Rece Davis, Clark Kellogg and Lisa Leslie Talk Capital One Cup Before 2011 ESPYs

Each year, the ESPYs serve as a celebration the biggest stars, moments and stories in the world of sports from the past year, and the 2011 edition won't be any different, except for one important addition—the Capital One Cup.

In its inaugural year, the Capital One Cup is a competition honoring the most successful men's and women's athletics programs in Division I collegiate athletics. As the official site describes it:

Points toward the Capital One Cup are earned and tracked throughout the year based on final standings of NCAA Division I Championships and final official coaches’ polls. One winning men’s and one winning women's program will be crowned after the completion of the final NCAA spring championships. Each winning athletic program will receive the Capital One Cup and $200,000 to fund student-athlete graduate-level scholarships.

Furthermore, 13 different men's and women's sports are represented in the point-tallying process. This year's winners are Florida in the men's category and Stanford in the women's category, with the former coming down to a runner-up finish in the 2011 College World Series to push them over the top.

I had a chance to catch up with three distinguished members of the Capital One Cup's advisory board—ESPN personality Rece Davis, CBS college basketball commentator Clark Kellogg and former WNBA champion and Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie—at the Blu Jam Cafe in Los Angeles to discuss a variety of topics over breakfast, including, but certainly not limited to, the Cup, the current state of college athletics, how to fix the NCAA and staying in shape.

Read on to find out what they had to say!

Rece, Lisa and Clark Talk P90X and Getting in Shape

Once everybody got settled in and started ordering, we began with some light chatter about fitness, including a discussion of the now-infamous P90X workout regimen.

What do you guys do to stay in shape? Anyone try P90X?

Rece: I am not in Tony Horton-level fitness. I am not in the zone. Of all people, Rick Barnes sent me the DVD. They’re unbelievable. For some reason, I’ve completely fallen off the wagon. 

Clark: All the coaches swear by it. 

Rece: They’ll kick you, but they’re really good. 

Lisa: When I had my first daughter, I used it to get back into shape for the Olympics. It’s a slow process getting started, doing plyometrics and such, but soon enough, you start moving furniture out of the way. It’s just about movement. That’s the main thing. I don’t know that any of the videos are the end-all, be-all. You just keep moving for an hour, but I think it’s great because you have distractions. Being on a machine for an hour straight, oh my god, I cannot do it. It’s just too much. 

Rece: The thing with the DVDs, too, at first, you’re trying to figure out everything he’s doing. Then, once you figure it out, you think—and I’ve met the guy, he’s a really nice guy—this guy, you know, he’s driving me crazy with his little phrases and whatnot. Then, after a while, they become mile posts, so you’re looking forward to him saying, “lobster bisque, non-dairy, I hope,” you know, that kind of thing. 

Lisa: Then there’s the guy with the prosthetic leg, and you’re like, if he can do it, then so can I! 

Rece: I’ve got the line. I forgot the guy’s name, can’t remember it now. He goes, “He’s got a prosthetic leg, and I want to hear NO excuses coming from you!” 

Lisa: He’s doing it, and I’m like, man, he can’t beat me. 

What do you do to stay in shape, Clark?

Clark: I just work out. I’ve got young kids…well, not young, they’re 24, 22 and 19. So they keep me going. I like to work out, but I can’t play basketball anymore. I can’t my knee won’t let me, but I do what I can. I just want to look like I used to play and feel like I can get out there and play. So yeah, I work out a few days a week, mix it up. I did a little bit of P90X. My oldest boy was doing it pretty much every day over a 90-day period, and it’s pretty intense, but he loved it. He’s about 6’6”. He’s into it. He’s not playing anymore.

The Board Talks About the Capital One Cup

Once the orders were in (a lot of French toast), we got down to brass tacks, starting with the Capital One Cup.

How did you guys get involved with the Capital One Cup? 

Clark: Well, I was solicited actually through representation. I think, being a former college student-athlete at Ohio State, being a broadcaster with ESPN from 1990 to 1997 and currently with CBS, as I was told, Capital One was looking for folks to be a part of the advisory board that could be ambassadors for college sports and the education side of the student athlete. When they presented the program, what it represented and what the values were going to be targeted to be held up, it was a no-brainer for me, understanding the benefits of being a student-athlete at the Division I level and also desiring to see student-athletes be the best they can be on and off the field or court.

