NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 28, 2002

Cedric Dempsey

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Thanks, Wally. I've always felt like this high podium is walking up to a shuttle getting ready to be launched. I suppose this is appropriate for me this year, since this is the last time that I'll be up here in front of you at this time. So maybe this is my launching pad, in a sense. I certainly don't like this because I would rather see you out there when we get into questions and answers, which I want to spend most of the time with. It is very difficult to see the whites of your eyes. We'll try to do the best that we can. I want to spend just a few minutes talking with you about what I would say is one overriding issue in college sports. Obviously, there are many. But it seems to me the one that I would like to talk with you about really involves or umbrellas many of the other issues that we have. We've talked in the past, and maybe even some people have said I've coined the phrase, I'm not sure I did, we've talked about the financial arms race. But it seems to me that the issue I want to discuss with you is a much broader context than the financial arms race. I think it more aptly might be called the funding dilemma. Ironically we're doing more than ever in intercollegiate sports in providing athletic opportunities for student athletes. We now have in excess of 360,000 student athletes participating in this country. That has increased by 50% in the last 20 years. People often think that we're actually seeing the demise in participation. That is obviously not correct. The number of student athletes that are competing in the NCAA championships have doubled in the last ten years. We're approaching 60,000 young people that participate in our championships which are now at 87 National Championships every year, in three different divisions. There are certainly signs of popularity. There's signs of increased participation by student athletes. Those things don't happen without a price tag. Contrary to the notion that amateur athletics can and maybe should be conducted at little or no cost, the cost of paying for 360,000 student athletes goes up every year. I think some of you are well aware that there's over $4 billion a year spent on intercollegiate athletics at the current time. That continues to rise. There's $3 billion in revenues brought in annually in intercollegiate athletics. So, obviously, there is a funding dilemma, if you will, when you look at the difference between revenues and expenses. So when I'm talking about the funding dilemma, we're talking about the tension, if you will, between funding - or finding - the revenue streams that help finance those 360,000 student athletes as well as running an intercollegiate athletic program. Scholarships, administrative costs, certainly the facilities, and the effect that trying to find those funds have on some other very serious issues. One of those issues certainly is self-sufficiency. Back in 1978, Division I adopted a principle that institutions should be as self-sufficient as possible. Another place that we see where the funding dilemma has had a tremendous impact on one of the associates' principles is in competitive equity. I think most of you who have followed intercollegiate athletics over the years know that many of our rules and regulations have been based with an attempt to provide competitive equity. Certainly we see as a result of the funding dilemma a tremendous imbalance in that area. It has certainly a major impact upon the academic mission as we are certainly aware of the imbalance that we see sometimes between the business enterprise of intercollegiate sports to be self-sufficient, if you will, and the academic mission of the institution. I would even say that it has had an effect upon our ability to advance diversity as it relates to hiring of coaches and athletic administrators. We talk about those kinds of issues many times, but we never put it in a broad framework, it seems to me, of what are the overriding problems that are created by funding dilemma, if you will. Let's talk about that mission of self-sufficiency, and how successful we have been with that since 1978. Again, those of you who have followed the data that we provide with our revenue and expense reports, we know that, according to our data, there are only 48 institutions now generating more revenues than they're spending. So out of 977 institutions, or better yet, which is more appropriate for this discussion, the 300 basically 20 institutions in Division I, only 48 of them are generating more revenues. Ironically, those 48 are doing extremely well. On an average, they are generating approximately $4 million more a year than they're spending. But when you look at the rest of Division I, they are spending on an average of $3 million more a year than they are generating through revenues. So there is what you might call almost a $7 million gap between the Jones' and the Smiths, that the attempt to be self-sufficient has been possible for a few, but it has had a tremendous downside effect upon the many in Division I, which certainly leads to a major issue that we have before us as it relates to structures, relates to all the other issues we have talked about. If you were to look at the second one that I mentioned, a principle of competitive equity, obviously many of our rules in terms of number of grants and aid that's allowed, recruiting practices, so many of our rules in terms of competition, number