Above The Whistle
Welcome to Above The Whistle. The podcast that takes you beyond the X's and O's and into the mindset of greatness as we sit down with coaches/athletic directors/former players across the country.
Above The Whistle
Doug Fullerton: Navigating the game in College Sports Administration
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From the humble beginnings in a small Montana town to the influential world of college sports administration, Doug Fullerton's story is as captivating as it is exceptional. Our latest episode takes you through his remarkable journey, detailing how discipline and leadership learned as an army pilot and commander were pivotal in shaping his views and methods in sports governance. As we converse with the former Big Sky Conference commissioner, listeners will be treated to a treasure trove of anecdotes that reveal the art of crafting a successful athletic program and the profound impact sports can have on community and character building.
Navigating the intricacies of college athletics, Doug Fullerton peels back the curtain on the roles of commissioners and university presidents, shedding light on the confluence of sports and academia. His tenure saw the introduction of innovative practices in officiating, as well as the meticulous processes behind the NCAA selection committee. The conversation goes beyond the scoreboards and stat sheets to address the broader implications of recent legal and pandemic-related upheavals in college sports, including the controversial transfer portal and the future of bowl games and playoffs.
Wrapping up with a reflective look at the notion of amateurism in sports, Doug shares his vision for preserving the integrity of collegiate tournaments in a rapidly evolving landscape. With insights into the unique allure of college sports over minor leagues, the challenges facing Division III athletics, and the legislative hurdles of the NCAA, this episode is not just a lesson in sports administration, but a masterclass in the passion and purpose that drive the very heart of collegiate competition. Join us for a discussion that resonates with sports enthusiasts, academics, and leaders alike, as we explore the legacies left and the futures being shaped within the spirited arena of college athletics.
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You know, one of the most important kids you'll ever coach is the one that needs the program more than the program needs that kid. Welcome to Above the Whistle with your host, devin McCann. What's up everyone. Welcome to another edition of Above the Whistle. On this week's podcast we have Doug Fullerton, former commissioner of Big Sky Conference. He's been called the most interesting committee member or commissioner in the world, and you'll find out why. Doug, it's a pleasure having you on today. I'd love to go through your resume, but I mean it's ten pages long, so if you could just give us a quick little background on where you started and what you've done yeah, it's so impressive.
Speaker 2Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. I haven't thought about it, I haven't done it on a lot of podcasts for the last few years. I've been counting a laying low since I retired, but I really do enjoy it. So you know, I grew up in Hamilton, montana, in the Bitter Valley South of Missoula, and I guess the claim to fame now is that's where that ranch on Yellowstone is.
Speaker 1Oh, is that where it's from?
Speaker 2That's where it is. I grew up hunting and fishing that whole valley.
Speaker 1My wife and I are addicts to that show, so we'll have to go up and check it out.
Speaker 2You bet, last time I drove by that ranch it had about 50 cars parked outside taking pictures in front of the gate and, of course in a small town, you played every sport there was and then you sang in the choir that night and did all the other things that you do in a small town, and so to me that was very fortunate. To grow up, great high school education. I mean I had Shakespeare, I had calculus in high school. I mean it's amazing, a town like that can really control your education, which is really good.
Speaker 1I read that somewhere along the lines you're a trained mathematician. Did that kind of stem in high school?
Speaker 2I graduated degrees in mathematics. It's interesting how I got there. I was recruited after playing baseball and actually in the Missoula Legion. I was recruited to go to San Diego and play and down there the coach. I thought that I was a pretty good athlete in high school and when I got to San Diego I realized there's a whole lot of really good athletes out there.
Speaker 2It was a lot of really good athletes and you know some other interesting things that really formed my life. I mean, the coach was smart. My roommate on the road was our black third baseman and he knew damn well. Coming out of Hamilton Montana, I had never been around black athletes before and it happened to be. I don't know if you remember Chris Chambliss played for the Yankees. It happened to be his brother.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, gene.
Speaker 2Chambliss with our third baseman. He was almost the biggest Chris. He's about 6'4", about 230, 240. He ended up playing for the San Diego Charges as a guard offensive guard, but anyway had a great time. I mean I played two sports in college a club baseball and basketball. And because I was playing two hours in pre-med and I had it on a five year plan because I couldn't get the lambs in because I was always working out in the afternoon. So at the end of my fourth year I got into there for my draft board and the draft said I said hey, I wrote back, I said I'm on a five year plan. At the end of this I'll go pre-med, I'll sign now after I get out of med school to go into the service. If that's what you want, they said you're going this spring son.
Speaker 2So I went to my counselor and said what degree can I finish in a year? Well, biology, you've got a minor already, but there's too many lambs. Chemistry is the same thing, but you could probably if you took all math courses in one history of dance.
Speaker 1History of dance. All right, okay.
Speaker 2Get a mathematics degree. So I ended up with a mathematics degree. Okay, and so you kind of fell into that I fell into that and I said it's not something that I'd plan to do because you get out. After I got out of the service and I went to OCS and flight school and when I got out, what do you do with a mathematics degree?
Speaker 1I get question nowadays. They used to always say you know your calculator, you can't cheat, you can't use a calculator, You're never going to have a calculator in your hand at all times. Here we are I have a calculator in my hand at all times.
Speaker 2Yeah, Well, anyway, you teach. Yeah, yeah, basically you teach. I wrote back to Montana Employment Service Commission I said, hey, you got to teach your jobs. Well, I happened to play for a coach that ended up being a pretty famous coach in basketball. Bob Cottonberg went on. He was the intern coach for a long time in Cleveland Cavaliers. Okay, he was the Bobby Knight before Bobby Knight. He had a lot of defensive ideas about the game that Bobby Knight actually picked up and used and, and so that has opened doors for me. As I started, I got out, I started coaching as long as I was teaching. I thought I could coach, I love basketball. I moved up as a high school coach, a college assistant. Then, before I tried to get a college-ed job, I got the athletic director job at Montana State on to being the Big Sky Commissioner after 10 years and then 20 years as the commissioner, and then it did. Some had some wonderful experiences as commissioner.