Capital One is really trying to embrace those values and put a bright light on those values together—academics through the scholarship provided to Division I winning programs and obviously excellence being rewarded on the field, on the court of play. It was a good fit for me, personally. 

Rece: That’s almost the exact same thing for me, with the exception of being a Division I student-athlete. The best thing about it is that we talk about wanting to have athletics open doors, and when you provide scholarship money at the graduate level for student-athletes to pursue their education further, you’re doing that. I was approached the same way, and I think it’s been a great program. It’s sort of embraced the competitive aspect of fans rooting for their teams and wanting to have the best overall programs, and we still do something of far more lasting consequence by providing the opportunities for further education. 

Lisa: I got involved in pretty much the same way, but I think it’s just an honor for us to be able to give back as role models, more than anything else, and encourage student-athletes as well as fans to rally behind their teams. You talk about giving scholarship money. That’s a lot of money for kids going to graduate school, and I know because I didn’t have that help when I went to business school. It was a win-win for me to be involved and then obviously the advisory board was just a great group of people, so it’s just been a great fit.

Lisa, Clark and Rece Discuss the Life of the Student-Athlete

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With the Capital One Cup going toward helping out student-athletes, I couldn't help but ask the panelists, two of whom were scholarship athletes in their day, what they thought of the changing role of the student-athlete in college sports.

How has the life of the student-athlete changed over the years? 

Lisa: Man, that’s a loaded question. 

Considering we are talking about the Capital One Cup donating $200,000 towards the education pursuits of student-athletes, to what extent has education taken a backseat in college athletics? 

Lisa: I think that a lot more emphasis has been put on getting your education maybe more than the sport. The NCAA has sent the message that a very small percentage of athletes go on beyond college to play professionally. From the women’s side, we’ve always been concentrating on our education and sort of picking our majors and which direction we’re going to go in because we’re never sure that we’re going to have that opportunity or, for some us, that the league is going to be around.

For Brandi Chastain playing soccer, the professional soccer league went away. The baseball league went away. The WNBA has been able to survive, but with that, it really has always given us that drive to focus on our education and make sure that we have that balance, and even today, that message has been sent even further.

With the economy the way it is, it’s such a fight to get jobs, and having the opportunity to go to grad school really is helpful. I think the student-athlete is a little bit more focused on their education, but then you also have the NBA, where these guys only go to school for one year. They get a chance to experience college, but even on the male side, it’s been more encouraging for them to really stay in school and focus.

As you can see, I don’t know if you guys know this, but a lot of guys run out of money, the players and athletes. That’s alarming to a lot of younger players too, to realize that, wow, people who’ve had millions of dollars have none. It’s really important. I think education is sort of coming full circle in terms of having that opportunity and it means a lot more to student-athletes now. I’m not saying that it didn’t to us before but I think that the message just based on where the economy is, it sends a little bit more of a stronger message. 

Clark: I think at the Division I level primarily, when you look at the two revenue-generating sports in terms of men’s football and men’s basketball, that’s what gets the vast amount of attention and, obviously, that’s where people will focus their eyes, on those two. But when you look at the vast majority of Division I college athletes, as Lisa said, they aren’t going to be able to move on to be professionals in their sport, for the most part. Educationally, they’ll now have a chance to excel as high as they want to excel, and this money for graduate education, graduate scholarships, is huge.

I mean, I know a guy personally who’s in law school who played football at Ohio State who would’ve loved to have had Ohio State win the Capital One Cup and that $200,000 in post-graduate scholarship money would’ve helped. Just knowing that there are student-athletes that are doing graduate school work, to be able to have that type of resource available in funding is going to be tremendous. I think this is going to be the beginning of really, again, continuing that move toward trying to put education in front of the athletic component. 

