Presidents Oil Their Political Machine : NCAA convention: College heads use polling, persuasion, even arm-twisting to pass legislation.

Once an alderman and deputy mayor in New Haven, Conn., David Warren thought his political days were over when he was named president of Ohio Wesleyan University, a small liberal arts school, in 1984.

Then he became a member of the NCAA Presidents Commission.

In seeking to have their proposals adopted by NCAA convention delegates, Warren and his colleagues on the commission don’t just work the room. They use polling, consultants and, on occasion, old-fashioned arm-twisting--in short, the tactics of a well-oiled political machine.

And, like such a machine, they get results.

Once seen as a largely ineffective group, the 44-member commission has asserted itself in the last two years, developing and winning approval for legislation aimed at bringing reform to college athletics.

At last year’s NCAA convention, in Nashville, Tenn., the presidents won overwhelming support for measures designed to cut costs, reduce the time demands on student-athletes and limit recruiting. For this year’s convention, which begins Tuesday in Anaheim, the presidents have shifted their focus to academics. But the result probably will be the same as it was a year ago.

Said Warren: “There is a determination within the Presidents Commission and among my colleagues to pass these new reforms and hold on to those we’ve adopted in previous years. There’s a kind of fierce determination about this. And those who are running contrary are, I think, going to be overwhelmed at the convention by our level of conviction.”

The commission’s power is in large measure a sign of the times. Increased media coverage of the ills of college athletics, heightened interest by Congress in the NCAA’s affairs and financial concerns have quickened reform.

But just as important has been the commission’s ability to mobilize support among other college chief executive officers for the panel’s positions, something it failed to do adequately in its early years.

“There has been a substantial change within the commission in how it has gone about the business of persuading colleagues to adopt these important reforms,” Warren said, “and it has everything to do with organization, detail, vote-counting and, if someone’s vote doesn’t go the way one was told it would go, finding that person and seeking a reversal.”

John Ryan, president emeritus of Indiana University and a former chairman of the commission, and Wilford Bailey, an Auburn University professor and former president of the NCAA, serve as paid consultants for the commission. Their job: to lobby on behalf of the commission’s proposals before and during the convention.

Another tool of the commission is pre-convention polling by fax.

“What may happen is somebody opposes Proposition ‘X’ for a particular reason, and they say so,” Warren said. “Then you pick up the phone and say, ‘Let me address the concern you’ve got.’ ”

CEOs are attending NCAA conventions in increasing numbers, and those who don’t attend are making their wishes known to their schools’ voting delegates.

“Most schools have marching orders (on voting) before they get to the convention,” said Linda Bruno, assistant commissioner of the Big East Conference. “An athletic director has no choice if a president says, ‘This is how you’re going to vote when you get there.’ ”

For many associated with college athletics, this is as it should be. The NCAA is a collection of schools. The schools are run by presidents.

But it has taken a while for that notion to take hold.

Formed in 1984 to give CEOs a greater voice within the NCAA, the commission experienced some early success, setting up a special convention in 1985 that enacted tougher enforcement guidelines. Chief among the measures was the so-called “death penalty” for repeat rules violators.

Two years later, the presidents organized another special convention, this time to consider cost-cutting measures. But they got a far different result. All the major proposals offered by the presidents at that convention were defeated.

The commission reached a turning point at the 1990 convention, in Dallas.

Offering proposals to cut back playing and practice seasons for football and basketball, the presidents faced strong opposition from athletic interests, particularly athletic directors.

At one point, Division I schools voted to put off a measure mandating a shorter basketball season. But the measure was brought back for reconsideration through the lobbying efforts of members of the commission. It ultimately was adopted, as were other portions of the commission’s legislation.

Warren, the ex-politician, remembers the turnaround warmly.

“We did it because we had computer printouts of who voted and how they voted,” he said. “We knew how presidents had committed to vote. We saw how their athletic directors had voted. And we went out in the lobby and buttonholed those ADs and said, ‘This is not the direction your president committed your vote to go.’