Speaker 1I mean, yeah, like I said, it's such an impressive resume and everything you've done. Were there any lessons you learned, why you were a pilot and a commander in the army that you were able to kind of take and use in athletics?
Speaker 2Yeah, you and I discussed this a little bit. You know it's interesting as a, as a commander, the last eight years of a flight unit, we couldn't understand in the military why we were crashing so many planes. That was always pilot air. We train these pilots like crazy, we put them in, we put in simulators. We can simulate the tail of an airplane falling off and we can simulate anything and and they're so well trained. But why is this always pilot air?
Speaker 2If he's crashes and we've what we discovered was it was the personality, the pilot. And you know you could relate that to almost the things that I learned about looking for certain personality traits basically maybe minor flaws that get people in trouble. You can apply to business, you can apply to coaching, you can apply to anything, and I think it really helped me was is why? Because I find myself well. I was always. I was always talked by the business department to come over and give, give talks on on how to relate what was causing accidents, the personality trait that causes you a problem as a leader in business and as I'm coach and I'm watching coaches now I'm a mentor to coaches as an athletic director and I could see them making similar kinds of errors and you know, politely you try to lead them back to the safe place that they can go to, and you know so. I think it's interesting. My whole life I've tried to learn from everybody. I've met some, some people, I've learned what not to do.
Speaker 1And.
Speaker 2I've learned what to do, but I've learned from everybody.
Speaker 1So you know, we talked about this a little bit before, like you mentioned. But like the personality, like profiles, you know when you were building, you know your programs, you know as an athletic director, hiring coaches, things like that were there certain personality profiles that you would use to?
Speaker 2Yeah, there are, and you know, a lot of the books now have begun to document exactly some of those people. But I use the example of of of what they call the moralizer, the person who who has to do it because it's morally right or it's ethically right and they get themselves in trouble, they get stuck when they really didn't have to do that.
Speaker 2It's one of the action related to to lifelike pilots because they they think they got to go through that thunderstorm to get that patient and that's important and I understand that. But what they did is they put three or four people at risk that are right with them to go through that thunderstorm when they know darn well they shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 1Right, right. Yeah. I think you know, in business and life and things like that we do we sometimes we we get focused, or you know, we, yeah, we become so focused on an objective that we forget all the the other things that really matter, right, yeah.
Speaker 2One of my favorite actions and we talked about it earlier was one where a a landing gear light that sign signals that is down the lock didn't come on and three pilots were so focused on that and so trying to find the, the, either the circuit record related to it or maybe a loose wire behind the, the screen and had taken. The had had begun to roll out of the sky because they'd taken the auto panel off, and that's. It's classic when we studied and they crashed a perfectly good aircraft into the Everglades with 140 people on board and and, and the light was burned out and they, they let was burned out. I mean, and the idea that, yeah, you get focused on one issue, one issue, and you let the rest of the world go bad because you're just so focused on that issue, and that happens all the time. I find myself doing that. From time to time, you know, I get something that keeps me up at night and there's a lot of things supposed to be going on your mind.
Speaker 2You have to keep your scan going. That's the common phrase for pilots is that you're watching all your instruments and you're moving your head all the time. You're watching your instruments, all of them.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2You're watching your scan going. That's what I tell people in business. That's what I tell coaches keep your scan going.
Speaker 1I was going to say, I think, as a coach or as a commissioner, being able to see the macro picture of everything. Right, I think it falls on your shoulders, being in that position to to be able to look at things from, you know, that 10,000 foot view. Some of your coaches, some of your players might not be be able to see that they're focused on. This is my role. I'm not getting the playing time I deserve. I might not, you know, like the way this coach is talking to me as that leader, you know, head coach, commissioner, it falls upon you to kind of see that bigger picture.
Speaker 2Well, and I I mean there's all kinds of examples I've made a coach, I've had coaches that are, that are obsessed with officiating, and I'm kind of obsessed with officiating myself, but in a different sort of way. I want to make it better.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2I've seen. Then the players begin to take on the coaches personality, become obsessed with officiating and their game goes down.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I've seen it over and over again.
Speaker 1Every time I coach you know I coach teams one of my biggest things is I will talk to no-transcript. I don't want anyone else chirping, I don't want them. If I start acting poorly and I'm yelling at the officials, you, you do. You see your Players start doing over your assistant coaches doing it, absolutely it's. It's kind of phenomenal, you know to watch its personality.
Speaker 2It is personality, and I think that makes you successful. If you can begin to understand yourself and understand the people around you, let's motivate them, let's turn them on, let's turn them off, I I think you can be successful as a leader.
Speaker 1It's been kind of, you know, interesting a Profile to watch, as Dan Campbell from the Detroit Lions and I mean everything you hear, read, see it's that team is taken on his personality and they just are, you know, driven to succeed and run through a wall, and it's his personality that's just Overpowered that locker room and kind of infused itself.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I don't know him, but I, I mean, I read about him and I hear people talk about him with nothing but but praise and from also for an understanding just so consistent. Yeah and I think that's Another key to leadership. It's just being consistent.
Speaker 1Right, right. So it's been said and I kind of let off the the podcast with this it was said you're the most interesting committee member or, you know, commissioner in the world. When you hear that, what does that mean for you? I?
Speaker 2Don't know. I've done a lot of things.
Speaker 1My yeah, and I really have, and you still do and I still do.