of games you can play, all of those things are based upon trying to provide a competitive equity. Yet when you look at what's happened in competition and success of programs, the majority of the successes lie in those 48 institutions that we talked about. So whether or not that principle is even realistic any longer for intercollegiate athletics I think comes into question. The third one we talked about was the criteria, certainly the criticism, I should say, of overcommercialization in intercollegiate sports. Obviously, when you go back to that principle of '78, and you look at the need to be self-sufficient, programs at the institutional level have looked at other ways to generate dollars in order to operate their programs. I might give you a personal example that I've shared with a few of you. I was at the University of Arizona on two occasions, once in the '60s, and I went back in 1982 as director of athletics. I was there in the middle '60s as assistant director of athletics. Our process on budgeting a program at that time was if we needed new facilities, we would place a request along with all other departments on campus. Those facilities were put in some kind of priority and acknowledged at some point through the state budgeting process. So all the facilities that were generated at Arizona in the '60s, and prior to, were generated through state funds. Revenues that came in through the program went back into the general budget. So the pressure and the emphasis upon being self-sufficient was nonexistent during that period of time. Institutions felt that there were educational value to intercollegiate sports and that it was important that they provided those opportunities for student athletes to participate. I went back in 1982, from 1966 to 1982, during that period of time certainly the self-sufficiency principle was developed. I arrived at the University of Arizona as director of athletics and discovered we had a $450,000 deficit. My first charge that was given to me was to eliminate the $450,000 deficit. I was told also that one of my charges was to present a balanced budget annually and to keep within that budget on an annual basis. I was told also if we were to have any new facilities for intercollegiate athletics, I was to generate the funds for that purpose. That was in less than two decades of change what happened in terms of where we have moved toward in intercollegiate athletics. So that is the scenario that has developed over the last two to three decades, and there's certainly more emphasis at that level now in Division I-A to be self-sufficient. It's no surprise that we see institutions looking for new revenue sources. Coinciding with that change in intercollegiate athletics, and probably even not out front, but certainly as important, has been the funding problems in higher education. We've seen many departments be eliminated. We've seen many departments charged with responsibility to develop grants, to run their programs. Probably the closest parallel on a college campus to intercollegiate athletics today are medical schools. Most medical schools have been set aside as an auxiliary programs in higher education, and they're expected to be self-sufficient. I had, again, a very personal example of that when I was at the University of Arizona. I had a tremendous engagement with a disease called cancer. My oncologist at that time worked, as he told me, was primarily teaching, research and caring for patients. I've stayed with him now to make sure that I stay clean. I've stayed with him now since that time, 1985. Every time I talk to him, I talk about the concerns and the changes that have taken place in medicine. He now must spend most of his time seeing patients because he has to generate the money to do his own research. He has to generate the money to justify his own position in the college. A very similar relationship as what we see and what's happened in intercollegiate sports. So the funding dilemma, as we apply certainly to the commercialization aspect of it. And one of the interesting observations to me, when you look at what's happened on college campuses today, is the acceptance and the applause that many colleges on a campus such as a medical school or others might receive from the corporate world to have buildings named after those corporations, or certainly grants given to programs. And no one feels there's anything wrong with that. But as soon as there's an athletic facility named, why, certainly there is a lot of question raised about overcommercialization. The funding dilemma drives also a major issue that we continue to deal with, and I've been very critical - as much as anyone - the overcommercialization and certainly oversignage we see in intercollegiate athletics. It's very disturbing to me when I see comments in the newspapers at the end of the Bowl seasons that it's good to watch NFL games where there's less commercialization or there's nothing more commercialized than our post-season football games. I think we do need to put that in a context of how we deal with that as far as the future goes. You raise a question of how could the funding dilemma affect diversity. It seems to me, and I understand this as a former athletic director for 28 years, that when you're put in a responsibility to generate enough revenues to handle your expenses, that you're very cautious in making sure that you hire people with a lot of experience that can do that. It is difficult to gamble on up-and-coming people. So our dilemma is the