Changing the BCS: KP Coalition Gaining Traction

July 25, 2009: Mark Viera of the Washington Post wrote about my efforts to Improve the Bowl Championship Series. (BCS). The last time I wrote on BR regarding the details of my proposal was that date.

For those who may not know my story, I was homeless in Washington, D.C for four months, taking residence Under a Bridge lobbying Capitol Hill for my proposal.

My efforts were unsuccessful by most standards. But the Post article has given a great back story to the forward progress of my efforts.

I'm not sure if the players desire a multi-game playoff but I would assume that they do. Most involved in the game has an opinion about the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) post-season structure.

The Powers want the current BCS format and model, and the overwhelmingly majority of fans yearn for a multi-game playoff.

Tradition, Value of the Regular Season, Academic Schedules, Diminishing the Bowl Structure.

I may say my proposal enhances those values, but does it? I can only find out, by reaching out.

When I was in D.C, I was washing my hands in the Old Country Buffet bathroom. A man overheard me freestyling about my day and our conversation lead into the discussion of my trip to D.C.

He told me that when I am ready for media that I should have my plan "wrapped real tight." I agree.

Six months since my last media I have refined and tuned my proposal. Although my proposal is more "tight," Part I comes to a close and we begin on Part II: Explaining the Benefits.

Here is my written Introduction of my proposal. “Join the Revolution” can be viewed in pdf (recommended).

Jan. 25, 2010
Join the Revolution

April 21, 2009, I arrived in Washington, D.C., with a one-night hotel reservation at Motel 6 and a little under $100. The determination to see my proposal succeed somehow drove me 3,000 miles away into the Heart of America.

I didn’t go to D.C. to overturn the Powers of the BCS, I went to get exposure.

Were my actions responsible? Reckless? Crazy?

I don’t know. But I was able to warrant a Washington Post article. I lived in our Nation’s Capitol with meals provided by Miriam’s Kitchen and Sacred Heart Church (Adams Morgan), and my Government food stamps.

The Georgetown Interim Library wasn’t too far away, and for most of my nights, I’d stash my bag and head into the bars. The exposure got me home safely and it enhanced my opportunity.

My first international exposure with my proposal told the story how it was: A 21-year-old homeless man living in Washington D.C and lobbying on Capitol Hill to “change” the BCS when “nobody cares.”

But will people care the next time the Kennedy Proposal is on the Hill?

Today, my proposal does not have Part II (April 2010), Part III (May 2010), nor Part IV (July 2010); however, since the Post article, I have been able to detail my proposal and begin the KP Coalition to Improve the Bowl Championship Series.

The group may only have two members but within the first month of 2010, the Coalition has doubled.

Yeah, it’s small, real, real, real small. But with Bleacher Report, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media communications, I plan to express and teach my ideas.

I don’t know what people will say about my BCS playoff solution, the measures that I have taken, and will take, to improve the BCS, but my trip to D.C was the most educational period of my life.

As the chorus sings along, “With all the things going on right now, you expect the President and Congress to be dealing with some college football playoff?”

Yes, (in a subcommittee) that is why on May 1, 2009, I stood outside the White House with my sign advocating that President Barack Obama “throw his weight around” for the Kennedy Proposal.

I have a long way to go before we can sniff that reality; however, with my experience as an NCAA student-athlete who has competed in a NCAA football sanctioned playoff, complimented by my studies of the FBS post-season structure, I believe that the proposal that I have offered is extremely operational and can be inserted during the upcoming BCS arrangement that expires in 2014.

In fact, on Nov. 16, 2003, former University of Oregon President, Dave Frohnmayer, who is also the former BCS Presidential Oversight Committee Chairman, spoke about the FBS postseason saying:

“First of all, we are all agreed and all knowledgeable that this—whatever it is that is devised needs to pass the test of agreement among our respective colleagues. Even if the 13 persons represented in the room were to agree, there are independent and very strong institutions, 117 of them in Division I-A.

The second is that this all needs to be tested against the market. We might devise what would be thought to be the ideal system of post-season football, only to find out that it did not add value or that inadvertently destroyed part of a bowl system or inadvertently denied opportunity of access to bowls because they were diminished in number.

So, there are many factors dealing with the economics of post-season football that need to be tested, against which any model or agreed way of proceeding needs to be tested.