Speaker 2I I Try to stay busy, so I mean I Was always the just another thing that I've always done, as I've always drawn. So I was the guy that drew for the underground newspaper in college.
Speaker 1I'm not always been a proud of that, because I'm sure Someone thought that was me and I lost my scholarship but you used an alias for it, right.
Speaker 2But the thing is, I took a painting within the last few years of my commissioners and then now, after I'm done and I think that's just another thing that these people that I've met you know a big guy from LA and he's fascinated by my fly fishing and hunting experiences. Yeah and I mean somebody else, and it's fascinated by my painting or my, you know, whatever my flying and and. So you know, I've done a lot of things and and and that's just. It is a nickname they gave you yeah.
Speaker 2It was during the time when the most interesting man in the world was out there for a bear commercial.
Role of Commissioners in College Athletics
Speaker 1Right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, that's a great commercial, but yeah, I mean, According to, to the you know resources and the reports, that's actually you. So, um, it's also said that, as far as your relationships with all the presidents and things like that, that there's no one better, or was no one better, at you know, cultivating those relationships than you. Is that stemmed from? Is that just something you were born with?
Speaker 2Is it something you had to work, work on and you know, what I recognize right away, particularly when you deal with presidents, is that, uh, these people come out of academia, um, they really. The one thing they don't know how to handle a lot of times is athletics. It's just so foreign to them.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2They. They don't see it in the right light sometimes because, again, they're focused on the academic side of the house. Um, and as they should be yeah, yeah but used correctly in athletic uh, athletic team.
Speaker 2You know, I just came up with a lot of ideas about the value of college athletics as being a, a Connective tissue to downtown, to your fans, to your alumni used correctly, it can be used incorrectly. I mean, if you uh, I used to tell them, if you start it, you'll get a coach that starts cutting corners and what you'll have? You'll end up with people on your campus, kids on your campus, that really don't fit the personality of your community and your university. And if you do that, then all of a sudden you'll you see them start getting in trouble and and so do you think that kind of comes from the top Down?
Speaker 2it does, but they don't understand all of this. They really don't. And it's also a business like activity. It's not a business because If this is a business, you wouldn't do it because there's only. When I was working in the business, they were only about 70 schools making money and a net earned income sense 70 schools, 70 out of 330. Okay, yeah, Now I believe there's probably a hundred, because of the the media, money has become so big.
Speaker 2But, I think those, those four major conferences, they probably make money and maybe there's a couple odd elsewhere that are making Money in the net earned income sense. The rest of us don't, and so you have to spend money on it. You better feel good about spending money and you better spend enough. I used to walk in and I'd say to the president I said are you spending too much money on athletics? Of course I said he's faculty is telling right, yeah, that's what he cares we discussed a little bit.
Speaker 2I said are you spending too little?
Speaker 1Would they typically say maybe we need to open up the pocketbook a little more? They usually say I have no idea. Have to start talking, so you have to educate them on it.
Speaker 2The value of what you could do if you could ever reach that nice equilibrium. I mean, these kids are graduating faster in your regular student body. They're up out front. They're not representing the institution all the time.
Speaker 2They could be used very well if you've got the right programs going. And so I worked hard with the president, said I love the presidents that came in and said and accepted that and said You're right. I don't know, in fact, if I'd have a meeting with them we'd talk about issues. I'd get calls on Monday morning, so could you pop up and explain what you meant? Yeah, yeah, and and I love those kind of presidents who are. They're constantly.
Speaker 1But they're open to new ideas and learning.
Speaker 2So yeah, that's why you catch one. That just I know about athletics don't bother me, and you know I get that too.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I think my relationship with the presidents particularly stem from the fact that Um I understood what their transitioning was, what they were going through.
Speaker 1Yeah, and.
Speaker 2I think that most of them will tell them that I gave them great advice On how to run their programs and what to do there's I want to say I didn't get through to everybody. There's people that I Most of time wish they would have invested more, because I think they would have gotten a lot more back out of it for the university. Yeah but, um, most of them were very good. I mean, these guys are and men and women I'm guys being a non-general specific here, but uh, these guys are really bright people.
Speaker 2I don't, I mean, they are bright. Yeah, and they're like 14 of them in the room is my board Can be tricky. Um, there's, there's Um.
Speaker 1Different personalities, there's different opinions.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, so you, you move them. But I, like I said, my relationship with the presidents I was always really proud of.
Speaker 1I think and I mean you and I don't know each other very well, but I mean just I think people respond to authenticity and sincerity and and you know you, you know you were looking out for the best interests of them and their, their athletic departments and the, the culture surrounding the school. And you know, just being authentic to your belief in that, I think, is probably what resonated with a lot of those presidents.
Speaker 2I hope it did. Yeah, I think it did like I said. I uh, when I go on a campus, I We'd always have dinner together. I mean, the presidents and I became fans and, interestingly enough, I always wanted to go and speak to their boosters.
Speaker 1I want to talk about different things we were doing.
Speaker 2I wanted their boosters to become more informed. So would you go around to the different schools and every school every you would the other group I talked to is that a common thing with commissioners Is?
Speaker 1it okay.
Speaker 2They spent a lot of time with boosters, like I did but I I would go, uh, when they would hire a new president. That presidents would always remark to me when you go to the game and come in my booth, you know everybody in there and I don't Do that. And the other thing I like to do is get the kids involved in their own life. I mean they Um, all the schools have have councils with the student athletes representing Not a lot of them use it correctly. I mean, do they? What are you trying to get done? And they get these black stairs, and soon. So what do you mean? I mean, how about, how about, how about working to get Um Priority registration.
Speaker 2The reason I say that is I'm going to take you from 130 every afternoon until five. Okay, you need to be able to get your classes. You need and get them in a schedule that you can actually work with. The only way can do that is priority registration. I said that's something that you could work as a students and push up through the deans and the deans probably will listen to you, yeah, and then on and get it done and Did you see success with?