fact that we've never done a good job with diversity in hiring either at the administrative level or in particular the sport of football because of the concern of the gamble of lack of experience. So you end up chasing your tail around trying to increase diversity. Ironically enough, we've been reasonably successful in basketball. The last count I had was about 83 minority head coaches in the Division I basketball. What has happened in basketball, why I think it's been easier in basketball than it has been in football, is the fact that we see a lot of the lower end of Division I have done a good job in hiring minorities. When they are very successful, the upper end of Division I-A picks them up rather quickly. I think that's helped because you've had people who have proven themselves, be able to move, and add to increased diversity. So it's that need to have experience in order to generate the income to put -- and the pressures that are created to win in order to generate the income that I think affects some of the diversity issue. Again, I've been very critical of many of our institutions, particularly with our football hirings, lack of diversity in administration staffs. But that's an area we must deal with. But it's also an area that I think, again, reflects the funding dilemma, as I would call it, I guess. What is being done about it at this point in time, I'm pleased at least that the board of directors in Division I established a task force, and one of the major charges of that task force is to try to validate the information, one, that we have in determining what are the appropriate revenues and expenses. I think most presidents would tell you their data that they report frequently is not true data because they handle their budget items in different ways. And most presidents would tell you that that number 48 is probably enlarged, there are probably not 48 schools generating more revenues than they're spending. In many cases, the true expense, if you will, of an athletic budget, lies in other forms of budgeting throughout the University. Having done quite a bit of consulting when I was on the campus at other schools, I saw that happen time and time again. I saw one major University have all of their salaries in student personnel that didn't show up in the athletic department. When you looked at the balanced budget at the end of the year, it really wasn't a true picture of what costs are now in intercollegiate sports. So I think the approach certainly that the task force in Division I is looking at is, one, to validate the data that we have, to gather and try to make sure we know what we're talking about when we're talking about revenues and expenses. Before we can move forward, we must know where we are I think in this picture. I think, if anything, we're probably much worse off than even our data would demonstrate. So that will be a major challenge I think for the board this coming year. It will probably take certainly a couple of years before we can move forward with some kind of resolution to address this particular issue. I just wanted to talk about that issue a little bit because of all the things that we have in front of us, I think it is important to recognize that when you start picking out different issues -- I was on an hour radio show this morning, everybody was picking out little pieces of problems in intercollegiate sports. It's important to put into perspective maybe what is the overriding problem that we have, and how that drives some of the other negative problems that we have in sports. So at this point, Wally, I'll be happy to open it up for questions.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I don't know that the lack of control of college football by the NCAA has anything to do with the diversity issue. I think it's more of the issue related to financing intercollegiate sports and making sure at an institution, particularly at the top end, that you find people that have been successful and have been proven. So I don't think that's true. The second part of that question, should it ever have gotten where it is today. I am a strong proponent. I think the NCAA ought to be more involved in post-season football. I think that will certainly be a request, recommendation, that comes out of the football issues committee. Whether or not there's going to be a playoff, I think there are some unique problems to a playoff in Division I-A football. One of those is historically I think the Bowl system has been very good for college football. I do have some strong concerns about the Bowl system at the current time, let alone the BCS system. If the Bowl system can't correct itself with some of the issues, then I would strongly urge the NCAA have a much more predominant role in post-season football.