The History Of The NCAA And Their Meteoric Rise To Power

The History of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), its conception, and rise to power, is a complicated story than spans almost two centuries of collegiate sporting history. Throughout the decades, the NCAA has steadily gained dominance of the collegiate athletic landscape and carefully evaded compromising lawsuits and workers compensation by creating the term “student athlete” and enforcing the rules of amateurism. Yet, the NCAA has profited greatly from young athlete’s athletic pursuits and has turned amateur sports into a self-serving multi-billion dollar empire. My focus throughout this paper will be the concept of “student athlete” and how that term was created and the issues that were evaded and arose from this as well as telling the unique history of the inception and rise of the NCAA. It is hard to imagine a time when the NCAA did not have complete control of the university system, but it was not always the powerhouse of enforcement it is today. In fact, there was a time when the fledgling government body held no authority at all, but first let’s begin by starting at the dawn of North American collegiate sports to discover why the NCAA was established.

           In 1852, the Harvard and Yale rowing teams competed against each other in their annual rivalry on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. The event was a spectacle and thousands of people lined the shores to watch the two best rowing teams in the country compete for bragging rights. It was also here that arguably the first NCAA infraction might have occurred had the governing body been established. “The superintendent of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad organized the event, luring the Harvard and Yale rowing crews with “lavish prizes” and “unlimited alcohol,” in order to attract wealthy passengers up to watch the event” (Zimbalist, 2001, p. 7). Back then there was no concept of “student athlete” nor any precedent for what that would look like. This is in part thanks to the idea that college sports being important to our notion of education and college life was not yet deeply entrenched and established in the general public’s minds. People paid to see elite athletes perform no matter their status as a student. Lavish rewards and prize money was not uncommon as many competitions in the early days of collegiate sport saw its fair share of rewards go to the athlete students who participated. In fact by many accounts, universities used all sorts of tricks to get ahead of rival schools and were certainly not above cheating let alone paying their players. The Harvard and Yale rivalry continued to grow as new sports saw the two rivals locked in fierce competition with each other. Rugby, and wrestling joined the ranks of rowing and the competition grew. Rugby grew to become quite popular and viewed as necessary because, “… the United States did not hold a global empire like England's, leaders warned of national softness once railroads conquered the last continental frontier. As though heeding this warning, ingenious students turned variations on rugby into a toughening agent.” (Branch, 2011, p. 83) Rugby would later form into a physically dominate and brutal game known as American football which originally would encompass many of the rules of Rugby while lessening others to create a freer and more violent display. American Football would be changed and grow over the next century to become the most popular sport in America and the primary reason for the creation of the NCAA.

           Football quickly overtook all other collegiate sports to become the most beloved. Even in its adolescence as a sport there was still a large and growing fan base of rabid supporters. The Harvard and Yale football matchup became the most important rivalry in sports and attracted the attention of the nation. The players were, yet again, paid for their devotion and representation of their respective universities on the field of play. Walter Camp, a recent graduate of Yale in 1880 saw huge potential in the fledgling sport and even, “…devoted his life to it without pay, becoming "the father of American football" (Branch, 2011, p. 83). “He persuaded other schools to reduce the chaos on the field by trimming each side from 15 players to 11, and it was his idea to paint measuring lines on the field. He conceived functional designations for players, coining terms such as quarterback” (Branch, 2011, p. 83). Football continued its meteoric rise in popularity and by the turn of the twentieth century, football was king in college. Harvard’s football program grew rapidly and in 1903, fervent alumni built Harvard Stadium with “zero college funds” (Branch, 2011, p. 83). “The team's first paid head coach. Bill Reid, started in 1905 at nearly twice the average salary for a full professor” (Branch, 2011, 83). Overtime, due to graphic newspaper pictures and headlines (along with rising death toll) concern about football’s impact on those who played it began to take hold. Football players were never padded or protected and often faced serious life threatening injuries from game to game. Deaths were becoming common and newspapers began to write about the dangers of football. Public opinion on the sport soured quickly and the families of dead players, the press, and fans alike began to call for football’s demise. One maneuver is described as the “… Flying Wedge- half a ton of bone and muscle coming into collision with a man weighing 160 or 170 pounds" (Branch, 2011, p. 83). The article also notes that,

“…surgeons often had to be called onto the field. Three years later, the continuing mayhem prompted the Harvard faculty to take the first of two votes to abolish football” (Branch, 2011, p. 83).

With footballs future uncertain, the “Founder of the NCAA” President Teddy Roosevelt, issued mandatory meeting with the goal to “Save football.”

           Football’s death toll was growing and had led to a collective national panic over its impact on the youth of America. “Roosevelt summoned leaders from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to the White House, where Camp parried mounting criticism and conceded nothing irresponsible in the college football rules he'd established” (Branch, 2011, p. 83). The three schools were forced to issue a public statement and, “…representatives from 68 colleges founded a new organization that would soon be called the National Collegiate Athletic Association” (Branch, 2011, p. 83).

