tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. a conversation with the man who oversees collegiate sports, mark emmert. the debate over college athletes, he now must deal with the biggest scandal in college sports, the tragedy at penn state. we're glad you have joined us. a conversation with mark emmert, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where

walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: since 2010, mark emmert has been serving as the president of the national collegiate -- in honor to have you on this program. you are the one guy i expected to cancel this week. with all the stuff on your plate, thank you for honoring a commitment to be here. let's start with the penn state

stuff and get that out of the way. i think there will be reverberations for years to come. i want to discuss other things with you tonight. let me start by asking your overall thoughts on this scandal. >> i read the grand jury indictments, i listened to the testimony of victims through the trial. i have read the report a couple three times, i paid attention to all the other data. i have a brand baby now. you look at all of that and -- i have a grand baby now. it was such a despicable said of -- set of acts. how can this happen at a great

university like penn state? we're trying to ascertain what role the ncaa has to play. it is pretty hard to read that report and not conclude that there were systemic failures across the institution, cluding within the athletic department, that strikes at the heart of what education is all about. and what athletics is supposed to be about. it is deeply troubling. it is hard to stay un emotional about this case. tavis: is that to say that the school lacked institutional control over the program? if the ncaa gets involved --is

that your way of saying that? >> what we did back in november when the accusations first came out and we reviewed the grand jury testimony, i wrote to the president of penn state and said look, here are a handful of questions that you need to answer. at the end of which we will make a determination as to whether we will form and the guests -- an investigation. penn state asked to wait to respond. we are in active discussions with penn state right now. i need to get a response back from them right away and then we will make that determination. we will see where we go. this is so big, the issue is not like anything else that college athletics has ever seen. we cannot just walk away from

this one. it does not fit in the normal pattern, thank god, but it strikes at some of the core values. tavis: those are your words, what does that mean? what kind of time frame are we talking about? >> weeks, not months. tavis: there are those that cannot put their finger on any specific ncaa violations that have occurred. obviously, it is despicable. what violations might they have violated? there is clearly a criminal case, but i am reading a lot of sports commentators who were trying to figure out what the violations might be. >> clearly, this case is not like a student athlete -- an

academic fraud case, it is something different. the fundamental core is what -- is promoting athletics and supporting all the values that come along with collegiate athletics. the values of fair play, high ethical standards, honesty, integrity, and developing programs that teach that as part of their educational experience. we're going to get answers back from them on those questions of institutional control. demonstrate to us that you had control over this program in a way that would allow you to follow all the rules and to comply with the values of athletics could demonstrate to us, convinced us that everybody behaved in an ethical fashion. and then we will go back and determine whether or not it meets or fails to meet those definitions. tavis: smu comes to mind.

there other of samples of schools that you have come down pretty hard on that were not any were agreed just as this. if ever there were a case, this would be that case. let me ask, have you seen anything that comes anywhere near to the egregious nature of this? >> i do not want to tie those two things together. i have never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of overall conduct or behavior inside the university. what's the appropriate penalties are, if there are determinations of violations, we will have to decide.

i do not want to take anything off the table. this is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal or anything else we have dealt with. this is as systemic a call to a problem as it is a football problem. this was more than a football scandal. much more than a football scandal. we will have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. i do not know that past president -- precedent makes good sense in this case. tavis: their son that argued that -- there are some that argued that they might not be willing to come down because they saw what happened to smu.

to see a program that historic and that great did decimated by this kind of move. >> i do not want to prejudge or will wind up with penalties. right now is a very special moment in the history of ncaa. there is an enormous amount of political will to do the right thing. we have demonstrated that again and again. whatever penalty structure is put in place, decisions will not be based upon the people want to be courageous or not. tavis: you have been the chancellor of a grade school, a president of another great school. you know what it means to be the top dog.

there is great conversations around this country about how a coach could have that kind of influence over everybody in leadership at an institution. what do you say two persons concerned about the control that athletic programs and their leaders have in college sports? >> that is one of the biggest questions in front of us with this particular case, or any case where an athletic program or power coaches become bigger than life or bigger than the institution. this is not about being too big to fail, this is too big to even question or to intrude on and control. if those are the realities that going on in this program, we need to figure out how we fix that culture. that is what penn state is wrestling with right now. the board and the new

president, what in the world happened here? how is this possible? these unbelievable acts that were not stop the cost -- not stopped across the institutional failures, just out of kilter in terms of the power relationships. that cannot happen. >> when parents send their kids off to school and they expect their kids to be a part of a program that is honorable and above board, engages in illegal activities and -- in gauges can legal activities, what do you say about -- what you say to those parents? >> the penn state case is so shocking because it is so rare. right? we have never seen anything like

this. in the history of college sports. the good news is that we now have this horrible object lesson. it has caused everyone to go back and look at their programs. what controls do we have in place? how are we educating people to deal with these issues? how do we deal with these kinds of issues? we need to try to use this disastrous circumstance as something that is a catalyst to positive improvements. having spent 30 years of my life on university campuses, i know they are safe environments. presidents, deans, coaches, they all work very hard to maintain that the environment. tavis: let me shift 180 degrees.

if that happens to be the worst example of what can happen in college sports, one of the best examples is something that happened 40 years ago. title 9, which opened up the door for women to engage programs or belong to programs that had been previously treated unfairly. what is your assessment how will celebrate title 9? >> it has changed the lives of millions of young women and girls. my wife is very athletic. we went to eight small high school together. the number of opportunities available to her were trivial. my daughter came along and she is playing every sport. we of change that experience

completely. one of the ways we celebrated, we put together a wonderful film with espn. it was a great event. we did a big unveiling in new york and had a bunch of wonderful women athletes there. athletes of the century, right? jackie tells the story that when she started into sports and middle school, they had no sports. she said -- they said, you have to be a cheerleader. been the world's best cheerleader. -- i'd joked with her and said you must have been the world's best cheerleader. here is this woman trying to break through all of that. we had tiger's cousin.