Speaker 2oh yeah all the time. Yeah, yeah, so the student groups had priority registration after a while.
Speaker 1That's interesting. Were there any other, like initiatives that you kind of help Guide them to initiate.
Speaker 2Yeah, um, we talked a lot about the common social problems you're having today, I mean, whether it's um Gender racism. I mean I I shocked people when I said you know, these guys have transgender athletes.
Speaker 1Oh really, and people go what? Yeah, that's my reaction. What?
Speaker 2We've had transgender. I mean we, we followed the, the criteria the institute uses, which is is is pretty bright, uh um, I don't think high schools use that and and so we never had a problem, never made an issue out of it, and never had a problem with it. So it's, it's interesting, I mean, these kids are so bright.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean these kids are Given five and six hours at pay the practice, then they go to study hall, then they, I mean they will grieve. They watch film, but I was supposed to watch that, but but I know they do oh yeah, and yet they, they must maintain that grade average and that's why we were graduating students at um Ireland. The general student population.
Speaker 1I mean, I'm just, I'm a big believer in, you know athletics and I think a lot of the things you learn On the court, on the field, yeah, you take off of it and you're able to translate that into your studies and your work ethic. You're, you know the. They translate nicely. And if you're driven, ambitious, intrinsically motivated on the the build, you're probably gonna do the same. You know, off the build.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'll tell you what I told my wife's in banking and if you can hire, if you can hire some of the next athlete a successful athlete you're probably gonna hire some. No, that they've been knocked down and they're not get up. I mean you have to.
Speaker 1You have to yeah, yeah, no, no, and that's just what it is. I mean, I always tell my kids, when it comes to baseball, my youngest gets really frustrated. It's like if you hit three out of every 10, you're an all star right, you're an all star. Like you're not gonna win everything, like you're gonna get knocked down. But how do you get back up? That's what counts.
Speaker 2And that might have been. You know, I look back in my career and going from a small town where you were well, at least you thought you were pretty cool to a big fish in the sea, a little pond, yeah, a lot of great players. I played with a lot of kids that made the bigs. Now I just got drafted, made the bigs, and I I mean these kids, I just my eyes were wide open for a long time Plus it was the 60s and I went to Southern California in the summer of love and all that Late 60s I mean I was shocked.
Speaker 1An interesting time. Yeah, there was a lot of culture shock going on. Culture shock For sure, for sure. So I want to talk a little bit. I mean, I think basketball is your first love, right?
Speaker 2It is, it really is. I mean, that's it really was.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you were honored to be a part of the selection committee for the NCAA.
Speaker 2I was and, like I typically do, I jumped in with both feet on a couple of things.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Improving Officiating in College Sports
Speaker 2One. They understood that I knew the game and had played the game and coached the game and so but I was. We were talking earlier. One of the things I did as a as a commissioner is I think I really made a difference in officiating both in football, basketball, women's basketball. I mean. We first began. We began evaluating officials on tape, begin having dialogues with officials about their weaknesses, their strengths we had. We began training officials in a very, very systematic and intense way. In fact, as my football guy was an NFL guy, he was a side judge in the NFL for 14 years. He still worked NFL Sundays and but he would bring all these buddies to Park City and all the best officials, the people you saw at the, at the Super Bowls and all that. They were all in Park City, worked with my guys.
Speaker 2With the big sky conference Big sky conference and and then we evaluated them and and made them better. Well, I got involved and one thing I I've been involved since I've been a commissioner is with basketball officiating. I just wanted to make it better and I wanted to make it better nationwide. You know, just before I got on the basketball committee, I did become the president of the CCA, which is the commissioners association, so all division one, I'm talking the SEC. I was the president of that and I formed two committees men's basketball, women's basketball competitions committee, because we saw the scores going straight down him, and so we looked at tape from games over the last 10 years and we had people from the, we had announcers and on this committee we had referees, officials on this committee. I shouldn't say referee, because that's a type of official.
Speaker 2And we actually made recommendations. We realized that as strength training got better, our kids were getting so big and so strong and we hadn't changed the way we were calling the game. The average game was going to be 24 to 22.
Speaker 1No one's going to like no one's going to watch that.
Speaker 2And so and I know we took a lot of heat, because when we changed those rules and we went to the rules committee, you have to change these and commissioners home a lot of sway in the NC two. And so we got it done, and you can remember the time when the official they started saying, well, that's a tiki-taka following the perimeter. The thing is we, we, you could see the scoring going up. The great players now didn't get bounced off with a hand on their hip all the time by somebody who's been lifting weights all day and stronger anymore, and so now we got the scores going up. I worry, sometimes I see it slip. There are different commissioners with different ideas. Commissioners hire their own officials, which is the real problem in basketball, but uh, leaving in.
Speaker 1In football you know I think we talked about earlier basketball it might be a little bit harder to referee or officiate that game than than football, but I think you know each conference as a just a fan. I can see differences and conferences on the way things are officiated. Absolutely correct.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean I watched back to a couple of big 12 games. Last night I was interested in watching Houston Shaz, the little coach from uh, he's a little coach from Butte. He was coaching the, the minors out of the what are they? The Lorde bingers, simply they're called and he's moved up and is coaching. But I'm watching the way they call the game and I ended up watching when I watch games anymore, I watch officials as much as I watch anybody else. I'm watching the way they call a game and they actually kicked him out of the game.
Speaker 1They really.
Speaker 2They charged on the court to make a point. I mean I knew what he was doing, I mean he didn't lose control. He.
Speaker 1But there's a time and place for everything.
Speaker 2Right, they missed a big time. Play down low and, interesting enough, officially used to work in the sky, it was a guy down.