Corruption took hold as “… A Haverford College official was confirmed as secretary but then promptly resigned in favor of Bill Reid, the new Harvard coach, who instituted new rules that benefited Harvard's playing style at the expense of Yale's” (Branch, 2011, p. 83).

President Roosevelt, also a Harvard graduate, had appeased the public outcry by creating a governing body that would “regulate” the game, and helped change the rules to allow his beloved Harvard to become dominant once again. As you can see the public outcry over violence was the main reason for the creation of the NCAA, not the paying of athletes.

           The NCAA was born from unfortunate circumstances and a need to create a very public solution and make football appear more regulated. In actuality, the governing body was nothing more than a fa?ade with a small staff and no real control over the university system. Changes to the game were slow and the NCAA’s ability to make changes and regulate was almost nonexistent. “Not until 1939 did it gain the power even to mandate helmets” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). Widespread corruption still existed in college sports and athletes were still getting paid similarly to almost a century ago on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. In fact, paying athletes had become such commonplace that, “…In 1939, freshman players at the University of Pittsburgh went on strike because they were getting paid less than their upperclassman teammates” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). The situation became national news and embarrassed the NCAA which led to their creation of the “Sanity Code” with the goal to, “… prohibit all concealed and indirect benefits for college athletes; any money for athletes was to be limited to transparent scholarships awarded solely on financial need. Schools that violated this code would be expelled from NCAA membership and thus exiled from competitive sports” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). The rule was never taken seriously by anyone in the university system and further showed how little power the NCAA had over college athletics. “The University of Virginia went so far as to call a press conference to say that if its athletes were ever accused of being paid, they should be forgiven, because their studies at Thomas Jefferson's university were so rigorous” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). The NCAA barely sustained an array of terrible blows to its public perception and the university system before their luck began to change in 1951 thanks to a young college dropout named Walter Byers.

           1951 might just be the most important year in collegiate sporting history, and Walter Byers might be the most important figure. Walter Byers changed the NCAA’s fortune forever and is the primary reason that the governing body exists with such authority today. From his initial appointment as the head of the NCAA nothing was ever the same. College sports was ripe with scandals, and Byers worked tirelessly to create a fa?ade of real authority. His and the NCAA’s big break was a set of scandals. William & Mary, “…found to be counterfeiting grades to keep conspicuously pampered players eligible. In the other, a basketball point-shaving conspiracy (in which gamblers paid players to perform poorly) had spread from five New York colleges to the University of Kentucky” (Branch, 2011, p. 84).  Byers went after his targets ferociously by impaneling a small infraction board to penalize the schools without waiting for the rest of the NCAA schools. This allowed him to be more strict and harsher in punishment than his fellow university counterparts would have been. Somehow he convinced A.D. Kirwan (University of Kentucky Dean) that the University needed to take the penalty to restore public support. “…His gambit succeeded when Kirwan reluctantly accepted a landmark precedent: the Kentucky basketball team would be suspended for the entire 1952-53 season” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). This represented the first big win for the NCAA and Byers but it was only the beginning. Soon Byers would set his sights on something that would change the NCAA’s fortunes forever, television.

           If the penalty set in the University of Kentucky case began to legitimize the NCAA and helped their powers grow, then television is where the NCAA became massive. Almost every college and university voted against showing televised games in fear of attendance drops and opted for the NCAA to choose a few schools a year to compete on television. Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania wanted to retain their television rights which led to Byers bringing a hailstorm of penalties and infractions their way. A back and forth ensued in which Byers threatened penalties for games televised without the NCAA’s approval while the University of Pennsylvania considered seeking antitrust protection. Byers then issued, “…a contamination notice, informing any opponent scheduled to play Penn that it would be punished for showing up to compete” (Branch, 2011, p. 84). Byers would go on to win as the University of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame folded which gave him exclusive negotiation rights with television networks for all colleges. “On June 6, 1952, NBC signed a one-year deal to pay the NCAA $1.14 million for a carefully restricted football package” (Branch, 2011, p. 84).

Byers made sure all money from contracts ran through the NCAA headquarters and to fund future NCAA infrastructure, “…his organization should take a 60 percent cut; he accepted 12 percent that season” (Branch, 2011, p. 84).  In only one year Byers had built the NCAA into a regulatory power with enough money to run all university athletics and move the NCAA into a spacious new headquarters in Kansas City.

Television would prove to be the biggest commercial leap for collegiate athletics but as the potential for ad revenue and sponsorships grew, the newly named “student athletes” saw none of the profits.

