NCAA President Myles Brand Is Paid $895,000 To Do What, Exactly?

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that NCAA President Myles Brand was paid $895,000 in salary, benefits and expenses last year. What for?

University of Hartford president Walter Harrison, whose term as head of the NCAA's executive committee ended in April, said Brand is doing a "spectacular job."

"The job is incredibly challenging in a way most people wouldn't recognize," Harrison said. "Most people think of the major headlines -- congressional inquiries, overseeing academic reform, the controversies of the day. But there are lots of other things, like how one keeps the peace among numerous constituencies. And, he's running a $500 million organization."

So, the parts of his job that nobody knows about, he handles with enough aplomb to merit 4% and 3% raises in the last two years. Cool. No problems there.

The problem is, the part of his job that people do see --- they tend to think he sucks at it. Congress is breathing down the NCAA's neck as it considers eliminating its tax-exempt status. There's a pending class-action lawsuit filed on the behalf of former and current athletes who are seeking greater compensation. In the college football world, the NCAA's weak investigation and enforcement powers, silly and inflexible rules and tone-deaf handling of something so basic like the clock rules have people furious with NCAA leadership. There's also that little supplement issue where schools are afraid to give their athletes peanut butter for fear of breaking the rules.

And then there's the kicker, Brand's stated position of having the NCAA's mission overlap with "social advocacy". Last I checked, social causes weren't really part of the organization's fundamental mission.

In fact, it looks like a perverse overreach and has eroded public trust in the organization. Save the advocacy for groups professionally committed to those tasks who have the expertise and clarity of mission to pursue such causes. The NCAA has other fish to fry and frankly I'm not sure it has done a superb job at handling some of its more pertinent, basic, fundamental issues.

I don't find fault with Brand drawing such an impressive salary. I'm a capitalist - I say more power to him and may he find ways to make much more money through whatever legal avenues he can. But I am curious and deeply skeptical as to whether he's earned it and whether both Brand and the NCAA can do better for what he is being paid.

(H/T: The Wiz)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-28-2007 @ 3:35PM

john kerwin said...

All the NCAA is interested in is MONEY. A lot of the rules for student athletes are a joke and they let things go for instance letting USC offer a basketball scholarship to an 8th grade student from Illinois who just happened to be at a USC basketball camp. He hasn't even decided where he wants to go to high school! The recruitment of athletes used to consists of talking to their high school coach and teachers. Now it's the kids AAU coach whose only interest is in how much money he/she can get from the big sneaker companies. If it's not a Nike school forget about it.
The NCAA is the biggest joke in all of sports. If Brand can figure out how to get more money for the NCAA he will probably make $2 million next year.

6-28-2007 @ 4:51PM

goddoctor said...

This is the stupidest man in Indiana. He is a living example of the peter principle. Everyone gets raised to his or her level of incompetency. Unfortunately, he was already incompetent at IU before he went to the NCAA. Lets see what this moron has done so far. 1.) Fired arguably one of the best basketball coaches of all time. 2.) Alienated every NCAA school that has a native American mascot. 3.) Bend every rule in the book for the big money schools and enforce every rule when it is the individual athlete with a hardship. 4.) If that's not enough, I give you the farce we call the BCS in college football.
Forget about tax code violations, they need to prosecute Myles and the entire NCAA hierarchy uner RICO statutes. If this isn't a corrupt organization with too much influence, I don't know what is!

6-29-2007 @ 3:11AM

free college football picks said...

BCS enough said. Brand needs to go and the NCAA needs to get someone fair that is a true college sports fan and fix the college football playoff senario.

6-29-2007 @ 9:56AM

Dave said...

Brand is a farce. He spends millions to remove mascots that have been around for a century while allowing greed to run wild in college athletics, making sure to take his cut in the process. They should lose their tax exempt status and he should be removed before he screws things up even further.