Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2011

Atlantic about writing a short piece, and the magazine’s editors suggested the NCAA as a topic.

Branch had always wondered why NCAA scandals keep revolving around and around, with people wringing their hands and the issues never getting anywhere. He believed that coming at it as an outsider would provide a helpful perspective.

Branch found the history fascinating and so have the magazine’s readers and other media. Reaction has ranged from a critique in Christianity Today to appearances on The Charlie Rose Show, the PBS NewsHour and a multitude of other news and sports talk shows. Branch said it even has pushed him into new media territory — his Web designer told him people are tweeting about the article all over the place, so he’s having to learn how to use Twitter. He was scheduled to go on Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report comedy news show — popular with a generation that grew up long after the civil rights era — in early November.

“My kids are teasing me unmercifully about
that,” he said. “I couldn’t get onto any of these
shows for any of my heavyweight books, but I
toss off this thing about sports and there I am.”
The 14,500-word Atlantic article recounts the
establishment of the NCAA by Walter Byers, his
efforts to strictly ration out game time to the
TV networks, and the organization’s regulation

For a more in-depth version of Taylor Branch’s article, including the recent UNC football investigation, check out The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA, Branch’s e-book available at taylorbranch.com or byliner.com.

Branch, who received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from UNC in 1989, tapped into his Carolina connections to explore the school’s recent football troubles, talking to Athletics Director Dick Baddour ’ 66, former UNC System President William Friday ’ 48 (LLB) and Raleigh lawyer Wade Smith ’ 60, who played football at Carolina.

Branch also writes about the segregation of UNC students from campus athletes in The Cartel, where he said The Daily Tar Heel reporters’ contacts with the football players involved in the investigation mostly were through Twitter and Facebook, not personal campus encounters.

Taylorbranch.com also has links to TV, radio, online and print interviews with Branch about the NCAA.

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of college sports.

“I assumed that the NCAA had come down
from on high and had been established into law
in the Constitution,” he said. “One of many sur-
prises was to see how accidental it is and what
an interesting historical background it came out
of. The United States is the only country in the
world that has big-time sports in universities the
way we do.”
Even more fascinating was that Byers was
able to convince all of the colleges to regulate
TV broadcasts as tightly as nuclear weapons. But
Branch also was curious about why the NCAA
has blocked workers’ compensation claims by
athletes, why it punished students for mistakes
made by coaches and why athletes have no rep-
resentation on any collegiate or NCAA govern-
ing boards.

Branch said he doesn’t understand why talk about paying college athletes bothers people more than academic corruption and a lack of transparency about basic information on academic standards and athletics finances. It reminds him of race issues and comes down to a question of civil rights.

“In the civil rights movement, very few peo-
ple disagreed with Dr. King on principle,” he
said. “But they didn’t want to talk about the
principle; they wanted to talk about something
else — somewhere that he was going wrong or
he shouldn’t have demonstrations or should not
use children or this, that and the other.”
The NCAA’s real lack of control was
emphasized when the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in 1984 that its TV plan, which limited
the appearance of university teams in a season,
violated federal antitrust laws.

Branch has some ideas about how to go for-
ward. He recommends the NCAA
and colleges allow representation for
athletes and that it be transparent
about basic information on academ-
ic standards and athletics finances.
He would like to see student
body presidents, student council rep-
resentatives and nonplaying students
meet with universities to discuss
how athletes should be included in
the decisions of athletics depart-
ments, just as athletes are represented
on the Olympic Committee.

Branch said the NCAA has a fundamental decision to make about whether it wants to fight to keep the money, and if it does, it will lead to its demise.

“It should drop the pretense of amateurism, because it applies unjustly,” he said. “They should make athletes members of the NCAA. It’s downright un-American to have an organization that makes rules that govern college athletes and excludes them from membership.”