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: (Laughter) After 52 years, that's going to be an interesting challenge. I'm going through kind of a personal evaluation I think of that right now. I've had a number of search firms and a number of other people that have asked me if I'd like another full-time job. So I'm debating that. I'm trying to decide whether that's feeding my ego, that I'm still marketable, or do I really want another full-time job. The latter is probably more accurate. I don't think I do. I do hope to stay involved. I can't see myself becoming a couch potato. I do think I will stay involved in one form or another. I've had certainly some consulting possibilities that may develop. But whatever I do, I want to have the opportunity certainly that something my wife would enjoy doing with me, or we would be part of something together. I think after all this time - I heard a great comment from someone you'll recognize, Gene Corrigan, recently, his wife told me, he got up last Saturday morning, had to go do something. She said Jean, "It's Saturday." He turned to her and said, Betty, "Every day is Saturday. I can do whatever I want to." I have counted up if my 52 years since I've been involved, I've had less than 300 weekends where I've not had something to do in relation to my work, so I'm looking forward to having a little bit more flexible time. Now, what do I feel most disappointed in I think I probably would put it in a broad category of maybe communication. Since I arrived here, I looked back at my first address I made to our membership. I did not seek this position, but I looked forward to the position of hoping to broaden and enhance the knowledge of intercollegiate athletics as part of higher education. I'm not sure how successful I've been on that. Hopefully I have kept it on the radar screen and kept it in front of people that the way you justify intercollegiate sports, it is an educational experience, an educational enterprise. Whether we can't do that, it's very difficult to justify even in higher education. Whether we've been successful in any of that, I guess I would say legacies are for historians to decide. I think we can't determine what kind of legacy you had for a few years, whether or not some of the things we have discussed and tried to put forth come to fruition.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I don't know that I'm prepared to say that because I know it does cost a lot to run revenue sports. But on the other hand -- and revenue sports help generate dollars, particularly at those top-level schools for other sports programs. That is, I think, one of those dilemmas that we're dealing with. We would hope that we could find some reasonable in what's happening right now. Certainly, as money is coming in, it's going out as fast as it's coming in. We've seen that in the last six year. Even with those top 48 schools, we see with the increased revenues, expenses increased at about the same rate. So I think it's a dilemma to deal with. I would hope people would become a little bit more reasonable about what's needed, what is needed, to run some of the larger-revenue programs. I think there certainly are frills in what we're doing in some of those areas.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: There is legislation that will come forward in Division I this coming month. Management council will be voting on it. If it's approved, it will go to the board of directors at the end of the month. Divisions II and III have already addressed a number of the changes in amateur legislation. We have supported those changes. I think Division II has had its first year with it. I think it's worked quite well. The loan program certainly is one feature of that. But certainly how we deal with students prior to the time they enroll, what we call pre-enrolled student athletes, I think there's some positive legislation that would be there for our student athletes and eliminate some of the hypocrisies that we currently have and disenchantment with some of the rules we currently have. I have encouraged our president and membership to support much of that legislation. It's been trimmed down and refined quite a bit to where I think now it's much more palatable and acceptable, maybe more understandable to our membership. It's taken a while to get there. I think any dramatic change is difficult. We've had to go at this a little differently in Division I than we did in Divisions II and III.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I've never said money is bad. I think it's how money is used is the key thing. The exciting part to me about our new arrangement with both CBS and now ESPN is that they are long-term arrangements. The strength of that, for what we saw as part of our rationale to extending a long-term contract, was to be able to use the different platforms, the different new parts of the contract that will enable us to put our message out with the public on an ongoing basis, not just the month of March in that sense. We will have platforms with all the Viacom Networks to be able to address different demographic groups in this country to talk about intercollegiate sports. We have a monthly show we can do things with. We have tremendous broader exposure for our championships. It will give us a chance to work together. I would say in the last few months, as we worked with CBS, who certainly has begun to understand what we're trying to accomplish in helping the public, the communication issue I was talking about before, in helping the public understand what intercollegiate athletics really should be all about, that we have a chance in this next decade to accomplish that. Now, why haven't we been able to do that before? I think this was the third or fourth television contract which I've been involved in. Almost every three years, we were renegotiating our television contract. We won't have to do that now for a decade. As partners, we can work together with new corporate entities involved in certainly putting our message out of what we're trying to accomplish, the educational mission of intercollegiate sports. I'm very excited about that. Yes, it's a tremendous amount of money. I'd hate to be negotiating today with that. But when you look at where we will be moving next year, the budget for the association which obviously most of the dollars go back to the institution, will go up 30% next year. Then on an annual basis after that, 8% per year. I suspect most of us that have any investments at all wouldn't be -- would enjoy that kind of return for a period of time. But the important thing to me, it gives us a platform to talk about that educational mission, to try to encourage student athletes as it relates to that academic venture that they should have and their interest, and help young people make better decisions.