not only college sports inspired incredible fan passion all across the country, but they've provided a very important way for young men and women to, as is written, both through

athletics, as navigation and get an education. we're going talk about that today. many young people, however, athletics has provided an avenue to college that otherwise would not have existed. and it's important to understand that. college athletes and athletics are rooted in the notion of amateurism. and the history of that is very interesting and important, going back to the founding of ncaa, 1996, and going back, actually, to the greeks' concept of amateurism. playing college sports is supposed to be an add vocation. students play for the love of the game, not the love of money. many people believe this notion of college sports is being undermined by the power and the influence of money. i remember a meeting i had in my office with the three top executives of espn. and it was one of those meetings in which i didn't say a word,

because they just went around in circles. each talking about what a great business model they had, how they had control and the power that no other broadcast system, whatever, have. how thrilled they were with it. and how they were going to make it even stronger. there's a growing perception that college athletics, particularly division i football and basketball are notwoke indications at all. critics of big-time athletics say the goal is not to provide young people with a college education, but to produce a winning program that reached financial readers for the athletic departments and their schools. it is not, however, about the

students. they're part of what generates the money. it's about capturing the billions of dollars of television and marketing revenues that college sports do generate. and will generate even more. colleges and universities say that these refuses benefit college athletes and their student bodies at large. but i think we have to consider whether the lure of such riches could corrupt the basic mission of athletic programs. winning teams get higher payouts than losing teams which creates a strong incentive to win. an incentive which land grant public universities and others are more than happy to follow and win at any cost. much of the money is often funneled right back into the sports programs in the form of multimillion-dollar coaching facilities and state of the art

facilities many of it paid for by the taxpayerses to perpetuate the cycle of winning. i think somewhere in my reading here, about $48 million of all the $900 million that ncaa gets from, you know, their broadcasting, march madness and all the rest of it, a very small portion goes specifically to academics. but even that's hard to figure. because nobody has the figures. mr. emmert works for them. they make the decisions. he carries out what they want. and, yet, the subject of discussion is how does he carry out what they want. what powers do-z -- do you have, mr. emmert, for actually carrying out what you think is a good idea. you're the president of three major university, different places, then i would think your

passion for education would need to show itself. athletics, to me, are meant to serve schools and their public duty to educate students. not the other way around. that's the way it's always put forward. and that's the way it should always be. dr. mark emmert is here to present the perspective of the colleges and universities that belong to the ncaa. i would thank you for testifying. you could have declined to do so, some do, but you didn't, and i'm grateful for that. i believe you were put at the helm of the ncaa because you have an impressive academic credentials and a sterling reputation. and i think that we all appreciate that you're extremely well compensated. your individual qualities are not what trouble me. i think i'm just very skeptical that the ncaa can never lift up to the lofty mission that you constantly talk about and which is written and printed in

speeches and statements response to penn state this or that. nothing comes before education, he's always there, but the actions don't appear to be. i don't see how the ncaa will ever be capable of making a safe, good, education experience for students their number one priority. i want you to tell me that i'm wrong. that i am wrong and that i'm particularly wrong about the future. but i'll be a tough sale. i think we believe that the ncaa has largely been left to its own, to determine what forms are appropriate. and how to accomplish our mission, as we continue to learn more about what goes on at some major universities and colleges, we want to know if the ncaa is seriously considering how college athletes are faring

under this system. not just living, as they do, but injured as they often become. racked by poverty. if they don't do well, maybe they're stipends are cut off. and is there an advantage in a mandated four-year scholarship. all of these things are put at play. how are young men who strap on their helmets on a football field in front of 100,000 passionate paying customers, how are they doing? how are young men who lace up their shoes and play basketball for march madness that consumes the nation, and deliberately spread out over a long period of time so no kid, 12 years or 10 years or older could ever hope to do any homework because there's always basketball on. are colleges and universities living up to their end of the

bargain in providing them with a good education? are these young athletes entitled to any of the billions of dollars that are reaped from their athletic service. and when young men and women put their bodies at work, whether women's lacrosse or men's soccer, do they have adequate health insurance? i don't know. i don't know. and i never go into a restaurant or barber shop or anything without asking sometimes to their discomfort, do you have health care? and i know what the answer is going to be. dot schools and athletic leagues sufficiently minimize the risk of concussion? and what happens to a student injured before graduation, can he or she finish out their studies. or does the scholarship run dry?

well, a couple of months ago, we all heard the deeply troubling comments shabazz napier the talented university of connecticut guard who was very valuable in the basketball tournament in the midst of a tournament that generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the ncaa and its members. mr. napier talking about how sometimes he did not have enough to eat during college. how did college sports benefit mr. napier on nights he went to bed hungry. you can look at it two ways. oh, there he is trying to pick out a famous athlete and turn it into some problem. i'm not trying to do that. i think it is a problem. and the whole sense of giving students a safety net, and a sense of confidence, if they're not, they don't turn out to be as good, and they don't make the team. the third year, are they

dropped, do they get scholarships or what happens? i don't know. the title of today's hearing is promoting the well-being and success of college athletes. i want to have an open-minded and frank discussion on this subject. the ncaa has the same goal as i do. dr. emmert is going to tell us that the ncaa's commission is to protect college athletes from abusive practices and exploitation. and promote college sports as a means towards achieving academy excellence. today, i want to explore whether the ncaa is fulfilling its mission. we still hear too many reports of fraudulent academics. we still hear stories for athletes who have nothing to show even though they provided millions and millions of dollars. i'm here to tell you, and if

perchance, the clem cats should control the congress next time. and nobody is quite sure about that, john thune has one idea. bill nelson has another idea and -- you, yeah, okay. and that i think that we want to continue this. we want to make this a continuing surge of this oversight committee. we have jurisdiction over sports. all sports. and we have the ability to subpoena. we have the ability to -- we've created a special investigations unit. we're very into this subject. i personally am. i think our members are. and so, this is the part of the process here. so, i'm going to have some tough questions for our panel. the ncaa and its member schools, is it simple a little legal

cartel, have college sports become a multibillion dollar commercial enterprise which is no different than other corporate witnesses who have appeared before this information? and is the ncaa in fact have the best interests of college athletes. large questions and important to be answered. i turn now to my very distinguished ranking member, senator john thune from the state of minnesota. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for holding the hearing today. i want to thank our panelists for the opportunity to examine the current state of collegiate athletics. like you look forward to hearing from our witnesses including how the ncaa and its member commissions are fulfilling that. i'm an avid sports fan. i know others are as well. as a former basketball player high school and college and the

proud father of a daughter who competed at the division i level, i certainly recognize that the participation in sports requires not only physical strength but teaches team work and other skills that serve you throughout life. however, the college and student athlete is and should be a student first. colleges must prioritize their academy obligation to student athletes. as the popularity of sports has grown in men's and women's basketball so, too, has the profitability of many collegiate programs. in the current environment, the stakes have been raised for the athlete who wants to succeed and a university that has a financial interest in winning games. increasing revenues to some schools due in large part to the broadcast rights of football and basketball games have become more common. revenues for ticket sales are also significant.

and of course, alumni n krrcaa s to promote athletics and higher education so the academics of the student athlete is paramount, however, college sports, some institutions appear unable to balance the core academic mission of the university and the commercial considerations that often accompany athletics, plarlg in high-profile sports. many feel the commitment to the student athlete is falling short. another point of contention involved athletic scholarships and whether the practice of offering annual instead of multi-year contracts result in the student possibly losing their scholarship. they may disadvantage smaller schools that can't match the resources of larger institutions. clearly, collegiate athletics in america are not without controversy, and we'll hear from

some of the most vocal critics today. i hope we will not lose sight of the positive impact that amateur athletics has made on the lives of countless student athlets. it's not just about basketball and football. they shared the results of a student athlete exit interviews he conducts annually to conduct the school's program from the vantage point of the athletes themselves. he underscored two things that stood out. the athletic director at usd reiterated how a sophomore diver recovered from open-heart surgery to qualify to dive at the ncaa championships, the feat that would not be available without the support of the coaches, team, and family. he also animated the story of a sophomore swimmer who leaned on

other athletes to support her in the loss of her father. she was able to return to the pool and she went to the summer championships. as a usd athletic director puts it, these two are just a sample of what college athletics should mean. if you strip away the money, fancy locker rooms, chartered flights and large budgets, you're left with student athletes who often have to overcome personal, social, economic, academic, and athletic adversity, all just to compete. but they frequently do it with passion and determination that makes us all proud, end quote. that's from the athletic director at the university of south dakota. recognizing the challenges exist, it's my hope the ncaa, its member institutions, the student athletes themselves and other stakeholders will seek solutions that promote the education, health, and well being of student athletes and seek to preserve amateurism in student athletics. this is an area where congress can provide a forum, but the