Speaker 1Oh, was it really? You send him a text afterwards. Hey, we taught you better than that.
Speaker 2And he charged the court and got kicked out. But he won the game easily. But they sent me an email after the first time I ran a regional tournament and they said which official should we move forward? I said you've got to be kidding me. We make over a billion dollars a year in this tournament and you don't evaluate officials on tape. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1Well, you made a comment earlier. You can watch a game and you can see, you know kind of how they manage the game, but to actually see the calls and things you have to watch it and review it on tape.
Speaker 2So that's exactly right. I mean I can see whether they manage the game or they in the proper spot, do they transition correctly, do they do all that correctly? I can see that as a guy watching the game. I can't tell you if the play was all right.
Speaker 1I can't yeah.
Speaker 2I mean you look at the tape and go, oh, I see what he saw now.
Speaker 1Yeah, good, that's right. Yeah, so it's crazy to think that there wasn't a process in place for that or something that allowed you know the good reps to move up to. You know go I don't know officiate in the NBA or the NFL.
Speaker 2When we started evaluating on tape, there were a couple of officials that got all kinds of games out of some of the big conferences that never got any games, really. Yeah, I get it. Go on. Great, we had to have thick skin because it hit the fan.
Speaker 1Oh, I'm sure it really did. You're shaking things up.
Speaker 2But we told them you want to sit down and look at tape? We'll show you why they're not officiating.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I was really proud of that in the five years I was on that committee that Strides were made and officiating in the Final Four and particularly up through the Final Four, all the play, and I think that's part of the reason that there's upsets.
Speaker 1Yeah, because of the officiating, we were going to get a fair shot, I mean they frustrated me.
Speaker 2We had some pretty good teams out of the big sky and we'd go into the tournament and we didn't have a chance. We did not have a chance.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean there's biases in everything in life, but yeah, I mean, as an official, you can't be and you need to officiate the correct way.
Speaker 2So yeah, you know, and I worry I'm out of it now. So you know everybody always look back and say are they still panning, are they?
Speaker 1still panning Right.
Speaker 2Yeah, they've changed.
Speaker 1Superwises, do you watch the games now and think, oh, we are slipping or we should be doing this? I mean, is it hard?
Speaker 2Like I said, I watch the games and I think I've imagined correctly. I don't know if they're making calls correctly. Yeah, yeah, you know if I really dug into it and got the tapes. We'd get the tape back Sunday night to our coordinators and then they would review them.
Speaker 2Then we'd get together on Mondays and, like I said, the coaches would call me because they knew I already knew, I already knew and I said by the way, if you come to me and say I never want to see that official game, you're going to see them next game, because I got to make sure that everybody understands. You can't dictate to me who you get.
Speaker 1Oh, interesting yeah.
Speaker 2I said don't say that to me, Ever, Ever right. And they'd even call me and say the guys at Juer, Don't say that oh yeah, yeah, that's funny, it's funny. And you know I trust built up there too. But you know, the other interesting thing is that, like in football, first of the year I'd sit them down with our supervisor and officials and I'd have the coaches and the athletic directors in the room.
Speaker 1OK.
Speaker 2Because I also looked at those athletic directors to know how we're calling the plays and what we're looking for, what our keys are, because there are plays that people don't understand. Yeah, I'll give you an example Football. Everybody says, hey, the what's a? Catch. Well, the play clock went out.
Speaker 1OK, better and fair. You've seen it. Yeah, yeah, you see that, yep.
Speaker 2OK, so here's the way they officiate the back judge who says the guy deep over the, over the in the middle of the field. He's in charge of the clock and what he does is he watches the clock. If it's under 10, he starts watching it. He watches it wind down. When it hits zero he looks at all. If the ball is moving he won't call it Right, but you can see there's a delay there.
Speaker 1There is a yeah.
Speaker 2And so sometimes the delays and the fans are going nuts. But the way they have to officiate it, to be fair, it has to go to zero.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And then look, yep, and there can be a late a late, a little lag A little lag and it's OK.
Speaker 1I was always, you know, watching Peyton Manning and the Coles and their you know no huddle offense. I swear there was always there was. How is that not a delay of game? But yeah, that lag, I guess.
Speaker 2And the other one. I mean the other one is I think everybody is used to it now is the Potential ground.
Speaker 1Oh yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, referee's job. He's the white-handed guy. And he's behind the quarterback. His job is to check the quarterback. Right that is his job.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 2He has no idea where that pass is, doesn't whatsoever. He doesn't know if we got back to line of scrimmage, doesn't know if there's anybody in the area. Yes no idea. So they usually have signals back and forth that will tell him. But they'll get together, then they'll pull out the flag and drop on the fans. It will crazy. You talk them into it.
Speaker 1Yeah, right, right, right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2You know, I want, I wanted the coaches to understand what our keys were and why we called it the way we did.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I wanted athletic directors because I get called from athletic directors that are being proxies for the coach Right.
Speaker 1No, I think it's great. I think, you know, just in life, in general business, I mean that communication is vital. I think being transparent is possible. Being upfront and honest, you know, can kind of alleviate some of that stuff on the back end. You know, confusion, you know upset coaches and things like that. It's like, hey, we talked about this at the beginning of the year, these are the guidelines, these are the rules.
Speaker 2So I and even just managing coaches in your own department.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Getting them together and making sure that they understand. You know, again, that is a lot of the training about not getting involved in just one thing and looking at all it was. And I look back in my life and I've done that a few times yeah, Someone's come to me with this idea and I've jumped all over somebody and learned out the official information.
Speaker 1Yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah, we talked about that earlier. Just, I think you know, looking at the big picture, the macro, sometimes we do, we become siloed and you know, or we become so focused on one thing, but especially in that leadership role, I mean you've got to take a step back and look at the 10,000 foot picture.
