College Sports: Will power corrupt the Power-5 conferences?

It was just a matter of time. NCAA Commissioner Mark Emmert has handed the flag of sovereignty to his loyal colonists. The now-dubbed Power-5 conferences – SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 – have been granted an unprecedented level of autonomy by the NCAA Division I Board of Directors to make rule changes and govern themselves as they see fit.

Oh, and Notre Dame gets a piece of this action too.

The dominoes have begun falling, and the NCAA sits at the end of the maze.

The vote will now allow the top 64 schools in the already-richest five leagues to decide on such matters as cost-of-attendance stipends, insurance benefits for players, staff sizes, recruiting rules and mandatory hours spent on individual sports.

While the eventual abdication of power by the NCAA was inevitable, to grant that type of home rule to a handful of drunk-with-power overlords may have been a less than prudent step in that direction.

Anyone who’s read my columns over the years knows that I am not a member of the NCAA fan club. In fact, I can probably be found somewhere on the charter membership of the Loyal He-man NCAA Haters Club. To see their brand of imposition gradually shredded to pieces is something most true fans of college athletics have been hoping would happen.

“I’m a little fearful of exactly what gets put in that autonomy.” – Mercer Univ. AD Jim Cole

Be careful what you wish for, right?

The NCAA has now reluctantly handed autonomy over to these already powerful conferences in the wake of public relations blunders and court decisions that would make Lindsey Lohan look like a dream client.

Will power corrupt the Power-5 conferences? The question really should be, will power further corrupt them.

In the words of John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Look, let’s not even try to pretend. The corruption is already there. There are secret deals, palm-pressing, and hush-hush rules of engagement that have been going on for years. From time to time, the powerful teams will get called out and have to do their mandatory penance. But it doesn’t happen often, and it’s never devastating to the point of no return.

So now these conferences – and in turn, their coaches – have the ability to make up the rules as they go along.

The big question on everyone’s mind is, will this now lead to players in the big conferences being paid, thereby shutting out the smaller schools for any top recruits?

Short answer. Yes. Sorry, but it’s going to happen. At this point, the wheels are probably already in motion. Even Mercer University Athletic Director Jim Cole sees the writing on the wall.

“Their business plan is in no way, shape or form like mine,” Cole said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I’m giving that. I want them to have some things to help them govern themselves better and run their businesses better. On the other side, I’m a little fearful of exactly what gets put in that autonomy. That right now is kind of the unknown.”

Once the coaches in these big boy leagues are able to start handing over the duffle bags full of money in broad daylight, they’ll start trying to one-up each other with more sinister deeds. That’s when trouble will really begin.

And if you don’t think these measures will have an effect on how the participants in the new College Football Playoff are chosen, then you should probably go finish your letter to Santa and make sure you leave the window unlocked for the Tooth Fairy.

There are two things at the heart of this matter which bring out the worst in proud men – money, and competition. And with the fear of losing both, and nothing in the way of checks and balances to keep things in line, it could get downright ugly.

There are good men within this group of leaders, and some of them have been able to stick to their moral guns for their entire careers. Some of the conference commissioners and a handful of the coaches are likely to end up either innocent victims of the buccaneering by the rest…or they will finally give in and become part of the problem.

The hope is that the five conference commissioners – Mike Slive, John Swofford, Jim Delany, Bob Bowlsby and Larry Scott – will be able to come together and form some sort of governing rules that will, at the very least, attempt to keep the playing field relatively level between their conferences.

Everyone else…you’re on your own.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby made no apologies for the Power-5 breaking off from the mid-majors and small conferences.

“I think this [vote] recognizes that there are some differences, and programs at our level have some unique challenges, have some relationships with student-athletes that are evolving,” Bowlsby told ESPN.com. “We need to have rules that respond to that evolution and those changes. I think it’s an acknowledgment that some of us have challenges that are unique. It’s because of those challenges that we felt like we needed an opportunity to control a little more of our destiny.”

If you’re a fan or alumni of one of these 64 schools, your concerns are probably minimal about this entire situation. In fact, you’re probably throwing a “we can make our own rules!” party right before the season openers.

But for the smaller schools – the mid majors who claw their way into national prominence in the NCAA Tournament, the Boise States of the world who built programs from nothingness into a feared opponent – the coyote just painted a tunnel on the mountain face, and you’re all about to run smack into it.

If ever since the days of Napoleon Bonaparte there was an example of Lord Acton’s statement, we are seeing it happen in college sports today, for there are many great men who are about to be handed absolute power.