Who will replace Mark Emmert as NCAA President? | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss Mark Emmert’s announcement that he will step down has NCAA President by June 2023, and debate who would be a good replacement for the embattled leader.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: Pat, Sully, pour one out for Mark Emmert.
[LAUGHS]
PAT FORDE: He's made us pour a lot in over the years drinking to try to get over his inept leadership. So, yeah, I guess now it's time to pour one out.
DAN WETZEL: Mutual decision. Sure. Sure.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: Because guys definitely walk away from $2.7 million virtual no appearance jobs.
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: A year after an extension.
PAT FORDE: A year after an extension. Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah, they finally came from Mark Emmert, finally tapped him on the shoulder. Of course, he gets to continue to serve in his role until a new president is selected and is in place or until June 30th, 2023. So he's got 14 more months of putting a ski mask on every two weeks and collecting his check, taking it down to the Indianapolis Savings Bank and laughing.
PAT FORDE: Well, given the pace of how things work at the NCAA, he stands a great chance of finishing that tenure before his successor is hired.
DAN WETZEL: He's going to make like $3.5 million.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. They can't finish an investigation in 4 and 1/2 years. How can they find a president in 14 months?
DAN WETZEL: With the FBI helping.
PAT FORDE: With the FBI helping.
DAN WETZEL: So in fairness this is a very hard job
PAT FORDE: Oh, yeah. No, it is.
DAN WETZEL: And it's not so much that you couldn't have ideas or solutions. But corralling hundreds of different schools, massive egos, I mean-- can't get into that, right?
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: Even the people agreeing to have a bigger playoff couldn't agree to have a bigger playoff.
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: So I'll give them that. Hard job. But you're well compensated for it.
But who takes this job? Like what's it-- I think we got, you know, some lists. I don't know. You know--
PAT FORDE: Yeah--
DAN WETZEL: Pete had a list.
PAT FORDE: Pete had a list.
DAN WETZEL: Pete's claiming sources on this. How-- Come on. He just made this stuff up. Washington State President Kirk Schultz, Oliver Locke-- he's always up for a good one.
PAT FORDE: Oh, yeah.
DAN WETZEL: Baylor President, Linda Livingstone, Clemson President, Jim Clements.
PAT FORDE: Love Pete, but that's an establishment list, man. Well, how's the establishment done so far?
DAN WETZEL: Well, they're not going to go anti-establishment.
PAT FORDE: Hell, yes. If there's never been a time.
DAN WETZEL: If asked, I will not serve.
[LAUGHS]
Actually, I damn straight will for $1.27 million--
PAT FORDE: For $2.7, you'll go ahead and take some [BEEP] for two years.
DAN WETZEL: Oh, hell yeah.
PAT FORDE: Before they run you out.
DAN WETZEL: If they catch-- me and Emmert have a booth at The Slippery Noodle with my name on it.
[LAUGHS]
PAT FORDE: But all right here's what we have had running the NCAA. We've had a colossally in-over-his-head university president president who replaced another university president. And before that we had a couple of athletic directors. I think Cedric Dempsey and Shultz. But how's the NCAA doing? Not very well. I don't want to see more of these guys, these same people that are always on these same committees going into the leadership of that position.
I think the sports' model is breaking. So let's just break it all the way and start over. And that means breaking the mold on who should be the president. Now, I wish I had some good names to give you.
DAN WETZEL: What is this job even entail? Like--
PAT FORDE: I think it entails a couple of things. First of all, having vision, secondly, having communication, third, having compassion, four, being a consensus builder. Maybe those in reverse order. I don't know.
DAN WETZEL: I think we need someone who's willing to grind.
PAT FORDE: Yup.
DAN WETZEL: You need a consensus builder that shows up with some measure of respect, but you've got to earn that respect.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: OK. You can't just be like, OK, well let's give it to Condi Rice. Everyone respects her, right? Well, that will fall apart real quick, you know, right?
PAT FORDE: Yeah, right. The last they gave to Condi Rice didn't turn out very good.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah, but Condi is going to be on this Search Committee, right?
PAT FORDE: Of course. Of course.
DAN WETZEL: She'll be on the Search Committee. But like I think when you look at like what's going on with the-- what's the committee that they're working on now? The Transition Team?
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Transformation Committee.
DAN WETZEL: You have Greg Sankey of the SEC on there. And he's got his-- he's dug in, right? When they were trying to do the playoff, he's dug in on things.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: Right. Or sure, or these guys that sit there and say, I'm going to handle this. When they wanted to do the playoff plan--
PAT FORDE: Right. Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: Right, Swarbrooke, Thompson, Bowlsby, Sankey said, we'll handle it.
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: We're going to go get after this. We're going to meet. We're going to do it. Not, hey, we need 14 people, and do we have someone from this region of the country? And do have this, and we have this? Where's the student athlete, what about a non-revenue student athlete? Ugh. Just come up with a plan. It almost worked.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: Same thing on this. Like someone's just got to dig in there and try to hold this thing together.
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: Because to me part of that is like, you know, my opinion, relax on all this other stuff you guys are all screaming your heads off. It'll resolve itself. But we have to keep the NCAA together. We need the big schools and the small schools together if only to save March Madness.