• Consideration of allowing college football teams to play 12-game seasons.
• Eliminating the “5-and-8” rule, which limited basketball programs to five scholarships in one season and eight over a two-year span.
• Hiring Myles Brand, a former Indiana University president, as NCAA president in October 2002.
Myles Brand considers it an era of reform.
Over the last three years, the NCAA has overhauled rules governing how student-athletes can be recruited, the academic qualifications they must meet and the responsibilities of universities to ensure those students actually receive an education.
At the forefront of that change: Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway, who served as chairman of the NCAA Division I board of directors.
“He was the right man at the right time,” said Brand, the NCAA president. “Bob is an unassuming person, and he doesn’t seek the limelight. But the fact of the matter is he is a national leader. I know you don’t get as appreciated in your hometown, but the fact is on a national basis, people have enormous respect for Bob.”
Hemenway’s tenure as board chairman ends Thursday.
“I’ve enjoyed the job,” Hemenway said. “I feel like on my watch — and not because of my actions — the board has done some good things.”
Perhaps the most sweeping changes came in the area of academic standards.
The NCAA in January announced a landmark package of reforms: Teams that perform poorly in the classroom will lose scholarships to recruit new athletes.
The performance will be based on graduation rates and an academic progress rate that is based on the number of student-athletes who achieve eligibility and return to campus full-time each term.
At KU, officials said in March that three of the university’s 18 varsity teams — football, baseball and women’s basketball — would have fallen short of the standard had the rule been in place this year, with the men’s basketball team just inside a margin-of-error “safety zone.”
Hemenway said the changes would ensure universities were looking after their student-athletes in the classroom and not just on the court or field.
“It’s a system of greater accountability that’s imposed on the institutions,” Hemenway said. “Coaches have to be aware of the types of players they’re recruiting. In the past, coaches have been able to recruit great basketball players, but now they won’t be able to recruit someone who’s not going to be able to be (academically) successful during their time at the institution.”
Under Hemenway’s watch, the NCAA Division I board also approved recruiting changes in the wake of scandals at the University of Colorado. Universities now must develop written policies that specifically prohibit inappropriate or illegal behavior in recruiting. Universities can’t use private or chartered planes to recruit, or offer personalized recruiting aids such as jerseys.
“I think recruiting will pretty much cleanse itself,” Hemenway said. “Kids you really want to play for you will ultimately be the ones who care about academics and having a family atmosphere. I don’t think that kids choose the college they want to go to based on who has the best beer blasts.”
His ideas included a lifetime scholarship to students and scholarships for students’ siblings.
“One of the things I’ve thought about is, I try to put myself in the shoes of a student-athlete,” Hemenway said. “If you do that, you feel for the student-athlete. The student-athlete may resent the fact he’s the one making money for the athletic department.
“The student-athlete is not going to be paid in dollars or a salary for their participation in athletics. The currency we have to offer is educational currency.”
Hemenway also suggested a moratorium on NCAA legislation. He said the rule book was too large and complicated.
Brand said he wasn’t surprised Hemenway offered proposals that included thinking outside the box, based on his experience with the Division I board.
“It was different than we operated before,” he said of the recent reforms. “So we needed a very steady hand at the helm, and Bob provided just that kind of leadership.”
It also made him a target for interviewers. Hemenway has been heavily quoted in national media during the last three years.
“I got made into some sort of an instant expert that journalists can call up,” he said. “You’re in the limelight to a certain extent, and you’re being asked a lot of questions. You have to be careful not to let that go to your head. They’re not calling you because you’re an expert; they’re calling because you’re a spokesman for this part of the NCAA.”