you cannot forget the women who fought through this who made this happen. great supporters in congress who got it done. it is a landmark bit of legislation. tavis: so much stuff happening these days. great conversation in the country about these new academic standards that the institution is imposing. i will let you explain it. it raises the bar. debate on both sides of this, but it raises the academic bar for entry for kids going to college. >> it is a very simple motion. we went back and looked at the success rates of students and said what do you need to be successful in college while you are being an athlete? we know too many kids are showing up to college not prepared.

they do not have the strengths in math or science or english. we said, we know if kids show up with a 2.5 gpa, if they have taken courses spread across their junior and sophomore years, their probability of success shoots up. starting with the kids in their freshman year of high school, and for years, you have to have a 2.5. you have to spread those courses across multiple years, not just one year. when a kid shows up to play basketball, and he knows he has to have a jump shot. and you have to have english and math and science skills. the great learning experiences, plus an education.

we're communicating to the schools across the country, if you have a young man or woman who wants to play college sports, they need to start paying attention to their schoolwork. i think is going to have a transformative impact. it has already had a great impact from the last set of transformations we did. athletic graduation rates are the highest they have ever then. they graduate at a higher rate than in non-athletes. people are always surprised to hear it. for students of color, it has a tremendous impact. the support and structure they get around an athletic program and the demands that the rules place on the intent to work really well. tavis: we all have our critics. what the critics are saying,

african-americans, hispanics, athletes of color are going to be most negatively disproportionately impacted. you raise the bar of the entry. so many of these kids come from schools that do not have the best teachers and resources. they are from a low-income neighborhood and they go to a low-income school, and their skill is in whatever sport they play. you have insured that they are got going to be able to make -- they are not going to be able to make the cut. what do you say two persons concerned about the impact it might have on athletes of color? >> a couple of things. the academic threshold for participation in college sports, you can still go to school and

get an athletic scholarship with a 2.2. that floor will be the same as it is today. you spend your freshman year not competing. you can practice, you can be part of your team, but you have to get your academic house in order. we will not cut off access in that sense. come to school, get your skills ready, and then you can compete. tavis: a total of five years to compete? >> we know that we have done this in the past, there was a little dip to begin with. all of a sudden, the performance of all students shot up. the ncaa as an opportunity to have a pretty profound impact on all of those schools.

no high schools wants to say we are not getting kids to play ncaa ball. we will make sure that we're providing these opportunities for men and women. coaches are saying, we have to get these programs in place for these kids. i would love nothing more to come back in for five years and say, look what happened. we raise the success rate of our student athletes, we helped change the schools. these kids are being led down. they are not being supported enough. tavis: george bush did a lot of things that i did not agree with. but he there is one line he used a lot of times. i thought it was a great line. he talked about what he termed the soft bigotry of low expectations. you have found it that when you

raise the bar, these kids jump over it. people help them to jump over it. at the end o the day, i think you are right. once you raise the bar, and demand more of these kids, they met the challenge. >> these are amazing kid. when you raise the expectations, you have to give them support, if you are holding the programs accountable. we now have changed our standards for the teams themselves. he will be on a team, and that team has to be on track to graduate half of its kids. if you are not on track, we will not let you participate in the championships. in men's basketball, there will be a lot of schools that will not be able to compete. they're eligible on the court, but not in the classroom. coaches are saying, okay, fine, we have to keep you eligible. tavis: we now have a playoff

system in college. i assume you are ok with this. >> i think it is fine. it is a great step in the right direction. we do not run that championship. we read 89 championships, but not that one. -- we've run 89 championships, but not that one. we will have four teams that will be paid to buy an as yet to be determined process. -- that be picked by an as yet to be determined process. tavis: i know you have been opposed to this, whether or not college athletes ought to be paid. i know you have been opposed to that. why? >> i am opposed -- these are

students. they come to college to get an education and developed their schools -- their skills. this is the end of their athletic career. once you converts a student athletes into an employee's comment that relationship is completely different. -- into an athlete, back relationship is completely different. this is about putting college students on the court, on the field, the best college students. converting them to professionals and to employees completely changes the nature of the relationship. i think the playoffs and the revenue developed right now is unprecedented. i think there is the way we can figure out how to pay for this. we have to cover the full cost

of attendance for a student to go to school. we do not cover something called miscellaneous expenses. that is the trip to go home to see mom and dad, clothing, food expenses. that number runs around $5,000. we have a proposal in the works to allow schools to provide $2,000 in miscellaneous allowances. i think that makes good sense. the new revenue under the football model and the other media contracts, i think there is plenty of money. it gives kids a chance to pay for their schooling. tavis: there are some folks saying, we cannot afford that. >> i know that. the majority of schools do lose money on sports.

there is an awful lot of money in intercollegiate athletics right now. we can figure out how to provide student athletes with that last little gap of money that is not there. these kids cannot take part-time jobs like i did. they are putting in a lot of time and energy. it is not like they have summer off. i am ready to try to find a way to give them a break. tavis: i know there is so much going on these days. i am grateful. glad to have you here. take care. until next time, thank you for watching. keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org.

tavis:hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with jimmie walker. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a

conversation with jimmie walker