Miami President Calls for NCAA Reformation

University of Miami President Edward Foote is calling on his colleagues to help revamp the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. when they meet here in March, but says he may lead an exodus to a new, smaller group if reform fails.

Foote, who called the meeting, hopes his colleagues nationwide can develop a plan so major universities have more direct control over academic and business aspects of sports.

“I became convinced in the last year through consulting with scores of college presidents that the key to reform of major intercollegiate athletics was a significant reform of the structure itself,” Foote said.

Foote, a longtime critic of the rules that govern major college sports, says presidents from some of the nation’s largest universities plan to attend the meeting to discuss what changes need to be made.

If the NCAA cannot meet the challenges raised by the universities, then Foote said he is ready to start a new organization to govern collegiate athletics.

Foote said he envisions a new governing structure that would permit quicker reform and add higher standards.

“The new organization will be much smaller,” he said. “It will be in the neighborhood of 75 to 150 (schools), and they will be institutions with roughly comparable interests.”

Foote says he is particularly concerned that schools “do the best job possible in treating our student athletes as students, and that we keep our priorities straight.”

About 100 presidents of Division 1-A schools have been invited to attend the conference scheduled for March 1-2, Foote said.

“A third of the presidents, about 35, have already said they plan to come, and I still have to hear from upwards of half of them.”

Among those expected to attend the meeting are university presidents from Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Harvard, Rutgers, Nebraska, Texas A&M;, West Virginia, Georgetown, UCLA, Virginia Polytechnical Institute, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Clemson, Louisiana State, New Mexico, Michigan, Southern Mississippi, Houston, Washington State, Toledo, Temple and East Carolina State.