College basketball

Brand’s focus was academics, basketball

Former NCAA president also influenced more reasonable eligibility rules

Aj Mast / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Myles Brand died Wednesday at the age of 67.

OPINION

By Mike DeCourcy

updated 12:52 p.m. ET Sept. 17, 2009

Mike DeCourcy

When Myles Brand traded in the library for the gymnasium in January 2003, moving from president of Indiana University to president of the NCAA, he met individually with various members of the media to establish an outline for what he hoped to accomplish during his tenure.

When I got my chance, one question I asked involved a couple of former IU students: How could it be that virtuoso Joshua Bell graduated from the university with an artists' diploma in violin performance whereas Jared Jeffries got no academic credit for playing basketball?

On that day, honestly, Brand did not have a great answer. But I know it's something he thought about during his years as NCAA president. His mind was not closed to new ideas about college athletes and college athletics. He might have been the most visionary executive ever to head the NCAA. College athletics lost a great friend with Brand's passing because he was willing to examine and champion concepts designed to improve the athletes' opportunities and experience.

Understand that the NCAA president is a position of influence more than execution. He does not have the powers of a league commissioner; his job is more to encourage than to enforce. These were some of the causes Brand, who died Wednesday at age 67 after a fight with cancer, championed and helped lead to fruition:

1. Athletes' welfare
Brand's administration of the NCAA's executive offices did allow him to have some input into how rules were applied, and there can be no question athletes generally got a more reasonable deal in regards to eligibility issues and the like.

Under Brand, the NCAA took a more reasonable approach to issues such as teams attending the funeral of a teammate who died and a more liberal attitude toward expenses eligible for reimbursement under the emergency fund. He was a force behind the change in initial eligibility rules, from line-in-the-sand numerical benchmarks to the more inclusive standards now in place. He was willing to open the door wider for athletes to enter, but they had to perform in class once there.

2. APR
Those initials still might be a mystery to some college fans, but not to coaches. APR stands for Academic Progress Rate, and essentially it means programs whose athletes do poorly in school face punishments that affect athletics. Such programs might lose scholarships. They might be banned from postseason competition.

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Some of the math of the APR is arcane, but Brand particularly pushed for programs not to be punished if athletes were in good academic standing before transferring or pursuing a professional career. The APR tends to nudge athletes to pursue less challenging courses, as well. But the academic performance of athletes in most sports has improved, with graduation rates exceeding those of general students, and that contributes to the health of college athletics.

3. Embracing basketball
The NCAA Tournament essentially funds the NCAA, which means the tournament paid Brand's salary. So maybe that led him to reach out to college basketball coaches in an effort to make their game work better. Or maybe he recognized it was the right thing to do.

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He visited their ethics summit in 2003. The infernal 8/5 rule — limiting programs to eight scholarships over two years, and five in any one year — was eliminated on his watch, as part of the academic progress drive. Brand joined NBA commissioner David Stern in pushing for a 20-year age limit for the NBA draft, which would allow basketball players to be better developed when they begin professional careers.

It was basketball, of course, that brought Brand into the athletic arena. He was IU president for six years when events involving basketball coach Bob Knight — primarily the release of a videotape that appeared to show Knight striking one of his players, Neil Reed, in the throat — led Brand to establish a "zero-tolerance" policy regarding his conduct.

Not even three months later, the coach's alleged harangue of an IU student led Brand to fire Knight. That made Brand a hero to many academics, and thus a natural to be chosen to become the first university president to head the NCAA. He served well in that office, but he had so much left to do.

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