Tag Archives: athletics

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FBI investigation into college basketball

College basketball is a big-time enterprise. From the thrill of March Madness to a potential future in the NBA, money plays a major factor in college basketball. While few would be surprised to learn that the money involved leads to bad actors and rule breaking, the recent news that the FBI and Justice Department are investigating and pursuing federal charges against a host of coaches, agents, and others is shocking. I firmly believe this investigation will have far reaching consequences. In today’s post, I want to share a recently published an op-ed that I wrote in the Texas Tribune’s TribTalk that discussed what higher education should do to clean up college basketball.

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Controversy surrounding college athletics history class at UNC

As the University of North Carolina continues to seek an end of the athletics controversy that has roiled campus for more than six years, the removal of a history class on athletics from the fall schedule has raised governance questions. I argued that much of the controversy at UNC centered around governance problems at the institution and the decision to cut the athletics course has many asking if UNC still has a governance issue on campus. In today’s post, I want to discuss the facts behind the case and the relevant governance issues at play in the case.

Controversy surrounding college athletics history class at UNC

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The current controversy is focused on the class, “Big-Time College Sports and the Rights of Athletes, 1956 to the Present.” 

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Coaches make more money than the university president

Anyone who has worked at a college or university that plays high-level athletics knows the problems that come with athletics. One trend that has exploded in recent years is the dramatic growth in coaching salaries for head coaches and increasingly assistant coaches. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released data on salaries derived from data submitted by institutional reporting to the internal revenue service. The Dallas Morning News wrote an nice article examining the issue and included my views on the problem.

Photo credit: Star-Telegram
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Another university president gets fired

Baylor, Ken Starr, and a presidency derailed

The situation at Baylor University in recent months is disturbing on many levels. The university president has been fired. A winning football coach is gone as well. Too many women have faced sexual assault and the university failed to act. Beyond the horrible facts of what happened at Baylor, I see a broader trend at work here. In today’s post, I want to share a column published in TribTalk, a publication from the Texas Tribune. My research assistant, Molly Ellis, and I discuss Baylor and our research into why university presidents get fired.

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Athletics Pressures on College Presidents

As I discussed a few months ago, I’m currently conducting a study with my research assistant on the causes of why college presidents are fired or forced to resign.  There was tremendous press around this issue particularly with Holden Thorp leaving UNC following the academic and athletic crisis there.  This past weekend, Barry Jacobs, a sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer wrote a thoughtful column that I want to repost and share here.  Jacobs references our study about the causes for presidential involuntary turnover.  I thought his take and the comparison between Holden Thorp and Paul Hardin was particularly salient.  The athletics pressures on college presidents aren’t new and remain a significant problem for many universities.

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Athletics a Pressure Point for University Leaders

By Barry Jacobs

There’s no surefire way to prepare, no tutorial or textbook laying out the pitfalls and pressure points. University presidents and chancellors, the NCAA’s putative leaders, reportedly don’t even like to discuss athletics among themselves. Most will survive averting their gaze – “involuntary transitions” due to athletics scandal are surprisingly uncommon, according to a yet-to-be-published working paper on turnover among university presidents.

“The struggles with athletics may be the most prominent, but I don’t know that it’s the most threatening to a presidency, by and large,” says Michael Harris, the Southern Methodist University professor who co-authored the study. Firings and resignations, particularly at public universities, are more likely due to “loss of board confidence” and “financial improprieties.”