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: A lot of questions or answers in that whole part of it. Let me talk about the sports wagering issue for a moment, and what our position is in that area. We have not changed our concerns about sports wagering. Senator McCain, who has been a strong advocate and supporter of this project as well as Senator Brownback and many other members of Congress. I don't think there would have been ever a doubt if it would ever have gotten to the floor, it would have passed overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, there are ways in Congress that you can keep things from getting to the floor. A few people were able to stop that. Our efforts at this point, and as we've talked with members of Congress, we must broaden our educational understanding of what the issue is. Obviously the general public must understand that. I would say this to you. I think, unfortunately, probably what will bring this to a head, this is kind of one of those topics, when you talk about legacy, the fact that we've kept it on the radar screen, tried to help build a sensitivity and awareness to this issue, what may have to happen for this change to take place is for a major, major scandal. That certainly is possible in this country. Then I think the general public will be more aware of it. Congress hopefully will be aware of it. Then I think we'll see it moving beyond what is a political issue right now in Congress to what is the right thing to do.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: That's our current policy at this time. I don't see us backing off too much from our stance on anything that would enhance sports wagering upon student athletes.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Well, that's still an allegation, in that stage. I'm not sure I would be prepared to make some comments on that. Certainly it's one of those things, what I just mentioned, in terms of gambling and sports wagering, from an allegation standpoint, you could certainly read between the lines on some things there. If that ever proved to be true, that may be the example we're talking about. It's certainly too early and too premature to make any assessment I think of where the Michigan issue is. We've had discussions with them. I have great confidence in Bill Martin and the issues that are in the position that the University of Michigan has taken. I think that they want this over with and they want to move on with their life and learn from this in terms of their background. As I told him, I had an experience when I went to Arizona, the first three weeks I was in Arizona, I had to go before the infractions committee. That was a lot of fun. We had been going through an investigation that took four years, about the same as what Michigan was going through. But the strength of that was, I had everybody's attention. We could begin to establish a value structure at the University of Arizona that has prevailed since that time. The University has not been in any serious problem since that particular time. I think Michigan can grow from this experience, as well. I think they will.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Well, the issue of voluntary and involuntary workouts and time demands upon student athletes is certainly one of the very top issues. With our student athletes, the time demand legislation that we have is probably their number one issue, and certainly the board of directors in Division I has been addressing this, as well as the management council, of how to reevaluate our current legislation. Because you listen to student athletes, they'll tell you, it's the most abused rule that we have. It sets up a hypocrisy, if you will, in our structure that is not a very good learning situation for student athletes. So, yes, we are looking at that, trying to come up with an answer to it. We would hope that certainly within the next year there will be some changes made related to our legislation in that area. It's kind of an area of contradictions at times. If you believe in athletics and the opportunity for students to pursue excellence in a chosen area, in some sports it may require more than 20 hours a week. What most students say, they want the opportunity to practice and work out. What they don't want is the compulsion of doing that. They want that to be a decision that they make. Obviously, now I think most of them feel either overtly or invertly compelled to participate in voluntary workouts. Certainly the deaths I think have created a greater awareness of the issue, and also - and more importantly - has been the last year, year and a half, the work of the student athlete advisory committee, the national board, in looking at what are the major issues facing student athletes. That's right at the top. So, yes, we will be looking at that. I shouldn't say "will be," we are looking at that to try to find solutions to some of those complicated issues.

