And now for something completely different

[GoRedGoBlue]

Well, re-focus on another topic:

Cowen: Fix exclusive BCS

By Tim Stephens | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 23, 2003




Email this story to a friend
Printer friendly version









Before this summer, Tulane President Scott Cowen was largely unknown outside of academic circles, but he has become a familiar name among college football fans. As the founder of the Presidential Coalition for Athletics Reform, Cowen has become the front man for a national movement to reform the Bowl Championship Series. He recently spoke with Sentinel reporter Tim Stephens.

Q. Have you been surprised by the national attention your coalition has generated?

A. I had no expectations, to be very honest. When I originally set up that first phone call for schools not in the [BCS] alliance, I thought maybe 10 schools would sign up. We now have more than 40, and in fact, we have 50-plus because every [non-BCS] conference is working together on this. It has struck a nerve, and all of a sudden, there is this groundswell of dissatisfaction with the Bowl Championship Series and the desire to have some other system. It has exceeded all of our expectations.

Q. When you testified before Congress, you described the BCS as a cartel and questioned its legality under antitrust law. From your perspective, in what ways have non-BCS schools such as Tulane been damaged by this system?

A. It has had a significant financial impact. Through the first five years of the BCS arrangement, the BCS schools have shared about $475 million, and the non-BCS schools have shared about $16 million. . . . The second impact, which is just as important, is access. Because we don't have any real practical access to the BCS bowls and championship to compete for the national championship, it has had an impact on our ability to recruit student-athletes for football, the ability to attract and retain coaches, our ability to invest in facilities improvements, and you can go on down the list.

Q. Is this to some degree the logical course of events, considering the market forces at work after the deregulation of college football on TV in the 1980s?

A. To a certain degree. I've actually gone back and looked at the correspondence back in 1996 and 1997 that the WAC [Western Athletic Conference] wrote to [then-Southeastern Conference commissioner and BCS chairman] Roy Kramer and [then-NCAA president] Cedric Dempsey on what they thought were going to be all the problems if the BCS came about the way it did. What is a little frightening is that all their concerns were ignored. The BCS has unfolded with all the problems that the WAC predicted in 1996 and 1997. For me, this is not just about money. There is more at stake than money. The future of Division I-A athletics is at stake. To a certain degree, the NCAA's future and respectability are at stake. What's at stake is who has the right to determine a national champion for a sport that is sponsored by the NCAA. The BCS schools -- these 63 schools -- co-opted that right back in 1998 for a national championship outside the governance of the NCAA and without consultation of all of Division I-A. That bodes very, very poorly for the future of intercollegiate athletics, if it is allowed to continue.

Q. Some skeptics of your efforts question the timing. Why now? Why not in 1998 when Tulane had an undefeated season and was not invited to a BCS bowl?

A. First, the year we went undefeated was my first year as president at Tulane and the first year the BCS was in existence. I don't think we really understood the BCS system at that time. . . . The important thing now about the timing is that preliminary discussions have now just started between the BCS presidents about what will happen after 2005 [when the current BCS agreements expire]. It's very important that we weigh in early, before they make arrangements, and we find it's too late to really get anything changed.

Q. Why, for example, should LSU have to share major bowl revenue, because Tulane or any other school is not as successful financially?

A. We've never said that they have to. All we want is access to those bowls and the national championship, like we have in every other sport. . . . We have never asked for a handout. What we've said is, make it a level playing field. What they have not done is provide the access.

Q. Is it safe to say that one of the biggest complaints about the BCS system, as it exists now, is the fact that the non-competitive BCS teams share in the major bowl money on a large scale while more competitive non-BCS teams do not have that same access?

A. That's a very sore point with many of us. Whenever they talk about the competitiveness of the BCS schools, what they are really talking about is maybe the top 20 or 25 programs out of the 63. The rest of the BCS schools are no more competitive and are in many cases less competitive [than the non-BCS programs]. Why do they have the right to share in the largesse of this, and we don't?

Q. What is a satisfactory resolution?

A. Speaking as Scott Cowen and not in my role representing all five non-BCS conferences, it's about greater access and an approach to postseason play, including a national championship that Division I-A schools buy into from a governance point of view. We have to do whatever it takes to absolutely eradicate this branding problem that has caused a two-tiered system in Division I-A with this BCS nomenclature.

Q. Does adding a fifth BCS bowl game, with easier access to that bowl game for a non-BCS school, solve the problem?

A. For Scott Cowen, absolutely not. I'm not interested in a junior-varsity bowl. That may be part of a larger solution, but that alone does not get to where we need to be. We will not have changed anything significantly if all we do is add a bowl game.

Q. Should the NCAA, which to this point has played the role of impartial referee, exert more control in this process?

A. The NCAA is simply a membership organization and therefore cannot take sides. It can only mediate this but won't be a major player in whatever the solution is. I personally would like to see the NCAA at least use the bully pulpit and moral suasion to make sure we come together with a satisfactory solution, because if we don't, and this thing really escalates like with the ACC-Big East, everyone is going to be harmed by it.

Q. If there are no significant changes, where do you turn?

A. As far as Scott Cowen is concerned, this is such a significant issue that I, personally as president of Tulane, will explore every single avenue open to me to make sure we get significant change, including really looking at the possibility of a lawsuit. My personal resolve is that something has to change to make this better, or else Division I-A as we know it is going to be forever altered. I will not stand by and let that happen without a fight. We are not going to back off this.

[Sam I Am]

With a school president like Scott Cowen, I want to go to Tulane - and I don't need any more college.