The second thing that I’m sure that everyone in this room and on the telephone knows but needs to be reminded of is that there are actually four different contracts that affect the BCS and its organization.

The first of which is the contract between the Big Ten, the Pac-10 and the Tournament of Roses by sequence of date and expiration that actually comes up first. So, there’s a very difficult juggling act.

Indeed, you might even call it an obstacle course in terms of the contractual underpinnings of the BCS system that needs to be accounted for that will mean that any item that we may even agree on unanimously may be difficult to accomplish in a very straight line way.” (BCS-Coalition Press Conference Call Transcript p 11)

Which contracts affect the BCS?

According to the BCS and ESPN, “The BCS operates with several contracts in play:

1. The BCS agreement with 11 conferences, Notre Dame and three bowl games,
2. A contract between the Big Ten, Pac-10, the Rose Bowl;
3. A Rose Bowl-ABC contract;
4. Contracts between all 11 conferences and Notre Dame and ESPN.”

Does the Kennedy Proposal abide by those contracts? I believe that it does, but I also need support for my hypothesis.

I understand there is more at stake than contracts, like student-athlete welfare, but if each NCAA student-athlete is competing in a NCAA sanctioned playoff, shouldn’t the FBS student-athletes be held to the same standard?

Is it asking too much of the players to participate in a multi-game playoff? And more importantly, would the FBS student-athletes be interested in participating?

For example, players from both teams that participated in the 2010 National Championship liked and disliked the idea of a multi-game playoff; however, one agreement between AQ and Non-AQ coaches is the continued use of the BCS format.

Questions will linger.

If my plan is instituted, how will the 11 FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame, as well as Army, and Navy, decide how the revenue should be divided?

Right now, I am trying to reach out to those affected by my proposal: the student-bodies of the NCAA. The way I see it, even if the People decided on one BCS solution to afford a multi-game playoff, that the Powers would still make us go to Capitol Hill before we won.

I may be wrong, but that is what they did to the Presidential Coalition for Athletics Reform; however, Dr. Cowen, is a now a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee.

Indeed the BCS has continued to Reform. In fact, Michael Young, University of Utah, who testified against the BCS last July, is now a member of the Oversight Committee, too. John Welty, Fresno State University, Gary Ransdell, Western Kentucky (both non-AQ Presidents), have been added to improve the governance of the FBS.

But, the strong consensus between the majority of the FBS presidents and chancellors is that a multi-game playoff is never going to happen.

It has also been said that We would never see an African-American President, but because of a 36-year-old man who saw that his nation could do better, he dreamed about seeing better, and then took the necessary steps to make such an action become a reality.

Forty-two years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, on January 20, 2010, the United States of America was able to see the “Promised Land” that Dr. King preached.

On that day, 44th President Barack Obama celebrated his anniversary of being sworn into Office. Because of Dr. King’s Dream, because of his Vision, but more importantly, his Ambition to see such a Dream become an Actuality, the People turned “Never” into “Our Generation.”

I believe that I have created the answer to turn “never” into “our generation.” Now that I believe that that has happened, it’s time for me to rally support for my proposal.

The Powers of the BCS have found no interest and therefore I am going to reach out to the people who have publicly spoken out against the BCS and its intent.

One thing remains clear; the BCS model needs to be improved by affording a multi-game playoff. I plan to constructively explain how the Kennedy Proposal is beneficiary to all parties involved in Part II.

In reality, it’s my intellectual property and support vs. the current BCS arrangement and the Powers. As I continue to travel around the U.S to gain support for my proposal, I will then be able to apply athletic and business administration into the context of Higher Education.

The only way I will get attention from the Powers is to gain support through the KP Coalition. The BCS model needs to be improved but don’t look for the Powers to initiate the task.

It must start with the People.
A Coalition.
A Revolution.

For me, it started July 7, 2009.

As the night came to a close, and I reran the Senate Judicial Committee hearing on the BCS for a final time through my mind, it became adherently clear that Capitol Hill is the route to get the Powers to cooperate.

I didn’t, and still don’t know what the future holds, but I do plan to get exposure and support for my proposal. Whether that leads to the KP Coalition’s day on the Hill, or for the Powers to “drill down into the details of my “hypothetical” proposal, is up to the People.

We have a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way since living Under a Bridge…

We must take a stand.

Join the Revolution.

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