solutions are most likely to come from those involved in the development of the student athletes. thank you again for holding the hearing. i look forward to hearing and having an opportunity to question the witnesses. >> thank you, sir. what we're going to do now is we're going to hear the testimony. and then both senator mccaskill and senator booker, both of whom are sterling and wonderful people, are going to get very, very angry at me. because i'm going to charge into the regular order and i'm going to allow senator koets to ask the first question, which violates all the rules of the committee. >> i'm mad. >> that will make you a better questioner. >> as the most junior member on the committee, the senate rules do not allow me to be mad at you, chairman. >> and for what it's worth, i was of the impression also that we were on the first to arrive

and ask questions in order. so i arrived add 2:10 just so i could be first. because i didn't want to put you in a bad spot or breach the rules. >> you never do, and you're wonderful, so you'll ask the first questions after the two of us. >> and thank you for being here. and don't be nervous. >> okay. >> i mean it. it's a wonderful opportunity to say what's in your heart and on your mind. >> yes, sir. first, i want to thank you you and the committee for inviting me here today. to share some of my experience and knowledge on this very important subject. very complicated subject as well. i have had many conversations with fellow student athletes on this issue. about the current role of student athletes today. in this giant scheme of collegiate athletics, and we often walk away from those conversations with more questions than answers, so i'm hoping today is a first step

towards answering some of those questions and providing some context and clarity to this discussion so that we can see our student athletes receive maximum edification in all aspects of their person, be it a student, an athlete, a leader, and a man and a woman. that's very important to me. i wanted to start my remarks by beginning at the genesis of my story. my parents are from the island of the bahamas. my brothers are as well. i was born here in the states and raised in new jersey. i went to high school in princeton, new jersey, and after my school days in princeton, i would go to the university, and i saw this big statue, poster of this guy who became my hero, bill bradley. he was a rock star in my opinion. the epitome of what a student athlete should be. nba hall of famer, u.s. senator, and a rhodes scholar. the first time i heard those two words, rhodes scholar used in

the same sentence. once i fijsed high school in princeton, i had 83 scholarship offers to go anywhere i wanted to, and i was rated the number one high school prospect in the country. i decided to go to florida state. the first thing i did was going to the office of national fellowships and told them i wanted to be a rhodes scholar like my hero, bill bradley. if he did it, i wanted to do it as well. three years later, i was fortunate to earn that scholarship. then i want to see my teachers and mentors and told you i want to increase my capital so one day i can be a pediatric nurse lie ben carson. now hopefully i'll be able to do that in the future. lastly, i went to my strength coaches and my trainers, and i told them i wanted them to equip my body and get me ready for a career as a national football player. fortunately, i was able to be drafted by the titans and play for the steelers as well. it makes not only my story is pristine and ideal and maybe

used as a poster child for what you want a collegiate student athlete to have experienced, but i will say that my story is quite rare and unique, and some people even call it an anomaly because outside of senator cory booker, the last major division i player to earn the scholarship was a rams quarterback. there are very few student athlete who had the same infrastructure, the family support, the foresight not come from a broken school system in high school, not come from a broken family, were able to engage in their college experience and maximize their time. many more of my teammates and friends and student athletes struggled in the college environment, struggled mightily, struggled economically because they became believe it or not, the main bread winners for their families and with vd to send some of their scholarship money to take care of their immediate

and extended family. they also struggled academically as well. a lot would go through this academic machinery in their cleeb colleges and be spit out at the end left, torn, worn, and asking questions. with really no direction, no guidance on where to go, no purpose, no idea of their trajectory and sometimes left with a degree in hand that didn't behoove any of their future interests. today, i hope today we can shed light on this aspect. as you said, chairman, we're really pouring energy and life and money and exposure and highlighting on tv the life of the athlete. but i believe we're still falling a bit short of edifying and improving, augmenting the aspect of the students, the person, the man, the woman, and even the philanthropist and leader. i believe if we can do that, if we can not only see our student athletes go on to become productive athletes in the preflsh rinks, but more importantly, be productive leaders and citizens who go on

to be leaders of industry, of man, of woman, and have an indelible impact as they go on with their future. thank you for having me here. i'm looking forward to having this discussion. >> thank you very much. now, welcome. devon, right? >> good afternoon, chairman. yes. good afternoon, chairman rockefeller and members of the committee. it's an honor and a pleasure to have this opportunity to be in your presence and share my story and thoughts on the current state of college athletics. let me first thank you and your staff for your invitation. i was born to sharon and darren on december 8th, 1988. in new jersey. my mother always valued a strong education and sent me to a blue ribbon winner school that covered kindergarten through eighth grade. i excelled in the classroom and participated in athletics. by the time it was time for me to leave, i had the opportunity to go to a school right down the

road in princeton that played against myron. i decided this would be the best academic and athletic environment for me. i will go on to a successful academic and athletic career, graduating in 2007 and i decided to sign my letter of intent to go to the university of north carolina at chapel hill. what drew me to that school was not only its esteemed reputation as a top academic institution but also as a nigh hire of the new head coach butch davis. it showed the university had an all-around commitment to excellence. my career at the university of north carolina has been one filled with adversity. i have undergone five surgeries, been through three head coaches, and been asked if i wanted to transfer or if i wanted to take a medical red shirt. however, despite all this, i managed to succeed being named an offensive starter four out of the six years and my nfl draft

analyst, mel kiper, named me top three in my position. but most importantly, i got my degree in public policy with a concentrate in business. as a graduate, i moved back to red bank, where i would pursue my hopes of making an nfl team. however, i didn't make the team at tampa bay. now, in the summer of 2010, twof my teammates have violated ncaa rules and attended a party throw my sports agents. the university of north carolina then launched their own investigation into the matter, and discovered several potential counts of academic fraud. after a final practice of the week before we played clemson, i was told to report to one of the conference rooms and brought in for questioning by university officials. before the questioning began, i was told this conversation would be recorded and it was asked if i needed a lawyer. i thought i had been called in there to see if they could find any more leads for their

investigation. then they asked -- they began to ask me about my definition of academic fraud, academic dishonesty and plagiarism. that's when they brought up a 2-year-old e-mail correspondence between myself and a tutor. in the said e-mail, i asked the university's tutor for help with grammar and overall quality in the paper. she replied by adding four to five sentences to a two and a half page paper. they asked me if this paper, if it was the exact same paper i turned in. however, i couldn't remember since it was two years ago. in the follower four weeks, i was held out of competition, they sent me to the university's honor court and the attorney general of the honor court said there was no case here, there wasn't enough evidence, they had no final version of the paper, it wasn't submitted electronically, and most people don't keep papers from two years ago. as i was being held out by unc, an official from the compliance

office proposed if i were to be believed guilty after being held out for so many games, that the ncaa would in fact allow me to play. at this tiement, i believed the unc's compliance was well versed in ncaa policy. however, it was a shocking blow when they then ruled me guilty of academic fraud which stripped away my remaining eligibility and tarnished my reputation. after coming to the realization that unc was more concerned with penalties and lawsuits than scholarships than protecting one of its own, my mother and i set out to find lawyers who would hopefully have my best interests at heart. however, none wanted to stand against the ncaa nor its membership. fortunately for me, a state supreme court judge reached out to my mother after reading an article she had been involved with in news observer. without the judge's legal knowledge and tenacity, i would have no one it turn to. as we went to the appeals

process, which was possible with the endorsement of the university of north carolina, the leadership at unc once again wanted me to take a plea for a sentence, however, the judge, my mother, and i needed to have my name unsullied. by going back and looking at the original interview, reviewing a lack of evidence and disregarding the guided testimony, the ncaa overturned its ruling and reinstated my eligibility. unfortunately, the first game of the next season, i tore three ligaments in my knee. i wasn't able to return to the final game of the season. now, one of the things that was, looking back at my career, that i wish i could have par taken in, was intermships. a few of my friends from laurenville went on to play at the ivy league, and with the their -- it's not as demanding as, you know, high level division i football, they were

allowed to go and pursue other things in the summer. and upon graduation, some of my friends got great job offers. an internship gives you direction, teaches you valuable life lessons and prepares for you professionalism. a competitive football school, competing an internship is almost impossible. one must be enrolled in a number of credit offers. i have seen fellow athletes get hours, most ended up quitting their internship because of the sheer level of exhaustion on any given day. only one was able to compete his internship because he wasn't required to go to any classes. at the university of north carolina, football players were one of the only teams not allowed to participate in university camps that would create another source of income. in fact, during a panel