Speaker 2So that was a lot of things I worry about. Now we were talking a little bit about the education process.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Like those kids are. You know, that's what. There's some good sides to the poor, okay.
NCAA Selection Committee Processes
Speaker 1The bad side. Okay, I'd love to talk about the transfer report, oh yeah.
Speaker 2The search for things happening right now. I don't know where. There's so many cross currents going on right now. I don't know where I thought it caused. I thought it's going to be in five years.
Speaker 1I really don't Okay.
Speaker 2I don't know where the NCAA is going to be. I mean, if those, if the big four conferences decide to take basketball out, they already have football on the NCAA.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2The postseason football is not run by the NCAA in the bulls.
Speaker 1Who's it ran by now? Bull group, just the bull committees. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2And it's actually. There's a committee that runs it and the commissioner's feeding the committee, and that's how they do it.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And the playoffs run by a playoff group. Okay, the ones that picked the playoffs.
Speaker 1Right, can we get back to that real quick, not to cut you off. But the selection committee with basketball, yeah, how many people are involved with that selection committee? And you know, I mean I'm sure those discussions get a little heated. Everyone has their ideas. I mean, you're looking at wins and losses and you know point differential and all that Like how do you?
Speaker 2It's interesting, the committee was in a growing up stage when I was on it. There are 10 people and that you know. You got 330 schools and 10 people. Yeah, you're assigned conferences and, quite frankly, if you think about it, by Christmastime you're down to looking at maybe 80 schools. Well, you have automatic births and then you fill it. You fill it with another 30, some low 30s, to fill all 30 schools. You're only looking at 50, 60 schools.
Speaker 2Okay, you got 10 people, okay, so you got and you got conferences and everybody has a conference they look at and they bring it in and we discuss it all. We meet throughout the year. I mean this takes an awful lot of your time.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And you meet throughout the year and by the time we go to tournaments conference tournaments there's very few new decisions to make.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2The big 10 always got us in trouble because they play on Sunday and we have to be in front of the camera.
Speaker 1A few hours in the afternoon, right A couple hours later.
Speaker 2I was in charge of the first quadrant, which is the first group of schools.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2The last couple of years I was on, and the last year I was on I had eight scenarios for the games being played on Sunday. Eight scenarios of where we've replaced people. Okay, because it's not that those are more important than the regular. It's just that they were all so close and they were playing each other that whoever won it made a big difference where we put them, right, right so yeah, it's.
Speaker 1So when you're in charge of a quadrant, though, does another commissioner kind of try to influence that as well? I mean as a committee or as Nope, this is your quadrant, you're in charge of it.
Speaker 2Well, we all.
Speaker 1Or does it have to be unanimous?
Speaker 2There's a process called scrubbing at the end, where you go right down through your entire 64 teams and two and three, and we got them in the wrong place. You can count Three and four. We got them in the wrong place. And I've seen 15, 16,. Let's switch. And now we got to look at the new 15 against 14. Let's switch those.
Speaker 1Oh, wow, you know something like that yeah, three or four, yeah.
Speaker 2And so that's a scrubbing process. It's one of the last processes you go through, but one of the things that happened and again I was involved in this because I was a commissioner and I thought Northern Arizona, when they had the coach, I can't remember his name went to UCLA, went to national championship. He was coaching there and had a really good ball club. I mean, he really had a good ball club. But we got put in as a 15 or 16. And there was no way we should have been put in as a 15 or 16. It should have been about a 10. Okay, they played St John's in the opener in Tucson. Yeah, Lost by two. And I wrote a letter and I explained I did not go crazy, go to the press.
Speaker 1He wrote a letter personally to the committee.
Speaker 2Okay, I said here's the way I look at what you just did.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And, interestingly enough, they said they put that's when they developed these. Certain group of committee members would look at first quadrant, second, third and fourth quadrant for the first time. They're going to look at those last teams to make sure, because to them it's extremely important. Yeah, for the 16, you're hardly ever going to win. No, no, you get to a 14,. You got a chance, you get 13 and you need to be in the right place.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, you need to be in the right place. No, I mean they always talk about yeah, where you're selected can make a huge difference. Oh yeah, yeah, going from a 16 to a 13,. It gives you a fighter's punch now.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and then just statistically.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, you just look at it and then, especially if you get to 12, I mean there's so many upsets at 12.
Speaker 2At the 12, you know like, and we never really got into it. I wanted to get into it, but I well, anyway, after that letter they put in these quadrant groups. Okay, yeah, I want to even go further and get into the go back in history and look at matchups between between your rankings.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And develop a, an expected, an expected value of the points brand. Okay, and then kind of use standard deviations off of that.
Speaker 1This is the this is the yeah I was going to say. Here comes the mathematician out. Right, this is that's awesome.
Speaker 2Well, I wanted some people. I've got some great ideas.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's, let's do it.
Speaker 2For for someone doing a master's well, he wouldn't be a doctor but a master's paper in and do it on some of that selection stuff. It's interesting.
Speaker 1Yeah, it'd be very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I wonder, because numbers don't lie. It'd be interesting to see what the data says.
Speaker 2But I consistently the the eight losing to the nine.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, why, why, yeah what?
Speaker 2and there are reasons. There are reasons there have to be. There's a little bias in who they put at the eight and who they put at the nine.
Speaker 1Yeah, interesting. Yeah, it would be an interesting study for sure. Yeah, they should do a case study on that.
Speaker 2Yeah, that, that I hope it will stay out of it, I'm sure.
Speaker 1I don't know about that. You did a lot of good while you were there, you also. You were kind of talking about football before I kind of cut you off there and just the selection committee. I think we're going to 12 teams now.
