FanHouse MylesBrand

In the wake of Myles Brand's death last Wednesday, the NCAA was left without a president and no clear rules in place for succession. Considering Brand's prognosis wasn't very good for quite a while -- he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January and not given great odds of survival -- it's a bit surprising the organization didn't address the issue before he perished.

It appears the NCAA will continue its search for a replacement, as they have named only a temporary president. James Isch, the NCAA's vice president for administration and chief financial officer, has been named the interim president.

So Blake Griffin is ready to make the jump now. The whole thing is nicely wrapped up with a bow for David Stern and Myles Brand, who should be high-fiving, lighting up victory cigars.

The Naismith Award winner, the nation's best college basketball player, is more mature for having stayed at Oklahoma for his sophomore year. He probably worked some education in somewhere, too. So yes, this worked out perfectly for him to jump to the NBA now.

So Blake Griffin is ready to make the jump now. The whole thing is nicely wrapped up with a bow for David Stern and Myles Brand, who should be high-fiving, lighting up victory cigars.

The Naismith Award winner, the nation's best college basketball player, is more mature for having stayed at Oklahoma for his sophomore year. He probably worked some education in somewhere, too. So yes, this worked out perfectly for him to jump to the NBA now.

Myles Brand is notorious for valuing academics above athletics while serving as NCAA president. He is also famous for dismissing Bob Knight from Indiana University following a 2000 incident.

And now he is, sadly, making headlines with an announcement Saturday that he has pancreatic cancer and that things, from a long-term perspective, do not appear good.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports has a thought-provoking column about the O.J. Mayo mess, and he believes that when the NCAA is tarnished by allegations of runners for agents handing out cash to star athletes, one person deserves a heaping helping of blame: Myles Brand.

If you didn't see this one coming, don't feel bad, you're no more naive and gullible than NCAA president Myles Brand. ...

the entire circumstance was created when Myles Brand decided to sell the NCAA's soul to David Stern's 19-year-old age limit.

Brand welcomed the one-and-done phenom for whatever ratings bump they provide. In doing so, he stomped on everything his organization claims to stand for – education, amateurism, fairness, et al. He made the likes of O.J. Mayo inevitable.

Wetzel makes some good points here, and there's no question that Brand, the NCAA and the schools that field big-time football and basketball teams try to have it both ways when they insist that their players are students as much as they're athletes while basically operating as a minor league for the NFL and NBA.

But really, Brand has no control at all over the NBA's and NFL's minimum age rules. The truth is, Brand and the NCAA member schools ought to hold themselves to a certain set of standards irrespective of what the NFL and NBA do.

And that's the point here: If the NCAA had the courage of its convictions, it would go back to the days of freshman ineligibility and tell the Mayos of the world that they weren't going to treat college as a place to play ball for a few months before moving on. But the NCAA would rather have the money the Mayos of the world can generate.

It's a shame false rumors about a deal to increase the NBA's minimum age requirement for entry to the draft gained more attention last week than the real reason for college-pro collaboration: the formation of a plan to "rescue" American youth basketball. Reps from the NBA, NCAA, AAU, USA Basketball, and the shoe companies got together to say "we need to do something," which as Baltimore Sun columnist David Steele notes is a good first step. But it's really not clear where this is going, as Steele writes.

Too bad no one on that stage suggested blowing up the entire system and starting over from scratch. Practically speaking, that's impossible, and it actually wouldn't be fair to those entities within the system who try to do the right thing from within. ... No segment is wholly good or wholly bad, nor is any idea or any concept. That goes for the NCAA and its one-sided system, the shoe companies and their virtual bankrolling of kids as early as middle school, and the NBA and its ever-changing attempts to gauge public approval.

It's all an unwieldy mess, and something had to be done to bring some structure to it all.

Short of blowing it all up, someone's got to take the conch and be the leader on this. David Stern's NBA is a good candidate, though Stern has always seemed wary of tussling with shoe companies (he'd rather fight with his players and the media). The NCAA has limited practical opportunity to expand its power here -- their regulations already levy hefty punishments on players and programs who don't play by the strict rules. (Lest we forget the debate over LeBron James's moot NCAA eligibility.) AAU is too huge and dispersed to prevent the occasional (or "frequent," unfortunately) abuse, and USA Basketball can't conceivably get too mucked up in sub-star ranks of teen hoops.

The best solution might be this whole raising-the-age-limit thing, as distasteful and backwards as it seems. The NCAA, again, is strict. Forcing kids into two years of college theoretically forces the players to abide by those strict compensation/gift rules longer, and raises the penalty for players who run afoul (or are lead afoul). The NCAA also needs to crack down on glorified street agents who lead star high schoolers to certain programs. Worldwide Wes is one thing. Other pipelines aren't so clean.