discussion about the documentary school, the price of college sports, head coach of the george mason men's basketball team, paul hewitt, stated his team has to do an internship before they graduate, a mandatory one. i think this is a great practice. if the ncaa truly wants to develop student athletes and prepare them for success in the field, they should mandate that all athletes complete an internship. the reason is it needs to be mandated is because of the existing culture that demonizes any activity that won't directly help a program. players that go home for a semester, and i have friends who have done this, are labeled as selfish and lazy and almost a cancer to the team. but in fact, he's just going home, he's still working out, just trying to improve his own value for the likelihood he's not going to make the nfl. i have come to realize there's a void in college athletics. the incaa as an institution no

longer protects the athlete. they're more interested in signage and profits. i wasn't aware that i needed to defend myself against my university and the ncaa, and as a student, i lacked the resources and knowledge to defend myself. against an 80-year-old institution. my family lacked the resources to hire a lawyer, and if i refused to be interviewed i would have been held out until i testified. in the ncaa, college football players have a very small window of opportunity to prove our worth to the nfl. therefore, every game you miss is a lost opportunity, and a means to devalue worth. there needs to exist an entity that quickly works to help the student. it terrifies me how many students might have had their eligibility unjustly taken and the reputation damaged. the student athlete has a short career and is an amazing renewable resource, and because of that, the ncaa is able to

take advantage of naive young men and women. there needs to be an organization that will in fact protect that college athlete that has no ties to the financial being of the universities or the ncaa. allowing the ncaa to continue to intimidate schools and athletes is dangerous and unfair. to quote a famous poet, who will watch the watchmen. thank you for the opportunity to be before you today. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it a lot. mr. taylor branch is from baltimore. he's an author and historian and has written one of what i call five best books ever written in terms of my own reading preferences. about the civil rights movement and the development of it. and he's also an expert on this subject and has written extensively. we welcome you, sir. >> thank you. thank you, senator rockefeller, thank you, senator thune. thank you, members of the committee. guests, sports fans, educators.

i'm honored to be here. a subject for your hearing today, college sports and the wellbeing of college athletes, is full of minefields and myths. i hope to offer some summary comments for a possible discussion under three headings, amateurism, balance, and equity. amateurism has become a distinguishing feature of ncaa governance. it is identified an official pronouncement as the bedrock principal of college athletics. the ncaa bylaws define and mandate amateur conduct as follows. student athletes shall be amateurs in an intercollegiate sport and their participation should be motivated primarily by education and by the physical, mental, and social benefits to be derived. student participation in intercollegiate athletics is an avocation, and student athletes should be protected from

exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises, close quote. that's ncaa bylaw 2.9. the word amateur reflects conflicted attitudes about money, youth, and the purposes of recreation. its broad ambivalence has opened a muddled flexibility in public habits, allowing the united states to become the only nation to create commercialized sports at institutions of higher learning. even the major universities involved which were founded to uphold intellectual rigor routinely ignore or excuse the contradictions of a multibillion side industry build on their students. confusion and mythology begin with themselves. dictionary definitions for amateurs go from a devoety to a bumbling rambler.

the people running the company are a bunch of amateurs. accordingly, the same word expresses praise and scorn without distinction. this ambig uty gains re-enforcement in our uniquely designed world of sport where fans are encouraged to cheer and boo without thinking objectively. the ideal of ancient greek amateurism has always been misleading because the athletes of olympus actually competed for huge prizes. aristotle researched well rewarded champions back to the earliest festivals and modern scholars have shown high stakes victory and loss. ancient amateurism is a myth, noted a scholar. purists who refuse to mix money with sport did not exist in the ancient world, and victers of success as much as victory in

the sacred contest. golf legend bobby jones is enshrined in modern sports history as a model amateur and gentleman who declined every championship prize he earned. his reputation fits the true definition of amateur, which is derived from the latin amateur or lover, specifying one who chooses to pursue a skill out of subjective devotion rather than the hope of financial gain. some non-college sports still allow athletes to declare and renounce amateur status. significantly, students themselves call themselves amateurs when they invented intercollegiate sports after the civil war. until 1905, students retained general control of the new phenomenon in everything from scheduling and equipment to ticket sales. they recruited alumni to construct harvard stadium in 1903 with zero funds from the college.

neither the faculties nor the other critics assisted in building the structure of college athletics, declared walter camp, yale class of 1980, who became the father of college football in his spare time. the ncaa created in 1906, slowly transformed the amateur tradition inherited from college athletes. its board declared a goal of total faculty control as late as 1922, and the weak ncaa organization could not hire its first full-time staff member until 1951. after that, however, burgeoning revenue from television contracts allowed ncaa officials to enforce amateur rules as an objective requirement rather than a subjective choice. this is problematic because attempts to regulate personal motivation and belief commonly run afoul of the constitution. even if internal standards were allowed and could somehow be measured, ncaa rules contradict the key requirement that college

sports must be an advocation or calling which comes to call and vox, voice, by denying athletes an essential voice. ncaa rules govern the players by fiat, excluding them from membership and consent. balance. checks and balances are required for sound governance, and the ncaa structure is unbalanced in at least four basic respects. first, ncaa enforcement suffers an inherent conflict of interest between alleged violations in football as opposed to basketball. because the organization lost its television revenue from college football and is almost wholly dependent on a sole source broadcasting contract for the march madness basketball tournament. second, the structure creates a false impression of common practice between the very few schools that aggressively commercialize college athletics roughly 100 to 150 of some 1200

ncaa members, and the vast majority of schools with small crowds and negligible sports revenue, an elastic ncaa amateurism stretches all the way from a division iii cross country race to notre dame football on espn. third, ncaa officials resolutely obscure differences between commercialized sports and the academic mission on campus. in the classroom, colleges transfer highly values expertise to students, but this traditional role is reversed in big-time sports. there, athletes deliver highly valued expertise to the colleges. this distinction is basic and fundamental to your committee's stated purpose of promoting educational integrity. college athletes are or should be students in the classroom and competitor players in the athletic department. they face multiple roles and careers like many americans, but

their conflicting demands cannot be managed or balanced unless they're squarely recognized. the ncaa undermines this logical definition by saying they're a supplement for this creation called the student athlete. universities implicitly concur by off-loaded some of their academic responsibility to the ncaa. fourth, the ncaa and its member schools strip rights from athletes uniquely as a class. no college tries to ban remunative work for all students, and no legislature could or would write laws to confiscate earnings from one targeted group of producers in a legitimate enterprise. on the contrary, universities sponsor extensive work study programs and student citizens everywhere exercise freedom to market skills everywhere from book store jobs and pizza delivery to the entrepreneurial

launch of facebook. unless they're athletes. for college athletes alone, the ncaa brands such industry unethical. equity. basic fairness requires attention to the rights and freedom of participants above the convenience of observers. applied to college sports, this principle would mean that no freedom should be abridged because of athletic status. while i am neither a lawyer or professional economist, i find ample historical evidence that experts object to collusion in the ncaa's regulatory structure. in microeconomics, a prominent text book, two professors make the ncaa a featured example of an economic cartel. which reaps anti-competitive profits. the courts have agreed in two landmark cases, in ncaav. board of regents of oklahoma in 1984,

the u.s. supreme court struck down the ncaa's exclusive control of college football broadcasts as an illegal restraint of trade. overnight, the major football schools won the freedom to fill every broadcast their markets would bear without having to share proceeds with the smaller schools through the ncaa. we eat what we kill, bragged one official at the university of texas. in law, the ncaa 1998, assistant coaches won a $54 million settlement along with an order vacating the ncaa's $16,000 limit on starting salaries. the compensation of assistant football coaches has cracked the $1 million barrier since then, with salaries skyrocketing even in nonrevenue sports. by 2010, the university of florida paid its volleyball coach $365,000. but, the supervisors of college

sports have one economic freedom. and they enjoy enormous largess by the most vital talent, the players. to reduce bargaining power by student athletes, the ncaa creates and enforces rules regarding eligibility and the terms of compensation. ncaa officials, of course, steadfastly assert that their whole system is devoted to the educational welfare and benefit of the college athlete. football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing, and protecting young people. ncaa president mark emerick, sitting near me, vowed when he announced ncaa sanctions for the recent scandal at penn state. such professionals must be reconciled somehow with ncaa ruled that systematically deny college athletes a full range of

