink on Gov. Mike Pence's signature was barely dry last week when Emmert criticized the new law.

Even as Emmert expressed hope Thursday that legislators would fix it as they've promised, he warned of ramifications if they don't.

"If I believed we couldn't conduct our affairs in any place in a fashion that didn't prohibit discrimination against people for any number of reasons, then I would surely recommend that we move," Emmert said. "I hope that we don't find ourselves in that place."

This is no idle threat. The NCAA generates several hundred million dollars for the Indiana economy in direct and indirect benefits, to say nothing of the massive PR hit the state would take if the governing body left.

But this was too important of an issue to stay silent on. Whatever the intent was of Indiana lawmakers, the religious freedom bill was initially written in such a way that it could have been used to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

In 2015, discrimination against anyone, for any reason, is simply unacceptable.

We're undergoing a sea change in gay rights – polls show most Americans now support gay marriage, and it is legal in 37 states – and that is only going to continue. Decades from now, I hope we'll look back at furors such as these and wonder how we could have been so tone-deaf to basic human rights, much as we now view those antiquated laws used to justify segregation.

Emmert acknowledged as much when he noted that the NCAA has a "particularly young staff" – to say nothing of the half-million student-athletes.

"These issues for young people are very, very different than they are for old codgers like me," Emmert said.

"These are not sidebar issues for a university," Emmert said later. "These go right at the heart of who a university is and what they stand for."

Emmert's uneven tenure as president has included plenty of mixed messages. He couldn't have picked a better time, or more important topic, to make clear what he and the NCAA value.