On Tuesday, the NCAA announced Mark Emmert would step down as its president, either once his replacement is found or by June 30, 2023.
The distant departure date allows the Association to find a new leader and Emmert to continue to receive paychecks which, considering his approximate $2.7 million annual base salary, should be around $112,500 every couple of weeks.
Emmert certainly learned long ago that when it comes to “amateur sports,” the grift never ends.
The decision was supposedly “mutual” between Emmert and the NCAA board of governors but Emmert had a contract through 2025 and there is no earthly reason why he’d agree to step aside. It’s not like anyone knew what he has been doing. He was so bad in public, he rarely appeared anywhere or said anything.
His dozen years at the helm of the organization was marked with inertia, ineffectiveness and incompetence.
Virtually every initiative Emmert attempted either failed or was pointless. His tenure was constantly behind the curve and the times. It left his organization forever on its heels and constantly losing battles in courts both legal and of public opinion.
As reform came, the NCAA fiddled, its president incapable of forging effective plans, let alone a consensus to pass such plans, on issues ranging from conference realignment, name, image and likeness, player rights, soaring costs, rampant rule-breaking, transfers and so on.
The 69-year-old will finish his term with almost no support or respect from major athletic directors or many conference officials who operate on the front lines of college sports. Most have seized the reins and tried to run things without him. Eventually even his former peers at the university presidential level — Emmert was the former campus leader at Washington and LSU — gave up.
Maybe the job was impossible. Corralling a vast…
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