rights. these rules can turn words on their heads like alice in wonderland. the ncaa's bed rock pledge to avoid commercialization of athletes aims to prevent them from getting paid too much or at all, rather than too little. exploit, to use selfishly for one's ends, as employers who exploit their workers. in closing, i would suggest one hopeful precedent from the past work of your commerce committee. this is not the first time that the governance of amateur sports together with the education of college athletes has presented a daunting tangle of passions and vested interests. 50 years ago, an early bonanza in sports revenue fueled a bitter feud. aau leaders accused and quote

unpatriotic ncaa of sabotaging u.s. chances to win medals. they claim that college athletes already were paid and therefore not amateurs at all since the ncaa approved athletic scholarships in 1956. ncaa officials retorted that aau coaches were parasites on college training facilities. these two sides nit-picked, boycotted, sabotaged, and disqualified each other until president kennedy, no less a mediator than douglas macarthur, to foster hopes for the tokyo olympics. the exhausted macarthur who recommended blue ribbon commissions that brought proposals eventually to this committee. your predecessors shaped the olympic and amateurs sports act of 1988. one key provision of that law secured for active athletes a 20% share of the voting seats on each of the new olympic

committees. though small, this representation soon transformed amateur sports, granted a voice, athletes tipped the balance on governing committees in the united states and inexorably around the globe. marathon races, then tennis tournaments, recognized the proith for players to accept prize money and keep their olympic eligibility. new leagues sprang up to popularize volleyball and other games with corporate sponsors. olympic officials came to welcome professionals in every sport except for boxing. by 1986, when the nrtd national olympic commit expunged the word amateur from the bylaws, they modified every definition of disaster. most people scarcely recognize the change. some of you helped recognize the success in the ted stevens amateur sports act of 1988. this example suggests a good place to start. wherever possible, make athletes true citizens rather than

glorified vassals in college sports. where markets extend into college sports, make them fair and competitive. recognize the rights, uphold the rights of college athletes. give them a voice and challenge university in turn to make wise, straightforward decisions about the compatibility of commercialized sports with education. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. branch. and i want to be very critical of myself. because what, the general rule around here is witnesses speak for five or six minutes, but i failed to make that clear. and so we just got -- >> it says five minutes here, but i wasn't watching, sorry. >> so just keep it to five or six minutes, that would be the best, and i thank you for my testimony. and it was my fault. mr. bradshaw, who is a former

director of athletics at temple university, we welcome you, sir. >> chairman rockefeller, ranking member thune, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, good afternoon. your invitation to testify today about promoting the wellbeing and academic success of our student athletes is much appreciated. it's an honor for me to represent the 1600 plus institutions and 11,000 plus individual members of nafta and its athletics administrators who are the practitioners of our enterprise and represent in excess of 500,000 student athletes across the ncaa divisions as well as the naia and junior community colleges. they serve as the professional association for those in the field of the athletic administrations. it serves for networking the exchange of information and advocacy on behalf of the association. my career in higher education include positions as an

assistant baseball coach, head baseball coach, director of alumni, and 36 years as a division i athletic director at three universities. my athletic career includes three years as a student athlete, one as a walk-on, followed by three years in the washington senators baseball organization where two broken ankle ankles kro s created a professi change. these experiences proved valuable to my 36 years as a director at la salle, depaul, and other university. during the five decades of my career, i have seen significant improvements in the commitment by universities to the kaementdic, athletic, and personal experiences of athletes. from state of the art support services, elite coaching and training, athletic equipment and

emerging permissive benefits, our student athletes have never had it better. and yet we know we can do better. we have as educators are charged with helping our athletes. it's important to exam our university's performances and trends in the areas of academics, financial security, health, safety, and life skills. academics. over the past 20 years, graduation rates by any metric have drastically improved for student athletes. in 2013, the graduation success rate measure for all student athletes in division i was 82%. including 71% for division i fbs football participants and 73% for men's basketball student athletes. among the reasons for this dramatic improvement in graduation rates are, increased

ncaa requirements for initial eligibility and continued eligibility, and universities' proactive response to the academic progress rate metric instituted by the ncaa to monitor teams and individual performance each semester. >> health and safety. while universities strive to use best practices, we can never do too much to insure the health and safety of our stuth athletes. the prevention and detection of concussions remain one of the highest priorities for every athletic director at every level. best practices that have become common place include hiring strength and conditioning coaches, dieticians and nutritionists. required seminars for all student athletes to discuss drugs and alcohol, assault, date rape, and gambling as well as comprehensive regular drug testing and follow-up. financial security. as we all know, the real cost to attend college have risen above

inflation for years, causing many student to have massive debt upon graduation and proving too costly for others to even attend the college of their choice. currently, division i student athletes receive $2.1 billion in athletic scholarships, and this total will continue to escalate with anticipated ncaa legislation covering real costs of education combined with the annual increases in tuition, room and board, books and fees. in addition to the value of a real scholarship, a college graduate on average earned $1 million more over a lifetime than a nongraduate. other financial benefits for student athletes include universities health insurance, ncaa catastrophic insurance, multi-year athletic grants and student assistance funds available through conference offices. the vastly improved conditions afforded student athletes have resulted in their unprecedented

performances in the classroom, on the playing fields, and in preparation for life. few other campus activities or clubs produce such natural viversity as intercollegiate athlettic, bringing together young men and women from various religions, athnisties and beliefs. less than 1% of division i student athletes will ever participate in professional sports, and that professional career on average lasts only a few years. this reality underscores the value of a college education, an education many young men and women could not afford without an athletic scholarship. in our professional of intercollegiate athletics, the student athletes under our care are the center of our university and had nothe most important peo consider. if we always asked ourselves before allocating resources, building buildings or hiring coaches, is this decision in the best interest of our student athletes, then i believe that

answer has helped us arrive at the best answer. thanks again for inviting me to be with you this afternoon. >> thank you very much, mr. bradshaw. now dr. richard southpaw, a director at the university of south carolina. welcome, sir. >> thank you. chairman rockefeller, ranking member thune and distinguished committee members, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. my initial draft of my comments was only 35 minutes, so thank you for giving me the advice. as director of the college sport research institute at the university of south carolina, my comments today are not off the cuff remarks but informed by soclogical, educational studies and empirical study drawn from ncaa documents, they reflect not only my work but also that of numerous colleagues and scholars. while i'm well aware there are distinct differences within ncaa

divisions as well as between ncaa revenue and olympic sport, my testimony today will focus on how within big-time college sports, ncaa members have sought to protect their business interests at the expense of the well being and academic success of ncaa profit athletes. for several decades, the ncaa was aware that as the scale of revenue generation and spending continued to grow, there is a general sense that big-time athletics is in conflict with the principle of amateurism and increased governmental and public scrutiny is likely if graduation rates do not improve in underperforming sports. consequently, in 2003, the ncaa embarked in a two-phase organizational rebranding strategy that was part of a public relations agenda that addressed critics and provided an alternative to what the ncaa described as the cynics. first, the ncaa created a term

of art, the collegiate model of athletics, as a better understood definition of amateurism that isolates the principal to the way in which college athletes are viewed without imposing its avocational nature on revenue producing opportunities. notably, division i revenues have more than doubled since 2003. tellingly, internal ncaa documents reveal protecting the collegiate model is nearly by definition the primary focus of the office of the ncaa president. concurrently in an effort to maintain the perception of a clear line of demarcation between college and professional sport, and offer support for the effectiveness of its new academic progress program, the ncaa developed the academic progress rate or apr, and graduation success rate, or gsr. since 2003, the ncaa has consistently sought to utilize these rates as proof that big-time college sport has one

clear focus -- education. however, several items are noteworthy. one, neither the federal graduation rate, fgr, mandated by congress, nor the ncaa's gfr, is perfect or inherently a more accurate metric. they utilize different sampling and statistical analysis to exam different cohort. in short, they're different graduation rates. two, the gsr consistently returned to rate 12% to 25% higher than the fgr. as far back as 1991, they knew removing drop-outs, transfers or athletes who leave school in good academic standing from the gfr cohort, would result in a remarkably higher success rate. three, since there's no comparable national level gfr for the general student body, to report gfr and fgr data

simultaneously in press releases or data set tables invites inappropriate comparisons and fosters confusion among the general public. while the national office has sought to protect its collegiate model, academic support staffs label in a system that too often depends on an amorms process, and results in athletes often clustering or being steered to majors conducive of their practice or competition, or in other words, work schedule. tellingly, several authorities in the ncaa and the university governance structures recognize clustering and scheduling of easy courses as a problem. in addition, contrary to the ncaa's public posturing that they're just normal students, profit athletes tend in important respects to be physically, culturally, and socially isolated from the campus community. they live in a tightly