WALLACE RENFROW: I would point out it has been misrepresented, that there were no death benefits paid in the three deaths last year in football. With two of those, the death benefit has been paid. The third one is just awaiting the paperwork to do so. That one is in litigation, out of our hands. Two questions at the back.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: As we prepare to leave, one of the things we are looking at doing and picking up on the Knight Commission report, they kind of closed their report, was based upon what we must now have is the will to act. I do think that too frequently institutions look at the national association and look at national legislation as a solution to their issues. No matter what legislation we pass, unless there is a commitment at the institutional level, that legislation will not be successful. We see that time and time again - how we're trying to address these issues. To me, many of these issues could be done successfully at the institutional level, and it is our hope in addressing these with presidents to give them suggestions on how they go about doing that. I do think it's very important that we begin at the local level. If we're going to have change, have any consistency in what we're doing, institutions and people must take responsibility for their own actions.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Well, I wasn't part of that committee discussion when they had that. But, you know, I think there's something nice about the symmetry of 64. But, on the other hand, I think the attempt was to -- and they felt there were enough -- in that 34 I guess schools at-large, there were enough schools that merited the opportunity to participate in the tournament, and yet they wanted to have certainly the opportunity for all conferences to have access. So it's a combination of trying to combine strength of competition as well as providing access for those schools who might not qualify any other way. You know, there's no magic either way on that. Ironically, I think the play-in game has worked quite well. The attendance has been very good. The response from the participants has been quite good. So I think it's helped in some ways, but probably as a traditionalist in some ways I like the symmetry of the 64.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: That would be more an enforcement area. I don't make any comments regarding institutional situations without more knowledge on that one right now.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: The consultants on which? We have a lot of consultants (laughter).

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I do. I'm really excited in terms of some of the academic reform measures that are coming forth. First of all, probably for our first time, we now have about 15 years of academic data that we can use to make more objective decisions rather than subjective or emotional decisions. And it's been interesting to watch presidents who have had difficulty, I think, in certainly not just continuing to try to raise standards, from an emotional standpoint, integrity standpoint, but the data we have currently is so solid and so persuasive that I do believe that the approach to what we've referred to as a seamless model of eligibility from the initial eligibility requirements through what we will now be calling progress toward a degree requirements, has great merit to it. Not only that, it has substantial research to support it.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I think you have to go back to the reason the pod system was put in. I was very supportive of it at the time. I was with the committee last summer when this was discussed. I think it has certainly merit in terms of helping with missed class time. I don't think we had any teams that were seeded in the west this year that stayed over if they won, and so that helped. I think I saw that there were 77%, if I recall, of the institutions that were seeded, were seeded in their own time zone. So, you know, I think in terms of the impact upon the student athlete has been positive. I want to see more data on that. But some of the preliminary information I have seen would support the pod system, and I think certainly from a standpoint of fans and participation has been also positive. Everybody's looked -- many of you have speculated this is a financial issue. This is not a financial issue. What we make out of the gates during this tournament aren't critical as such to the association or to the membership. I think what is important is that we try to keep it in a framework where student athletes miss the least amount of school as they can and there's the least amount of travel possible. All of us have been traveling since last September, we know that's a chore today. Whatever we can do to reduce that kind of stress and impact upon student athletes I think is favorable. A lot of people speculated it's made a lot of difference in the tournament. I think we've had a good tournament. I don't see a lot of changes that would happen no matter where we put schools. We would probably have the same schools here that we would have had in the first place. We always have one we probably didn't expect to get here. You have three others that deserve to be here. Oklahoma by many was a No. 1 seed as well as a No. 2 seed. Many people thought they were probably certainly one of the Top 5 schools in the competition, and they've certainly proven that through this tournament.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: No. That's why I said I'm probably a bit more of a purist on the 64 teams. But I would not like to see it grow much larger. In particular, if we're going to maintain or the conferences are going to maintain their conference tournaments, too. That's a long month for those institutions that are fortunate enough to prevail through the conference championship and through our championship, too. I think to consider adding another two to three games to our tournament does not make it any better a tournament or is in the best interest of student athletes.