College Athletics in Turmoil
Speaker 2Yeah, I said I don't know where we've got. We've got the cross currents of the NIL money, you've got new conference affiliation and you got the pork. Yeah, the transfer portal just recently, within the last week, dartmouth Just had a labor relations board say that their kids could unionize and therefore have input into practice times and travel and all that's crazy. Interestingly enough, they're a non scholarship program because the Ivy League doesn't give scholarships. If that grows Within a L money and everything, the way that they're losing every court case they hack.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's gonna be fascinating. Not only a taxation, but that workman's confidence.
Speaker 1I was gonna say you mentioned workers, yeah.
Speaker 2I tried to get together to hire officials in the West for basketball With other conferences so we could share, and we'd share travel right, really custom, that makes sense. Yeah, we were to hire them. Well, we found out that in the state of California, workman's comp would be a hundred percent of salary. Wow, and we just couldn't wow, so we let that one.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, you got it yeah.
Speaker 2I was trying to get away from officials out here in the West being hired by, you know, a pack, 10 hundred official has a certain allegiance to the fact that it's a two-way, it is well, anyway. Back to the cross currents. I mean, we talked a little bit about the bright kids in graduation. I'm afraid the transfer portal does a great job at evening out the town. Okay, I mean, even in the big schools. I would have just lost a bunch of them. Oh, they did.
Speaker 1Washington was in the national championship game. Kid from a loss? Yeah, they just lost, right, yeah, the kid from Indiana, so I mean it.
Speaker 2It springs out town that way. When I watched Montana State plays in that a really good ball club and they're. They had a rain back from Wisconsin. They had a kicker from SMU and and everybody does, we bird does and everybody does has on. I think there was always a feeling that the big schools with stockpile athletes. Otherwise I'm gonna recruit an athlete, not because I'm next to the play right, you can have yeah and then you stop on that way.
Speaker 1But that doesn't seem to be the case right now, because they actually quarterbacks. They want to hop.
Speaker 2They'll jump right in the and get out and play, yeah, and and so that part of it's it's good. But the other thing we also know is that transfers don't graduate Time, because interesting, just the pure process of transferring credits from school to school. It's too difficult because everybody has people are losing credits.
Speaker 1It doesn't match up in a line with the curriculum.
Speaker 2Yeah, interesting and and I do know that they tried to say well, at least that's one of the reasons we had a year said. Yeah now that was probably a little bit too protective and I understand that and really is really protective of a kid who's got a graduate degree, because your, your college, may not offer that graduate program you want. So that's why that that was the first thing to go.
Speaker 1On that transfer. On that one, though, on, I mean you're starting to see players Seven. I'm going eight years like that's that's a little bit of the.
Speaker 2We're still got a hangover from the COVID year and so that right, right, yeah. However, if you see a kid that's going two years the NC 2a, should I just say on that second transfer, you have to sit here and the reason they said that is They'll give you a year to catch up on your credits. If you're graduate, if you've gone two different schools, you're probably way behind on on towards graduation. Yeah well, they lost the case in court.
Speaker 1I was gonna say I didn't think that was a rule.
Speaker 2Well, it was a rule, and then, about a month ago. Oh, that's a thing right now and I don't know what they're gonna do with it, but but I would like to see what happens to graduation rates over the next Five years. If I don't miss my guess, one of the things would became completely real problem of our graduation rates in college athletics. Yeah old Jock never going to class concept. Yeah was gone. Is it gonna come back?
Speaker 1I hope not. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2The other thing that I worry about is is the four big schools. I think they got their playoff. They got 12. Yeah, well, it's gonna be just a thing to watch. They got 12 teams. Okay, figure out how they're gonna do that. To go up, they're gonna buy four and they're gonna have eight teams playoff. That takes care of four bowl games.
Speaker 2Yep and then the next week they're gonna have four mobile games, then they're gonna have a seven-final. Is gonna find Eight ball games would be gone. Yeah, for all those other schools out there that want to get involved.
Speaker 1But the bowl games. You know, maybe this is just being a little bit younger, but it just. I watched these bowl games, or I don't watch these bowl games, rather, because there's no, there's no. You know, I don't care who wins. Half the kids aren't playing anymore because you know they're in the transfer portal, they want to graduate early, they're sitting out, for whatever reasons.
Speaker 2I just like it because they got an extra month of practice and they can sell it. We've earned a bowl game every year but by naturally owns them all. It's a financial boom dog, I would.
Speaker 1Schools lose a ton of money in those bull games they were yes, by tickets, yeah, and half that, yeah, you'd look at the stadium. The stadiums are not even half empty, they're 80%.
Speaker 2I was gonna say they're already losing, yeah, your ship. And now, if we take those other games out and those become important, the bowl games would be less important. So what's gonna happen to that, which I don't know if everybody's anybody's gonna miss that or not. I yeah, I hear you say that I'm like I don't know if I'll miss that well that push those kind of teams back to us To the end, but that could be a good fcs as a championship. Yeah, and so we play a championship.
Speaker 1That'd be fun to watch it.
Speaker 2Yeah, watching the crowds come out and and so you know we'll see that. The other thing I worry about is that they, if they flew around with basketball, if they take basketball, the only reason they wouldn't is that they like that. The NC 2 a desert enforcement. Yeah they don't necessarily trust each other, but they don't want to do enforcement, right, right. So the NC 2 a, though, gets 98% of its money from one thing.
Speaker 1What's that? That's basketball. Oh, really, from the tournament. So 1.1.
Speaker 2Wow, billion or 1.2 billion or whatever. Yeah, and that runs the NC 2 a. That runs all the other championships. You've got a tennis championship. You've got golf championship runs everything. Wow if they lose that, if they lose the top four conferences?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2What will happen to athletics at every level? Underneath that, I mean, there's 334, I mean yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, good for it teams a division, one basketball, but if they take those four, four top out, we wouldn't be able to afford to run a tournament.