controlled parallel university indicative of total institution. through the steady drum beat of sophisticated and subtle institutional propaganda, the ncaa has sought spontaneous consent to a mythology that big-time college sport enhances the educational experience of quote/unquote student athletes. propaganda is effective because it exploits people's reluctance to intellectually engage with any oppositional or alternative view. since 2003, while the ncaa has successfully embedded its model of college athletics including the graduation success rate into the public's consciousness, there has been little progress in insuring profit athletes have equal access to educational opportunities afforded other students. in conclusion, there is clear evidence the ncaa's collegiate model of athletics naument only

systematically inhibited access to a world class education but also exploits profit athletes by denying them basic bargaining rights, due process, and standard forms of compensation. i want to thank the committee members for the opportunity to visit with you today. >> thank you for your excellent testimony, and finally, dr. mark emerick. who -- well, you all know who he is. >> thank you, senator. good afternoon to you and to senator thune -- >> is your microphone on? >> thank you. i appreciate that. is it working now? >> no, no difference. >> as a recovering university president, i learn to project, so thank you very much. good afternoon to all of you on the panel. i'm mark emerick. i serve now as the president of the ncaa since october of 2010. following 30 years as a profess professor, a university

administrator and a university president. i certainly appreciate the opportunity to appear before all of you today and discuss what i agree are very important issues, and i particularly want to thank you, mr. chairman, for working with us on the timing of this hearing. it's good that we're able to be here. the ncaa' core purpose as has already been pointed out is to promote the well being and success of more than 460,000 student athletes as they enjoy both world-class athletic experiences and receive access to top-notch educations. that's why i have been working diligently with the division i board of directors, our member universities, and all of the stakeholders to drive policy changes that support student athletes success and indeed, address many of the issues that have already been raised here today. during my tenure, we have enacted more than a dozen key reforms, two notable examples are raising academic standards and adding the opportunity for multiple-year scholarships. as we discuss how to improve

college sports today, it's important to understand that the ncaa is a democratically governed membership led association of nearly 1100 colleges and universities. as such, neither i nor any member of my staff have a vote on association policy or infractions decisions. it's important to note that appropriately in my opinion, university presidents themselves are the ultimate decision makers within the association. members make rules through a representative process much as you do in congress. it is challenging, obviously, to bring together coaches, athletic administrators, faculty members and presidents to achieve consensus on much of anything, let alone college sports. and while a change of pace is not what i or members would like, division i schools are working diligently, even as we speak, to create a new decision making structure that will yield practical and i hope timely results on all of these issues. before we discuss the challenges at hand, let me be clear.

college sports in my opinion work extremely well for the vast majority of our 460,000 student athletes. and while it can and should be modified, the collegiate model should in fact be preserved because of all of the good it provides for so many. nonetheless, i agree there are very important changes that need to be made, and many university presidents happen to agree with me. let me describe the most important ones. first, student athletes in my opinion should be given a scholarship for life. so they may complete a bachelor's degree, even if their education is delayed for any reason unrelated to a lack of academic progress or serious misconduct. second, scholarships should cover the full and actual cost of attendance, not simply tuition, room, and board, books and supplies. third, ncaa schools must always lead in the area of health and safety. for example, the ncaa along with a variety of medical experts

released recently new guidelines that address the diagnosis, the management, and the prevention of sports-related concussions. fourth, the ncaa must work assertively with all of our universities on sexual assault prevention and support for victims. this is a national crisis, and we could all do better. fifth, while all student athletes today are covered by insurance for injuries and the ncaa covers catastrophic injuries, any gaps in coverage must be closed. sixth, the academic success of student athletes must remain our ultimate priority. this means providing them with the time as well as the resources they need to take advantage of the opportunities at college campuses as our two former athletes here have testified. finally, all changes that are made, these and others, must maintain a support for title ix and cannot come at the cost of

student athletes in women's and non-revenue generating sports. the ncaa provides countless opportunities to men and women, including many from low-income families. in fact, some 82,000 current student athletes are first-generation college students. and at the risk of correcting mr. bradshaw, it is now $2.7 billion in athletic scholarships that are provided to students who make that a reality. further, ncaa revenues are reinvested in our mission. specifically, last year's revenue allowed us to conduct 89 national championships in 23 different sports with nearly 50,000 student athletes participating in those championships from across the entire country. those revenues allowed us to provide $700 million directly to colleges and universities in all three divisions. $100 million of which was used to cover extra expenses and emergency expenses for division

i student athletes. further, those revenues allowed us to cover the $14 million insurance premium for catastrophic insurance policies for our student athletes. college sports are serving student athletes very, very well for the most part. yes, there are changes to both policy and a culture that are needed, and they require frank conversations like the one we're having here and serious action. i'm committed to working with you and our member schools to insure that student athletes have all of the opportunities for success they deserve, and i want to thank you for the invitation, mr. chairman, to appear today. i look forward to taking your questions and working with you in the future. >> thank you very much, mr mr. emerick. i will start. senator thune will follow, and then senator koets and we'll proceed from there. according to your website, and i'm just going back to some basic stuff, student athlete

health, safety, and wellbeing remain our top priorities. yet, in court papers filed for a lawsuit in which a family sued the ncaa after their son died from a brain injury suffered in a preseason football practice, the ncaa asserted that, quote, the ncaa denies it has a legal dp duty to protect student athletes, close quote. i find that extraordinary. now, i know what your answer is going to be, and that's going to upset me. but the question is, how do you reconcile your website's publicly stated priority promoting health and safety with your private legal arguments which you have declared somehow are different? that the ncaa doesn't have a legal duty to protect student athletes? you either do or you don't? >> i will not quibble about the language. i think that was at the very least a terrible choice of words

created by legal counsel to make a legal argument. i'm not a lawyer. i'm not going to defend or deny what a lawyer wrote in a lawsuit. i will unequivocally state we have a clear moral obligation to make sure that we do everything we can to support and protect student athletes. >> see, what i perceive is a web of convenient protection from -- to all parties. you suggested that there are a number of universities. see, what i really want to see is have a panels of subpoenas university presidents from land grant publicly funded universities. up here, and i think it will come to that, because i think it's going to have to. i don't know how we're going to work anything out without it. but you say that was bad language by a lawyer who got confused or was late or didn't have a good night's rest or whatever it was.

so you sort of slosh over that. earlier, you said that there are a number of universities that want to make a certainly number of changes, which you then enumerated three or four of them, but then you have also said frequently in answer to questions at otherfora that you don't have the authority to do anythi anything. you don't have a vote, which you said here. everything is in the hands of the universities. my cynical self says that universities like things exactly the way they are because they're making a ton of money. in fact, they're making so much money, more than they ever have before, not all, but some, that there's about 120 that make most of it. 120 universities. that i don't know how change is possible. how do you make the case for saying that you can be a

participant in this process of bringing about change when you say that they don't have to listen to anything you have to say? >> well, i can tell you, senator, what is going on right now in less than a month now, the division i board will vote on a completely changed decision making structure that will put all of a subjects that we're describing and discussing here today in the hands of the 65 universities that have the largest revenue. the schools that are within the five -- >> i'm sorry, i have to interrupt. why would you pick the 65 schools that make the most money? to me, they would be the ones least likely to make any changes at all. >> quite the contrary, they're the ones who precisely want to make changes. often changes that have price tags associated with them, and they want to make those changes and are often blocked from doing so by institutions that have less revenue. so if, for example, you want to

move toward a scholarship model that covers full cost of attendance, something that the division i board in my first year on the board twice passed, and it was overridden by the membership of the 350 schools in division i, predominantly with the support of the 65 major schools saying this is something we really need, and they were blocked from doing so by the other institutions. so those schools are indeed those schools that i just -- whose interests are the points that i just enumerated. indeed, i was practically quoting from a letter signed by all the presidents of the pac-12 and all the presidents of the big 10, whom have said these are the changes we need to make and we need the authority to make those kinds of changes. >> is this the 65 largest universities, or are these also the smaller ones who you say block progress because it's expensive? >> yes, sir, these are the 65 schools that are members of the five largest revenue

conferences, the s.e.c., the big 12, the big 10, the pac-12, and the a.c.c. >> would you agree with me in my final first round question? that college sports has long forgotten the word amateurism? i'm talking particularly about the 120 major -- but you know, there's a lot more than that, that it's just a business? and the more money you can make, i mean, west virginia university signed on to the big 12, which guarantees one thing and one thing only. that means that most of the people of west virginia who are not high income or even moderate income cannot go to any games out in the southwest, but west virginia university sure makes a ton of money from it.

