Tulane President's Recent Interview

[Water Pony]

Interesting interview, including the possibility of using legal means, if no accommodation for Non-BCS schools occurs. Biggest criticisim appears to be that lower tier BCS schools have dramatically better financial support than non-BCS schools, especially those that are highly competitive.

<A HREF="http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/6839634.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/6839634.htm</A>

[Hoop Fan]

Finally, somebody with some balls steps up. Thank you Cowen, and something tells me Turner is involved too. That was a real good Q&A, you can tell the writer has a firm grasp of the issues. So many times guys like Tim Colishaw in Dallas exemplify diarrhea of the pen by framing up the BCS discussion by citing Ohio State or Texas. Nobody is questioning their market power or birthright. The issue is not the Top 20 superpower programs, its everyone else and deciding what makes college football work. I wonder if anybody really wants to see a minor leagues for the NFL where there is no such thing as ANY student athlete and Tennessee beats Texas every other week and both finish 6-6.

[PlanoStang]

If you didn't click on the link in the first post you need to. Here is an excerpt (sp).
This is the BIG PICTURE. Quit wastin time responding to Stallion, and write your congress reps, and senators. Actually, me too, I need to do that. READ the below:


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.