Earlier, the Charlotte News-Observer reported the NBA and NCAA will have a joint press conference Monday to announce a bump in the NBA's age-limit from 19 to 20 years old, and FanHouse's Sportz Assassin explained why he is in favor of the move here. However, don't expect this announcement to actually happen tomorrow. A few reasons:

1. The NCAA has nothing to do with the age limit. Myles Brand can wish wish wish to his heart's content, but he has no role in "negotiating" a bump in the age limit with the NBA. The rule is for the NBA and its player association to decide, just as it was in 2006. Which brings us to the real reason this isn't happening...
2. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement isn't up for negotiation until 2010-11. The bump in the limit will happen, I'd bet -- but not until 2011. It's an important issue to David Stern, but not one he'd be willing to trot out (as a controversial topic) on the eve of possibly the greatest postseason in modern NBA history. He could presumably have negotiated this into the CBA, but then the player's union would be a party to the press conference, not the NCAA.

My intuition tells me the announcement will instead be about a plan to retake youth basketball from the sneaker companies, which was reported by the Indianapolis Business Journal to be in negotiations in March. Announcing the formation of either a national youth organization run by the NBA and NCAA (or USA Basketball) or a major basketball academy for teenaged stars-in-waiting would provide a ton of great press on the morning of the National Championship game.

There will be a press conference tomorrow which NCAA and NBA will announce a change to the NBA's draft eligibility policy. NBA commish David Stern and NCAA president Myles Brand will conduct the news conference.

Brand hinted Thursday the NCAA and NBA had worked out a deal to create a 20-year-old age limit, which would keep the best players in college for a minimum of two years.

The NBA adopted a 19-year-old age limit in its collective bargaining agreement with the players' association in 2006, which prevented high school players from jumping directly to the NBA.

This would essentially eliminate those "one-and-done" guys like Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Brandan Wright from last year.

I love the rule because I think it is in the best interest of both the NBA and NCAA. The NBA will get a more experienced and skilled player (for every Kevin Durant, there are dozens of Brandan Wright's not playing) and the NCAA gets to keep its stars a bit longer. Imagine if Texas still had Durant or Ohio State had Oden? Would UNC been exposed by Kansas like that if Wright had still been around?

Intriguing report out of the Indianapolis Business Journal this morning regarding ongoing talks between the NBA and NCAA to completely revolutionize the way youth basketball and player development works in this country. From the IBJ's Anthony Schoettle:

The desire to bring structure to youth basketball development and to field improved teams for international competition is the driving force behind the agreement. For two years, the parties have been discussing a pact to develop year-round training programs for high school players and academies for elite players; conduct sanctioned cobranded youth leagues, tournaments and development programs for coaches and officials; and explore corporate partnerships that could pay for such sweeping initiatives.

This is one of those 'believe-it-when-I-see-it' deals -- the sneaker companies (literally) own youth basketball these days. Nike and adidas won't give up this sector without a fight (though it is interesting to note longtime adidas/Reebok honcho Sonny Vaccaro has made a bit of an about-face in the past few years).

Simultaneously yet separately, David Stern says he'll push to move the minimum age limit to 20 years old at the next collective bargaining negotiations... something Myles Brand and the NCAA will adore. Keep that in mind as an unspoken incentive when (if?) any agreement on youth basketball gets completed.

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that NCAA President Myles Brand was paid $895,000 in salary, benefits and expenses last year. What for?

University of Hartford president Walter Harrison, whose term as head of the NCAA's executive committee ended in April, said Brand is doing a "spectacular job."

"The job is incredibly challenging in a way most people wouldn't recognize," Harrison said. "Most people think of the major headlines -- congressional inquiries, overseeing academic reform, the controversies of the day. But there are lots of other things, like how one keeps the peace among numerous constituencies. And, he's running a $500 million organization."

So, the parts of his job that nobody knows about, he handles with enough aplomb to merit 4% and 3% raises in the last two years. Cool. No problems there.

The problem is, the part of his job that people do see --- they tend to think he sucks at it. Congress is breathing down the NCAA's neck as it considers eliminating its tax-exempt status. There's a pending class-action lawsuit filed on the behalf of former and current athletes who are seeking greater compensation. In the college football world, the NCAA's weak investigation and enforcement powers, silly and inflexible rules and tone-deaf handling of something so basic like the clock rules have people furious with NCAA leadership. There's also that little supplement issue where schools are afraid to give their athletes peanut butter for fear of breaking the rules.

And then there's the kicker, Brand's stated position of having the NCAA's mission overlap with "social advocacy". Last I checked, social causes weren't really part of the organization's fundamental mission.

In fact, it looks like a perverse overreach and has eroded public trust in the organization. Save the advocacy for groups professionally committed to those tasks who have the expertise and clarity of mission to pursue such causes. The NCAA has other fish to fry and frankly I'm not sure it has done a superb job at handling some of its more pertinent, basic, fundamental issues.

I don't find fault with Brand drawing such an impressive salary. I'm a capitalist - I say more power to him and may he find ways to make much more money through whatever legal avenues he can. But I am curious and deeply skeptical as to whether he's earned it and whether both Brand and the NCAA can do better for what he is being paid.

(H/T: The Wiz)