how do you respond to that? is that right, is that fair, is that progressive? >> if i may, senator, there's two questions that are being asked there. the first is, do i believe that the 120 or so dominant schools, fbs schools, perhaps to whom you're referring, have abandoned the concept of amateurism? i would say, no, they have not. i certainly agree with you that the top-line revenue, the expenditures that are going on right now in college athletics have unequivocally moved up very sharply in the past two decades. the fact that schools are investing those dollars back into their athletic program makes it quite clear that the universities themselves are not doing this to, quote, turn a profit. indeed, last year, out of the 1,100 schools, about 23 in all of america had positive cash flow. in other words, invested all of the money that they had in college sports and had some left over. everyone else in the country put

resources into into college spo instead of taking them out. in terms of the changes that occurred in the construction of is the conferences over the past handful of years, i probably agree with you. i was very disappointed in the changes that the conferences sought to make -- to make progress in. they created some significant travel challenges, i believe not just for the fans, but also for the student athletes. when you have to go across country for a football game is one thing, because that only occurs occasionally. when it's your volley balance, basketball or soccer team, it means student athletes senior traveling a great deal at great expense in both time, energy and commitment. i was disappointed in for the all, but many of those changes that occurred i get i thank you and turn to ranking member thune. >> mr. emert, under your

presidency, you've indicated that you've taken the initiative to form some of these committees to address needed changes. >> thank you, senator, first of all, within a month i hope we'll see the board pass a completely new decision-making structure because of the challenges of the past 24 months of making decisions around a very aggressive reform agenda. the leadership of the 65 leading universities have said we simply have to find a better way to make progress. they have identified as their agenda many of the items that i just addressed, and a handful of others. so there's a very keen interest in finding first of all, ways to provide greater support for student athletes. we passed twice over the past 36 months a proposal to allow universities to give student athletes at a bare minimum, an additional $2,000 in their

scholarships to cover the miscellaneous experiences. i believer the universities will approve a proposal to do something just like that yet again and i hope an even more robust model to cover the real legitimate costs of being a student athlete. we were able to pass changes for student athletes. prior to three years ago, the universities were literally forbidden by ncaa rules to provide multiyear scholarships. we were able to get a change in the rules to allow them, and i think we're well on our way toward mandating they in fact be multiple year commitments, so student athletes don't have to worry about whether or not they'll finish their degree on time. i think that is extremely likely to happen. as you mentioned also, there's a very strong interest in the same group of leading universities to cover the costs -- fully the costs of insurance programs. the vast majority of the

universities cover all of those costs today, but it shouldn't be a question. it should be quite clear that no stay tuned athlete will ever have to cover insurance or injuries that are inflicted on them when they're a student athlete. finally i think we have to address this issue of time. the demanse that are placed on student athletes are in my eyes and in the eyes of many, including i suspect mr. bradshaw, the demands on judge men and women, in terms of what's required for coaching, what's river for informal coaching, what's required to be simply competitive these days is far too great a time demand. we need to find ways -- i completely agree with mr. ramsey, for example, we need to find ways to take advantage of internships, study abroad opportunities, all the things we know that help prepare them for life, because a very, very tiny fraction of them will ever play

professional sports. for virtual all college players, their last game is in college. their professional life and life in general will be changed by having a meaningful degree and meaningful experiences that go along with that. that means we have to create opportunities for them to do the many things that are available on campuses. >> mr. bradshaw, you bring unique perspective as a former a.d. and as member institution. i'm told it was your practice to conduct interviews, and at times that led to substan thif changes in policy, but you have some examples from those interviews that you can share with us that led to direct improvements? >> we gathered our best information from our student athletes about how they were being treated. as many of you might now, student athletes are not the

most shy. they actually let you know when they're hungry, when they need things. the exit interviews were invaluable, because seniors were leaving the institution. we also followed up, had questionnaires we sent the seniors a month before we left, then we went over those questionnaires with the student athletes to talk about every facet of their experience he university. that was helpful. we also have a captains council, which was an aggregate of the captains from every team that got together without the coaches, just myself and some administrators to hear everything they had to say about their experience, so that we could use that in recruiting and help to do a lot better job. we also have team meeting to welcome the freshmen, and we were able to gather very valuable things. we had one team whose practice facility was maybe about 25 minutes from campus. when they got back in the evening, they weren't able to

get the kind of quality dinner, because a lot of the students had already been in there, and things were picked over. we were able to extend that time for their meals for an hour so that those student athletes could eat. we also have football players who were practices in the afternoon, some of them in premed, and some of the courses they were taking were right up against their practice. we were able to get that football coach to take those practices in the morning when 97% of the classes that the kids were taking were there. so those were very valuable -- that was very valuable input. right from the center of our university, the student athletes. my time has expired, but from the athletic director's standpoint, what role do you see the universities and a.d.s playing? some of these you can go beyond what is required, there's a lot of flexibility for the member institutions to make decisions in the best interests of their student athletes. >> and we should. we have the responsibility.

it's not only the chairman of the board of trustees, but the president and athletic director should all be on board and have similar philosophies and missions and principles about how that works. and in concert with all those people, because sometimes you need funds to do the things that you need to do, and you need the support from the board and the president. so it's very important that all of us work together to do that. we're out recruiting other student athletes. that's a brand, we call athletics the front porch of the university. it might not be the most important thing you see when you drive by, but it's the most visible messenger of the brand of the university. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you. senator coats? >> mr. chairman, thank you, dr. emert thank you for being willing to testify. i think it's been constructive to hear of reforms that you have initiated and those that you hope to initiate, and it sounds like there's some real positive

things that are happening relative to the issues that are, as you have acknowledged, are challenges for the ncaa, and challenges for the universities, and challenges for our committee. mr. chairman, i want to thank you for following through on your commit me to me and to others that we're going to have a good solid nontheatrical investigation and committee process here. because i think we're all on the same page in terms of how can we best preserve the student athlete and best provide for them, how do we address some of the challenges that we're facing today with the revenues, and so forth. and i think this is a very constructive effort that we're undertaking here, and i thank you for it. for pulling all that together. here's what i'm hearing, and i'm leading to a question here.

i'm hearing from our witnesses there are many positive things happening and many posit results coming from being a student athlete. opportunities that are available to athletes that would otherwise not be able to get the college experience in the education process. the list of reforming that dr. emert has bakley said these are his proposals, and i think it goes right to what we're, the full and actual cost, taking the lead in areas of health and safety, addressing the sexual assault issue which goes across all aspects of athletics, but also college experience. it's not limited to just one. medical insurance, dealing with those questions, academic

priorities. we've talked about the time issue, support for title ix. it's been regardable what's happening under title ix in terms of the women able to participate in athletics, gain scholarships. many of those may not have had a chance for scholarship help and support. the vast majority of schools, whether division ii or division iii, not in the top 65, that offer all these opportunities, it's something we want to preserve. it's something we want to improve. i think we have a president of the ncaa who is a reformer, known as that. that's why he was hired. he's taken steps already, and willing to take significant steps forward. now, obviously it goes to this question, dr. emert, of the 65. i was encouraged by your response to the chairman's

question, relative to their interest in addressing these issues. it's one thing to say they're willing to do it, it's another thing to do it. we wish you success, but we understand that you're the proposal, you're the initiator, but they're the decision makers. so i hope, mr. chairman, over some period of time here, hopefully relatively soon, we can get a positive result from that effort. i think that's where the -- these major issues fall. but dr. emmerit. could you give us one more shot , but also to the root of the solution, and that is the top 65 which are the revenue generators. and we don't want to jeopardizes those that are not, and put them

in a position where they won't be able to fulfill the level 9 supports that gists so many people the -- >> yes, mr. chairman and senator coats, i think you're asking two of the most important questions. the first is a recognition that 100 or so years ago when the ncaa was created, it was as mr. branch pointed out, with some competent tuesday from the white house and congress because of the challenges in college sports. at that time, it was determined that college sports should be appropriately self-governed, that the universities themselves were capable of provides the right -- to make college sports work effectively for young men and young women. we're at a point now where we're going to see yet again whether or not that self-governance system works. i have confidence, because i know most of these presidents as

colleagues, and i know their interests and considerations and concerns that that provides me with confidence that they want to move forward on the agendas that i describe plus more in the coming weeks and months. now you think this hearing is a useful cattle prod, if you will, to make sure that everyone understands that the world is watching, the u.s. senate is watching, and everyone is paying attention to what universities are going to do to address these real and significant issues. i think all those things combined give me some very positive belief that we're going to wind up in the right place in a matter of months. if not, we'll have another conversation, and i have no dowd that you and your successoring will make sure for the things

they need to and should be doing. >> i just wanted to note he had his tenth grandchild, and i heard he cry -- >> oh, i didn't tell her that. >> we love that. >> a guy who cries over his grandchildren is very cool. >> we like that. >> another form of cartel. >> i have -- i would like to submit an opening statement. your staff has that. >> so ordered. >> as a usc alum, who spoke with pat hayden just before this hearing, i'm pretty sure we usually watch the trojans beat notre dame on nbc, and not espn. sorry, mr. branch.

