DALLAS — Speaking to a group of FBS athletic directors on Monday, NCAA president Charlie Baker candidly addressed some of the biggest issues facing college sports. Among those topics, Baker said he believes most college athletes do not want to become employees of their school, league or the NCAA.
“I don’t think you’ll find very many student-athletes who want to be employees,” Baker said at the LEAD1 Association’s annual spring meeting. “I haven’t found many, and there are a lot of really good reasons for that. Obviously, there’s a lot of traffic in the courts at this point about this issue these days, which is going to limit what I would choose to say about it. But I think student-athletes want to be student-athletes, and it’s up to us to figure out how to make that work for them in a variety of environments and in circumstances that are different.
“Maybe there are ways to do this that are different for certain divisions and certain programs at certain levels. But if we’re really serious about being for student-athletes, I’m not sure that they would think that’s where they want to go.”
On state laws that challenge the NCAA’s authority
Baker, who began his tenure as NCAA president last month, has focused a great deal of his attention on issues…