“It’s a grand American political tradition. People make commitments. You hold them to their commitments. You count your votes in advance. And you ask people to vote with a position you feel is worthy.”

Just to make sure the votes continued to line up on its side, the commission hired Ryan and Bailey as consultants four months before last year’s convention in Nashville.

“I think one of the things that was clear to members of the commission was they needed some special, new effort to attract the interest, attention and involvement of the presidents,” Ryan said. “So they went for two old guys who know a lot of presidents, could call them up and ask them to come to the convention or tell them, ‘If you can’t come, read the material, decide what your institution’s interests dictate and send your people so instructed.’ ”

Ryan finds talk of the presidents’ newly acquired dominance somewhat amusing.

“I hate to be a smart aleck, but isn’t that the way it ought to be?” he said. “As long as the Presidents Commission correctly deciphers the mood and the policy direction of the presidents of the member institutions, the convention ought to turn out that (the commission’s) intentions have been honored.”

This year, the presidents’ interests are twofold. They want to push through their academic legislation, much of which would tighten the Proposition 48 standards for freshman eligibility. They also want to defeat a series of proposals that would rescind some of the reform measures adopted at the 1990 and ’91 conventions.

Once again, the commission is playing all the angles.

According to Georgetown Athletic Director Frank Rienzo, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame and co-chairman of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, contacted Georgetown President Leo O’Donovan on behalf of Ryan and Bailey to urge that Rienzo withdraw a resolution calling for a year’s delay in considering the academic legislation.

There has been talk that the resolution, sponsored by the Big East, will be declared out of order for parliamentary reasons, prompting Rienzo to claim that there has been “a concerted effort by the Presidents Commission to make sure my resolution doesn’t pass--even if they have to get it ruled out of order.”

Another Big East athletic director, Larry Keating of Seton Hall, also feels the commission has been heavy-handed in dealing with dissent.

“There has been a lot of arm-twisting,” he said. “Two years ago, many of us were approached by people representing the Presidents Commission who said, ‘We really need to show that the presidents have regained control (of college athletics). We understand that some of these (proposals) are not totally correct. But most of them have implementation dates that give us enough time, another convention or two, to adjust them.’

“This so-called ‘fine-tuning’ has not, in fact, taken place. Every attempt (at fine-tuning) has basically been turned down with the answer, ‘We don’t want to step back.’ ”

In Keating’s view, the commission may be out of touch. “I’m not sure that the Presidents Commission accurately reflects the opinions of the majority of presidents in this country, which is what it was designed to to,” he said.

“I mean, it’s unbelievable the amount of time some of these presidents are spending on athletics versus managing their universities. I can see a couple of presidents having bigger interests (in athletics) than others. But it strikes me as strange that some of these people on the Presidents Commission are the ones whose institutions are being placed on (NCAA) probation.”

Even more improbable, from Keating’s point of view, is Auburn’s Bailey working as a commission consultant at the same time his school is caught up in college football’s latest scandal, the Eric Ramsey tape affair.

Said Keating: “It’s unbelievable to me that someone from that school would be in the middle of (the commission’s efforts). I wouldn’t have the nerve.”

Bailey, formerly Auburn’s faculty athletic representative, describes himself as “naturally sensitive” about the Ramsey situation but adds that he has not been involved in Auburn athletic matters for the last four years.

There is skepticism, too, as to how long the presidents will stay interested in reforming college athletics.

But the commission already has mapped out issues it wants to deal with through the 1995 convention, including a program for certification or accreditation of college athletic programs and revisions in financial aid for student-athletes.

“The NCAA is an institutional organization, and the (more it becomes) like other higher education organizations, the better off we’re going to be,” said Gerald Turner, chancellor of the University of Mississippi and the commission’s chairman. “It used to be that the NCAA was simply an athletic officials’ organization. But intercollegiate athletics has gotten so big, so publicly visible, that I think the NCAA has to take its place with other higher education organizations that oversee land-grant schools and so forth.

“I would certainly hope that the days of the NCAA being primarily an athletic officials’ organization are over. Intercollegiate athletics is just too important a component of the total university. Presidents must be involved.”