With television ratings beginning to skyrocket and an increase in ad revenue, large universities began to question why they needed the NCAA to regulate their television rights and restrict their profits. “In 1981 a rogue consortium of 61 major football schools threatened to sign an independent contract with NBC for $180 million over four years” (Branch, 2011, p. 87). Byers once again retaliated by threatening fines but large universities such as Georgia and Oklahoma began an antitrust suit. The 1984 NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma decision was an unprecedented push back against the NCAA and it paid off. The Supreme Court sided with the universities and decided to cancel the NCAA’s stranglehold on the television market and allow colleges and universities to control their own television rights stating that it was, “…an illegal restraint of trade that harmed colleges and viewers” (Branch, 2011, p. 87). A few years ago, the decision might have destroyed the NCAA for good but an increase in income from college basketball helped to keep the NCAA afloat. Much to the NCAA’s surprise the annual March Madness college basketball tournament was growing in popularity and generating massive amounts of income. It was not long before the financial windfall covered and surpassed what the NCAA had lost from losing college football television rights. The NCAA continued to gain income and authority in the decades that followed thanks in no small part to March Madness and college basketball.

           Not much has changed for the NCAA, in fact, the governing body is as strong as ever and regularly evades and fights incoming lawsuits while having unprecedented regulatory power to discipline and impose penalties on universities across the country. Walter Byers died in May 2015 at the age of ninety-three. Many people do not recognize his importance but there is no doubt that he left a lasting mark on college athletics, furthermore, the NCAA’s culture remains virtually unchanged since his departure. Lawsuits and scandals continue to arise but there is a growing mob that is looking for a cut of the lucrative college sports pie just as colleges and universities did in 1984. Today there remains an ethical debate about the term “student athlete” and its true meaning and public outcry over the inability and morally grey prospect of paying student athletes. Walter Byers himself crafted the term “student athlete” in the early 1950’s to combat a lawsuit from the widow of Ray Dennison, “… Who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen's-compensation death benefits” (Branch, 2011, p. 88). The Colorado Supreme Court case had drastic consequences as there had been many players who had died or were living with lifelong injuries thanks to collegiate sports (mostly football).

Ultimately, the court agreed with the school saying that the player was not eligible for workers compensation or other work related benefits since the college was, “… Not in the football business” (Branch, 2011, p. 88).

“Student athlete” was a term designed by Byers to be deliberately ambiguous and it became the NCAA’s defining term to be repeated consistently in the bylaws and courtroom proceedings. Another college athletics buzzword “amateurism” was a concept that originated far before the NCAA in the halls of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) headquarters over a century ago. But as Nocera and Strauss (2018) stated regarding Walter Byers and the AAU, “… He crushed the AAU, which had held power over amateur athletics before he took over the NCAA, brushed aside congressional calls for reform, and fought anyone who stood in his way” (p. 13). For over a century compensating athletes who represented their schools was expected and celebrated, but those days have long since passed and the mere thought to some seems unethical and a conflict with the very nature of amateurism and the “student athlete” (terms that AAU and the NCAA created). The NCAA has had an undeniable impact on the past history of college sports and will most likely continue to shape its future.

Today the NCAA has been, in large part, exposed for their corruption throughout the years. Some even refer to them as a cartel or mafia and they would not be entirely wrong. They have managed in almost every situation to receive positive externalities and shy away from the costs or negative impacts of their choices often being accused of using their collegiate athletes for financial gain and leaving many with nothing in return. Some “student athletes” have gone on to become successful professional athletes but many are left with subpar degrees, lifelong injuries, and no money or job opportunities. This issue will continue to become more and more relevant as players past and present are beginning to stand up and demand their piece of the billion dollar pie they feel they are owed. The ramifications present and future class action lawsuits regarding player compensation winning Supreme Court cases would be huge as it could lead to a large shift in NCAA earnings and how universities operate financially. Providing compensation might allow more collegiate athletes to live successful lives post college while providing top level elite players an incentive to stick with their colleges until graduation. Simply allowing players the opportunity to make money while playing collegiate sports would be an important step to helping improve “student athletes” lives’ while taking away scenarios were they would be causing an NCAA infraction. People are beginning to take notice of the injustices that common “student athletes” go through. With Chronic Traumatic Enthalpy (CTE) and football related deaths back in the national spotlight as well as an increasing amount of people believing college athletes should be financially compensated, lawsuits are beginning to pile up against the NCAA with a whole new generation questioning the tenants of amateurism and the term “student athlete”. If history is any indication then the NCAA will most likely prevail all class action lawsuits, evade answers, and act shrewdly to create new terminology that positively affects their position. One thing is for sure, history has shown us that the NCAA will do whatever it can to stay on top and continue their reign over college sports no matter how many people are hurt in the process.

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References

Branch, T. (2011). The Shame of College Sports. The Atlantic, 308 (3), 80-110. Retrieved from https://canvas.fsu.edu/courses/55048/modules/items/562916

Nocera, J., & Strauss, B. (2018). Indentured: The inside story of the rebellion against the NCAA. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.

Zimbalist, A. S. (2001). Unpaid professionals: Commercialism and conflict in big-time college sports. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.