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: If I did say I didn't think the NCAA could do anything, I misrepresented myself on that issue. I think it's too premature to indicate what we can do. But I do think we can certainly educate people as to what's going on, and there may be some legislation, or it may be part of a certification program. I felt for some time that one of the things we ought to look at, and once we get the data, I think we can look at it, is the percentage of the athletic budget to the institutional budget. It's kind of a part of a certification process that institutions would stay within a certain range. At least our current data would indicate that range is really quite large, all the way from about 1 or 2% at the universities all the way up to one institution at 38%. It's pretty hard to justify spending 38% of an institutional budget on intercollegiate sports. I think there's some guidelines, there's some informational prospectus, if you will, related to gathering information that may help institutions make proper decisions, and certainly one of the problems we have, many institutions try to be something they don't have the resources to be. They just have to step up and face that at some point in time, that they can't do that. Then the other part is at the top level of the institutions doing very well, there has to be an ethics question, ethical question, "Is this an appropriate amount of money to be spending?" May be a very small amount of the total budget, but is it an appropriate amount of money for an institution to be spending? If we can provide some guidelines, maybe even a certification process, or some way to help, rather than -- I'm not sure we can legislate. But I do think there are ways we can have an impact to help institutions and help try to arrive at a level of competition that is more suitable to their resources.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Well, I was on the committee six years in the '80s. I have not seen one year yet that there was not some refinement to the process. I go into the room now and look at what they have in front of them. It's all computerized sitting right in front of them. I think back in the early '80s, when I was on the committee, of the process that we used. Each year they're able to continue, it's a dynamic process, I guess. It's ever-changing. I think they will look at the issues that came out of this year, particularly as it relates to the pod system, and I suspect you'll see some tweaking with that. But I haven't sensed any major movement to just throw it out the door, because I think it has some merit to it. You know, I think probably -- if I were in your shoes, the question I would ask more about Ohio State was, "Was it appropriate to send Ohio State out there rather than Illinois out there?" That's obviously the kind of scrutiny you get if you're on the committee, as well. I mentioned to one of our staff people not too long ago, having sat in that room for a week at a time and looking at things, sometimes it may be good on about a Saturday to bring two or three people in and just raise questions on why they are doing something right there at that point in time, not offer any suggestions, but just to make sure they clear their mind and can look at things objectively. But I think they do really an excellent job. I think most of our committees do that. I think the pressure upon them, they're extremely sensitive to that now because of the money that's involved. We all understand that. It is a difficult chore, and I admire anyone that's had to sit through it. The amount of time I think most of you probably don't realize. That committee, I used to keep track of it, certainly the year that I was chair, I spent over two months in a sense volunteering on the association. I was chair of the basketball committee. All of those members spend about six weeks out of their year on this work. They put a great deal of time, effort and I think sincerity in it. That's a long answer to your question. Yes, they will tweak it, they will change it as it seems appropriate, as it has been done over the last 40 years probably.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Well, it would be either high school federation -- state high school federation or community college system. Either one of them would have the ability to certify particular events that our coaches evaluate. But part of this decision came from high schools. As we are trying to certainly encourage more evaluation in recruiting to take place back in the school systems. This was one way, certainly, to encourage that. As certainly the basketball issues committee and as we were working with them on that, was to try to encourage high school coaches to be more involved again in helping young people decide their future educational programs and where they ought to be going to school. So part of the whole process was to have more interaction, more engagement, if you will, by the high schools in this area. So that was a process working together with the national federation on, and it was one in which we felt was a better way to hold some of those programs accountable. Certainly, as you also know, "for the traveling teams," as they've been referred to, we expect those coaches to be certified by the high schools or by the AU. They must have some sort of certification process before we would certify those events.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: I might also indicate, we have several staff people here today. If any of you have some specific areas that you would like to talk about, we have Dennis Cryder over here, vice president of, I'm still going to say, marketing, licensing, promotion, they wouldn't understand BBP. If there's any questions regarding that aspect of this tournament, other areas we're involved in, I'm sure he would be happy to talk to you. In the back of the room, we have Bill Saum, who all of you recognize as director, relating to our gambling initiatives, also he's been very involved in international basketball. In the last year he had a nice vacation last summer to Europe, and can probably tell you all the hot spots to go, as he looked at the basketball leagues over there. And David Price, who is our vice president for enforcement. So they're here. I hope you will not be shy in talking with them. That's why they thought we could justify them being here. Take advantage of them, if you want. I'd be happy to talk to you individually, as well.

CEDRIC DEMPSEY: Let me say this. For some of you, this may be the last time I have an opportunity to talk to you in public. I want to thank all of you for your support of intercollegiate athletics over the years. I look forward to continued relationships. Who knows, I may become a scribe before this is over, too. I have thought of this as an option, too.