What a bizarre rent. The dumpster-fire group generally known as the NCAA needed to make the best transfer in naming its subsequent president. Mark Emmert’s tenure left the NCAA a multitude so unhealthy individuals questioned why the group even existed within the first place. To repair all the problems at hand, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is on the job. The Republican chief of one of many bluest states in America will depart the political spectrum (kind of) and head to Indianapolis to be the czar of faculty athletics.
Baker, who has by no means labored at a university or in schooling in any respect, will begin his time period because the NCAA’s sixth president in March, inheriting the group that horribly mismanaged the faculty basketball bribery scandal, whereas having basketball be what drives most of the group’s income. There are a plethora of different points the NCAA will face within the coming years together with the implementation of identify, picture, and likeness, the inevitable formation of tremendous conferences in addition to whether or not the NCAA ought to stop to exist in any respect.
To lead that endeavor somebody whose strengths haven’t confirmed to be in sports activities, enterprise or schooling, and who doesn’t seem to have sturdy connections with faculty athletics in any respect, is the person to do it. Baker’s an odd, unconventional rent — an outsider to say the least. The NCAA zigged when it may’ve zagged. And in a number of years, it would’ve been the precise proper transfer. There’s purpose to consider this actual serpentine wasn’t the best path, particularly if the group wished to plaster an anti-Emmert rent. There is an extremely low bar for Baker to look higher than his predecessor, however being a non-traditional candidate is a dangerous transfer.
Let’s state the apparent right here. The hypothesis of who the subsequent NCAA president was going to be wasn’t like hiring a soccer or basketball coach. The large hypothesis of up-and-coming coaches who deserve their probability with a big-time alternative was by no means going to be the trajectory of how this performs out. This was by no means going to be Brian Kelly spurning Notre Dame for LSU. Appointing somebody who turns into the brand new face of blame got here together with the search, evidenced by this quote on the switch portal at his introductory press convention: “I think the transfer portal is one element of a whole series of elements that needs to be part of the conversation going forward.”
Maybe he’s excellent for the position, as a result of I do not know what which means. Baker had at the least 24 hours to prep a solution to an apparent query he’ll get and that was a spectacular politically acquainted nothing-burger. Two all beef patties, particular sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun maintain one all beef patty, particular sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. It’s a singular piece of thriller meat, simply as supposed. Not precisely the assuaging of murkiness you’d hope for in a post-Emmert NCAA.
Where I believed the rent was going was inside faculty athletics itself, somebody with a ton of enterprise expertise and experience on methods to handle an uncountable variety of initiatives directly. That somebody who understands the scope of the job and wouldn’t thoughts admitting working faculty athletics isn’t a one-person job. I’d need a Brett Yormark-type rent, who would’ve been nice if he wasn’t employed as Big 12 Commissioner. The expertise of working at Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment in addition to Roc Nation would have served him superbly. Heck, to serve the better good, having the Big 12 discover a new chief isn’t an inconceivable possibility. Someone with phenomenal enterprise expertise would’ve been too simple. Baker should spend a while in Washington throughout his tenure due to Congress’ involvement with the group over the previous couple of years. But energy in having pals within the nation’s capital shouldn’t have been sufficient to place him excessive for this rent.
The mind-boggling factor about Gov. Baker’s rent is that I’m undecided of his imaginative and prescient to vary issues for the higher. He deserves time to show it, however this might find yourself being extra of the identical from the NCAA. With the power to select a candidate from such a variety of backgrounds, going pure political science, with no observe report of sports activities or schooling, is a questionable choice from the governing physique of faculty athletics that loves the phrase student-athletes. Baker’s not accountable for this mess. His mop alone received’t cowl this spill.