Speaker 1Wow, each way would be gone. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's crossroads. Yeah next five years could be fascinating.
Speaker 1Well, you know you talk about the Transfer portal, but then, yeah, you mentioned a little bit about NIL deals and how that's affecting things. And you know, you look at I don't brawny James, I just read he's getting almost six million dollars and NIL deals for USC. And then you hear you know, to get a good kid out of the transfer portal as a QB, your school better pony up, yeah, pony up two million dollars and NIL deals, right, like how? So how's that affecting things? And I Just don't see a world where those top four conferences don't become, or or it merged even further and become two conferences that then become minor league football and yeah right, essentially yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2But that's, you got divisions in the NFL and that's kind of what they're gonna be, or that's what it's gonna be.
Speaker 1And then basketball, yeah, same thing. What's gonna happen with the top programs there? I?
Speaker 2well, if basketball goes, the depth of athletics in colleges will go.
Speaker 1Yeah, I Mean we mentioned this. Is there any world, any sort of scenario, where there's a third party Other than the NCAA? If the NCAA were, to you know, collapse, what they be able to do? A third part.
Speaker 2So then AI out there. You know that's out there now, okay, but it's kind of a poor sister and everything we've ever done as far as studies to learn about our fan bases has said that the people like college for a couple of reasons. Number one and you mentioned it earlier to me, and it's correct they like to grow up with the kids. They like to see them recruit as freshmen and into seniors. You know they like that at the old school Transfer portal kills that. I mean the two kids that played so well for Eastern Washington against Kansas opening round of the tournament. The lost by four kids, the kids' brothers combined for 48 points. Next year they start to roll from home.
Speaker 1I mean, that's just the way it's gonna be.
Speaker 2Basketball that kills you. It'll level the talent. It acts differently in football that it doesn't.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree, you know, with it leveling the talent, because you do. You look at the transfer portal and it's. I mean they're going to every school, they're going all over the place. It's not being stockpiled to Alabama or you know like, they're going everywhere. They just want a chance to play.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1But from the fan perspective it is still hard. I mean, I have my season tickets. They're due for Utah football again and I don't know if it's the Pac-12 kind of imploding in us going to the you know the Big 12 and not feeling that Well, that's not, I don't know. I'm here to the West, you know yeah.
Speaker 2If you lose the regionality and you said, I mean I don't think Southern Cal, rutgers is going to be a really high viewed program, oh, or UCLA, you know, maryland and tennis are gone. I mean what? Is this I mean the, the regionality, the.
Speaker 1There's something fun. I mean, if there is one kind of silver lining to the whole Big 12, it's Utah and BYU for that regionality. They're playing again year after year and it means something.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean you got Stanford and Cal going to the ACC. Every other school is in the Eastern times. Yeah, that's going to be fascinating. But that's the other thing that people liked it that are attracted to college, is that that concept of rivalries? Yeah, and I do think that Utah I mean BYU made a, made a decision on a necessity.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Utah, colorado, arizona, arizona State made a really good decision. They saw the hander in a wall. They jumped in and kept some regionality. Yeah, I think that will help them.
Speaker 1I do too.
Speaker 2And the other thing is we found that the fans liked the idea that they're amateurs. They liked the idea that they're kids. They can support them, cause they're kids, yeah 100%. And I'm not so sure they're not going to lose that. I mean, look at the way they support a college program versus a very good D league in in NBA, right, yeah, no for me. But if they became pro, it's just a minor league, it's different.
Speaker 1It's different. Yeah, I mean the whole. You know this podcast is called Above the Whistle and and you know I I like to have the conversations beyond that the, the playing field and the court and all that. And you know, watching college sports, you know they're playing sports, but they're still there. They're, they're learning to become men and women and, you know, become professionals and leaders. And if they become just semi pro athletes, I don't know if they're going to have the same experience in college that they normally would and, you know, will they have the the same trials and just just different processes in place to help them cultivate those, those, you know, those qualities and things that you look for?
Speaker 2You know, we used to always say that we were confused as commissioners, that the only group that really knew what they were doing was division three.
Speaker 2They don't give scholarships, like people count and play cause they want to play, yeah, and they learn all same lessons and they go to class and they get their degree and they graduate. Well, we had pushed our kids and then I could go through the rules that we had in order to get kids to graduate. And you know, to try to replicate at least a little bit of that and give scholarships, cause I mean the NCAA schools gives so many scholarships. I mean what's going to happen to, to, to our track programs that go to the Olympics? I mean they all come through, you know, great programs in the NCAA.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I just I'm going to be real curious and and there's some bright people, I mean I, I, I know most of them, the bright, bright people they get caught. They get caught between the courts and the fans and the media and you know, and the students, the courts, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I know that they're working hard, maybe to get a, you know some, some leniency from the legislature and then that might be it to get a and I trust, exemption like basically pass to them. And I know they're working on that, but, but right now there doesn't seem to be any appetite to give it to me.
Speaker 1Right. It just seems like every time they go to court they lose right now. So I don't know how appealing it is to go that route, but I think that's probably about all the time we have today. I, I really I appreciate you spending so much time with us today. Your insights, or or yeah, I mean I enjoy it.
Speaker 2I've been out of for a long time so if I make any mistakes I make it a couple right now. I've been out of it, but it's fascinating and I hope, I hope some, some people come up with some great answers so we can continue to have great things like the basketball tournament, kind of hope.
Speaker 1The pack 12 reconstitutes but I think it's going to happen. You and me both, I would love that. Nothing against the big 12. I'm a pack 12 guy, so yeah. But hey, thank you so much.