>> the seven points that you brought up of what you say are trying to achieve. if you have to talk about students having scholarships for like if you have to talk about men and women and having full and actual coverage of their costs is a weakness, because it's something that you don't have today. if you're talking about leading in the area of safety, you're not doing it today. if the ncaa is taking their lead, then they're not doing it today. we can go on, managing times and demands, it means it's not happening today.

>> i'll share with you every once in a while, i call that lightning in a bottle. maybe it's --, careful. >> maybe the stars are aligning, i'm not sure, but needless to say i agree, and that is that we do have jurisdiction in this conference over the ncaa. my question is, if tomorrow there is a bill in the front of the united states senate that would disband the ncaa and for all discussions and hearings that spoke today, give me reasons why i shouldn't vote for that bill. >> i'm happy to. the fact is we've been focused already on the things that aren't happening, but the reality also is that an enormous amount of very, very good things are happening --

>> good, i want to hear those. >> that we haven't talked about. so when we focus on the issues of college sports, the vast majority of them, as many of you have noted, the vast majority of those issues are really focused on men's basketball and football, as it's played in the top handful of institutions. if you look at bcs football and men's basketball, you are looking at less than 5% of all of intercollegiate@4re9ices. you're missing 95%. for that other 95%, there are very few of those challenges or problems that are occurring. indeed it is serving -- i'm not very good at math in my head, but if it's 95% of 460,000 students, let's say it's 450,000 or 425,000 students for whom this is working amazingly well. they are graduating at a higher rate than the rest of the student body on their campuses. they're graduating as a higher

rate of the rest of the students in the united states. yes, we can in fact have a very good learned discussion about how we measure graduate rates, but if you use the federal rate, students in distinguish i greated 1% higher than the nonathletes on all of our campuses. if you look at men's and women's basketball, if you look at football, the graduation rates, as mr. bradshaw pointed out have been steadily growing for more than 15 years now, each and every year. if you look at african-american men, the african-american men on any given campus have a 9% higher probability of graduating if they happened ton an athlete than if they're not. the fact is that student athletes make very good students. yes, there are many issues that our two former athletes have pointed out very nicely that need to be addressed, but for the vast majority of students, being an athlete also goes along with being a better student and more likely to graduate, and

also we believe, though the data is not well done and i just learned that the doctor is working on a study that i think would be very useful. we believe there's good reason to see that they are more successful in life as well overall. intercollegiate athletics, as you pointed out is a wonderful part of our south and provides extraordinary opportunities for the vast majority of student athletes. i focus my comments on the things i would like to see fixed. you just elaborated on them. no one is giving a guarantee -- most schools are not giving guaranteed four-year commitments. usc has just committed to do that. a handful of others are looking at that, but the reality is that almost no student ever loses

their scholarship. >> wasn't that prohibited by the ncaa? >> it was. >> when did that change? >> well, we -- that's one of the things that i will will occur. >> in other words, schools did offer four-year scholarships until the ncaa prohibited. >> they did, and i have no idea why that was put in the rules. i have nigh own notions, but i don't even know when that occurred. bill -- >> 1974. '73. >> no reason as to why? >> bill, do you know why? >> i really don't know. >> in recruiting, it's not a good idea not to give multiyear scholarships. >> i trust the historian. >> i would like to hear it. >> the historical record was that it was driven by the coaches at the biggest universities precisely the 65 biggest schools, because they wanted more control over their athletes. they are driven to win. you have a better chance of winning if you control the

athlete and what time he gets up and how much time he spends in the weight room, so on and so forth. if you can yank their scholarship, then you have more control. >> but you can't do that anymore? >> yes, you can. >> the ncaa in 1973 at the behest of the big school athletic departments and coaches put in a rule that you could not offer more than a one-year scholarship, in other words guarantees the coaching over that athlete. that survive for four years. they're trying to repeal that law so you could at your option offer more. >> excuse me for offering. it has in fact been repealed. it's one of the first things i insisted on. >> but it lasted for four years at the behest of the same 65 schools that are now proposing to do these reforms that you're talking about. i think they're good, but it's because they can afford them and because the gap has gotten so obscene, they to do it on their

own. >> allow me, because this is such an important point. it has not changed. a student athlete right now who, for the reasons of a coach at any time, can revoke that scholarship so that student is no longer able to stay at the university. dr. emmerit, that's are you right now, right? >> it's variable. >> starting last year, schools were provided the option. in other words this prohibition was repealed so that a school today can offer a multiyear scholarship, and many do. as i jest mentioned, the university of southern california, and indiana, for example, have recently announced that that is precisely what they are going to do is offer full four-year scholarships. many schools have been doing so since the prohibition was lifted. i don't know the extent to which it -- >> but it's not uniform. >> it is most certainly not uniform. >> it's not even the majority of schools. >> senator booker, your turn

will come. >> do we need to remind him he is junior on this committee? i think somehow he forgot about it. >> i'm calling on senator mccaskill. >> thank you, i would like to sbefr the roll call of the institutions who voted to reestablish the one-year rule. afc testify voted in in 2011, that you could have the option of getting a four-year scholarship. the very next meeting, there is an attempt to overrule that decision. they needed a two thirds vote to overrule the decision to go back to the one-year requirement. i think it will be very interesting for the members of this committee to look at the institutions that voted to go back to a one-year requirement in to 2012. they need 62 1/2.. they got 62.12. to go back to the one-year.

and i think you'll be surprised. it's counter intuitive. some of the institutions that voted to go back to the one year, like harvard, voted to back to one year. yale was strong, they abstained. we had institutions like texas all wanted to go back to one year, but then there were smaller schools that wanted to go back to one year. one missouri school did, but the university of missouri did not. i was willing to offer this into the record and i was nervous when i got this, because i was afraid my university might have voted to go back to one year, but it's very telling that in 2012 -- now, i guess my question, dr. emmert, why wasn't this made public at the time? i think most of the universities would be embarrassed if they were publicly called out that they were unwilling to give a four-year scholarship to an athlete. why did it take a request from congress for this roll call for this to ever reach the light of

day? i would ask for this list to be made part of the public record. >> so ordered. >> well, the data were made available to all of the membership -- >> i'm talking about to the public. why didn't you put it on the website? >> i'm not debating the fact. i don't simply know whether it was not put on the website. the debate was very public. it was obviously very disputed case. it's a very interesting debate. i was quite stunned by some of the argumentation. one of the things i didn't mention about change that i anticipate in the coming weeks, mr. branch.ed out something that's part of the olympic movement, olympic tradition now that in the united states that student athletes have to have a very -- not student athletes. olympic athletes have to have a substantial vote and voice in the deliberations of the olympic bodies. i certainly advocate for a model

much like that, and indeed the proposal that's going to be voted on in -- later in august will include full representation of students as voting members alongside the presidents and athletic directors on all of the legislative bodies, but we currently have student athlete advisory committees that we turn to -- >> doctor, that's all great. >> if i might, ma'am, the student athlete advisory committee advised against putting in multiyear scholarships, because they happen to agree with coaches that it was a good incentive for their colleagues to remain engaged. so some universities voted to overturn this because their very own student athlete advisory committee said, no, no, don't give multiyear scholarships, we like one-year scholarships. my point is limply, ma'am, it was quite counter intuitive at many levels. >> fair enough, i would like to talk to the students, because i think they probably felt pressure. i have a hard time imagining any

student -- >> i was quis surprised. in one of the responses to one of the letters i sent you, you indicated that you provide an online title ix legal and best practices material and video classes. my question is, in that material, do you make the recommendation to your institutions that they not be allowed to handle the adjudication of title ix complaints involving sexual assault against student athletes? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> well, we've done a survey. the results came out today. i was shocked to find out that 30% of the division i, ii, and iii schools allow their athletic departments to handle the allegations against their athletes. now, we have a big problem with victims being willing to come forward. i assume you've read the long cover story about the investigation that did not occur

with mr. winston at florida state. >> i have. >> that there was no investigation of that allegation. we will never know whether he was guilty or not, because nobody ever investigated because of who he was. if you're a victim and know your alleged will be handled by the@let sick department by any other student on campus handled in a different system, why in the world would you think the process was going to be fair? >> i read your data this morning, and i was both it sounds like equally surprised and dismayed by that fact. i think the concern you're raising is spot on. i think it creates, first of all, conflicts of interest. i think it creates the kind of enormous apprehension that you are describing right now on the part of a victim as somebody who has spent most of his life on campus and in several jobs, had responsibilities to campus

safety whenever i was a president, i had to deal with victims and family members of victims, and people who had suffered egregious harms. i think this is something that needs to be addressed. >> well, i think that my sen and about whether or not things are made public. i feel for you, because part of me think that is you're captured by those you are supposed to regulate, but then you're supposed to regulate those you are captured by. i could tell whether you're in charge or whether you're a minute a

minion to them. the notion that you will say i'll go after this -- i'm -- you know, i don't sense that you feel like you have any control over the situation, and if you have no control, if you're merely a monetary pass-through, why should you even exist? >> well, i think the -- the reality is that while the issue we are talking about here i don't have a vote on, and i don't get to set those policies, i can certainly set the tone on it, and i can certainly be someone who voices a very loud opinion and says this is not right, this is inappropriate, these are the conflicts that exist when you have a policy and a practice like this on on your campus. when i first took the job, the very first summit i held in indianapolis was a summit on sexual violence, a summit that led to the creation of a working group of experts, not college athletic folks, but of experts from across the country to create a working group and a

think tank. we'll be issues the results of their work this summer, i'm now, thanks to your work, gull to go and make sure this issue is addressed in that handbook, and i'm going to talk to the leadership at our very next meeting in august that we need to find ways that athletic depends are not responsible, because of all the concerns that you raise. >> thank you. i'm over my time. i hope somebody else covers the questions about young people from families that can't afford to even travel to see their children play in the games. >> yes. >> because meanwhile, the universities are making millions off their children, but their parents can't even get a stipend to attend the game to watch their child play. there is something wrong with that scenario.

and it's going on college catch puss across this country every single week. >> i agree with you. thank you. i want to start with -- which is the coach for the for the coach who has epilepsy. as you know, had a number of seizures, and the university of minnesota president said we're not going to get rid of him. our record has been rocky, the gophers, they kept the coach on. he had to coach from a box, he couldn't coach on the field because of his condition. during the entire season he coached from a box, and i was there when we beat nebraska with him in a box. it was a great moment. it was a great story, but it does make me think, as i hear all of this, that that kind of compassion, what was so captivating about the story is it kind of defied what had been

become of so many of these big sports games and the cutthroat competition and how people were treated. so i think what you're hearing up here today is the hope that these are deliverables, these are things that can happen, when you talk about changing the sexual assault policy, making sure the players have the health care insurance, making sure thif the time to do the internships. they aren't crazy hard things to do. that we have another hearing, whether it's six months from now or a year from now to check up on what's happening with these things whether they're at the

high school level. i know that senator tom udahl co-sponsored his bill. i know there's a lawsuit that's going on, just your opinion of it, but if you could talk about what's being done. >> i think it's a critical issue and most heavy ily identified. it occurs in virtually every sport. first of all, as i had mentioned in my opening comments, we created -- when i first came into the office, i was a business sprited to find there wasn't a cheef medical officer, so when we went out, we hired a

wonderful doctor who is a neurologist. he's working unbelievably hard. we don't have good signs, it's not as well understood as we all might think. so once they have done that, just this past handful of days they released the first ever consensus among the medical community on the treatment and the prevention of concussions, especially around football, a new football practice guidelines around contact and a variety of other things. we signed with the department of defense about two months ago, an agreement to do a $30 million project. we're putting up $150 million, dod is putting up there 15 million to attract longitudinally young men and women and try to get a legitimate history of the occurrence and treatment of the concussion. we're working with the youth --

all of the youth sports organization to try to get better practice guidelines working with the envelope to try to get coaching, efully in people, and boys how to tack the -- so girl soccer coaches are saying we need to ban any heading until girls and boys are at least 12 years of age. so we're looking at trying to lend our support to those kinds of efforts. we're making -- pardon the pun -- headway, but the factser we need a lot more understanding of where this disorder. i'm pleased where we are, and i'm proud. >> part of the reason why i stopped playing in the nfl to pursue medicine and go into a particular special of neurosurgery was because i saw a lot of my teammates with early onset dementia or some of these traumatic -- things you often associate with several

concussive episodes. i saw it in the nfl, and now as an aspiring neurosurgeon, i would love to add expertise to that discussion, but one thing i noticed in the locker rooms was a lot of my teammates, fellow athletes, we want to be fast, right? wrept to be quick, nimble, agile, so the protective equipment we wear, a lot of the guys would choose and select equipment that's lighter and maybe not as protective. so that may lead to more concussive episodes. i think education is incredibly important. and talk to us about the dangers of concussion. and then if you have a risk of getting a second concussion, your likelihood of getting a third, fourth and fifth goes up exponentially. the pressures of trying to be on the field, trying to compete,

all at the same time as devin said, earlier if you're not on the field, nfl coaches can't see you, you're not exposed, perhaps you lose the opportunity of getting drafted high and getting to the next level. >> it's just to perhaps change the culture, change the focus of big coalition high velocity hits, and the idea that that is a part of the game. it is not a part of the game. if you look at the rule book, it's to take a player to the ground similar to how rugby is performed, but you see the highlights and exposure on the big high velocity hits where guys are speering into another player. that's what gets celebrated, and i think that's the wrong path. as i said, hopefully in a few years or so, i can add more knowledge to this discussion, but from my anecdotal knowledge, it is an issue.

>> i'll ask questions on the record of the internships of you mr. ramsey. i thought that was fascinating, on what a small proportion of the student athletes end up going into pro sports, that's most likely not going to be their career. they have to have that ability to pursue, and if it's supposed to be 20 hours, then we have to find some way to measure that and enforce is. to me this hearing so far

has been a lot of talk about a lot of things which have been around for an awfully long time, which we all think should be solved, but they're not solved, and i think there are very clear reasons for it, and that is decision-making is flawed, fragile and useless. florida, which has -- everybody recruits from florida, they have a law that transparency, how money is spent, has to be made public, because they have a law. and so, you know, in the contributions and when ncaa comes in, only a small portion goes to education and all kinds of things go to the stadium, that is all available to the public. so i commend them for coming from a state like that, and i

just think that's the path with so many answers, which we just otherwise seem to be unwilling to deal with. excuse me. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. and i think a lot has come out of this committee hearing that should enable and help dr. emmert to continue with the reforms that he's trying. so much has been said, let me highlight a couple. >> i happy to know, because i was mesmerized with mr. rolle as a player at florida state. for hi to do the interview for the rhodes scholarship, which was in the south, on a saturday, his president t.k. weatherall

had to get special dispensation so that they could get someone to donate a private jet for him that could fly him somewhere in the northeast when florida state was playing up here, and even so, he made it only in the second half. but the emphasis -- you know, that's something that's so common sense that you would want a player to interview for the rhodes, and yet it was a big deal. it shouldn't have been. the fact of so of of these players that are coming from families that are dirt poor, and they don't have the opportunities that others do it

seems to my it's common sense, we should have sometime ends or whatever you call it, so it equalizes the playing field of the financial ability if those student athletes are contributing to the financial well-being of that university. so too with health insurance. that all to be common sense. if a player is hurt and that's a career-ending injury, the best of medical care ought to be given to that player and for it to last for some period of time in the future. and of course, consuggestions just add a whole other dimension to this thing. i thought it was very interesting in another committee that i have the privilege of chairing, we did a hearing on concussions, and -- including

professional athletes they would not recommend to their children that they play football. so times are changing. the ncaa has got to get with the times. so whatever this committee hearing has done to enible you as a reformer to get those schools the votes that you need to do a lot of these things that we're talking about, the family travel why should they have to sneak around in the shadows in order to get money to be able to buy a ticket to come to the game and where to stay in a hotel and so forth? i mean, it just -- it defies common sense.

mr. rolle, you want to make any final comment? >> sure. one thing that i'd like to say is that when you think about the collarship discussion, a lot of players i was on teams with, it was kind of like it was us versus them. we didn't feel like the ncaa was protecting our best interests, was looking out for us, one to see us succeed and thrive and flourish. it was almost as if we had to do everything we could to promote ourselves and better ourselves against this big machine that was dictating and ordering the steps we took. maybe that's not true. maybe it's just a miscommunication, maybe the information wasn't getting disseminated well enough, but that's the way we felt. another thing that's why bothersome today,