Rece: I think you always need someone to support that ideal, and what I think Capital One is doing is supporting that notion. People said it for a long time, and I’m a guy who thinks that you’re ultimately responsible for your own self-determination. I heard a coach one time give the greatest answer to a question ever when a guy asked him, “Hey coach, how many of your players graduated?”—he was trying to hit him on a graduation question—and he said, “All of them that wanted to.”

Ultimately, whether you’re an athlete or not, you’re responsible, but if there is incentive and motivation and support, as there is from Capital One, then I think it does do the things the that Lisa was talking about and makes puts more emphasis behind it.

Clark Kellogg Puts College Scandals in Perspective

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I then asked the three panelists about the scandals that have rocked college football this year and whether those problems are indicative of bigger issues across intercollegiate athletics. Clark Kellogg, who was a tremendous player in his own right at Ohio State back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, gladly took the reigns on this one and broke it down quite beautifully, for which he earned a round of applause from Lisa and Rece.

With all of the scandals at big-time programs these days, between USC and Ohio State and Oregon, what are your thoughts on the current state of college athletics? Are we reaching a tipping point at the highest levels, or is this just the ebb and flow? 

Clark: Well, I think, again, typically the news that gets the most attention is the negative news and usually it’s the smallest percentage. I mean, when you talk about 340-plus Division I athletics programs, particularly when you talk men’s basketball and there’s a similar number in women’s basketball and countless other Division I sports, the Capital One Cup is focused on 13 sports across men’s and women’s athletics, so that’s 26 sports, hundreds of Division I programs, and you will have a few that end up in trouble and ultimately they get the most attention, but in supporting what Capital One does in providing these kinds of scholarships, you’re looking at the vast majority of student-athletes that are going to have an opportunity based on the success of their athletic programs to win this Capital One Cup and have that money funding scholarships to be able to help those student-athletes that are serious about their education after they’ve gotten their undergraduate degrees, and that has a chance to have far greater impact than even the negativity that will surround teams, programs going outside of the rules, be it Ohio State or whoever it is.

To me, I think we have to look broader and deeper than just the surface, hot-button, most popular topics because that misses the magnitude of what this type of program can do, impacting and changing lives going forward.

This is the inaugural Capital One Cup, so hopefully this goes on for awhile and we’re talking about this four, five, six, seven, eight, 10, 12 years down the road and we’re going to have evidence of those people who have become influential and powerful leaders because of this funding that Capital One has provided for these post-graduate athletes to further their education and become more impactful people as a result of this money that’s been funneled toward them through scholarships to continue their education. I kind of look at it from that perspective

Rece Davis Discusses the Prospect of Paying Student-Athletes

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The topic of potentially paying student-athletes aside from their athletic scholarships brought about a lively, and rather lengthy, discussion.

Where do you three come down on the issue of paying student-athletes?  

Rece: I’m not espousing this as my own, I’ve had myriad conversations with Jay Bilas about this, and I think his, for lack of a better way to describe it, Olympic model is probably something that I would not have a problem with at all, providing money through corporate sponsorships.

Now, as far as universities paying them, I don’t know that universities need to get into that business, but I have a hard time looking at a situation where if I’m in school on a broadcasting scholarship and I get an opportunity to go broadcast a game and they’re going to give me a check, then okay, I get to do that. You’re not having your educational mission compromised by that. A music student who gets to play a gig in a place like this and gets a few bucks is not going to be compromised by that. I think one thing is that the model is so different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago.

When I was growing up, if I wanted a jersey of my favorite player from a college team, I went down to the Hibbett sporting goods store and got a blank cotton jersey of the color and they ironed the number on it for me. Nobody made money off of that except for the sporting goods store. Now, you get a Clark Kellogg jersey or a Terrelle Pryor jersey or a Mark Ingram jersey or Cam Newton or whoever it might be, and I think the model has changed. I would like to see some creative and different types of thinking reflect that change.

When you say that, I think people’s kneejerk reaction is always, well, the scholarship is valuable. You bet it is; it’s the most valuable thing, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be the only thing you get. If you’re in a video game forever, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be compensated for that.

Now, the mechanics of it, whether it’s something that’s put into a trust that, at the end of your education, you get an opportunity to get it back, you get a percentage of it for living expenses along the way, whatever it might be. I’m still not quite sure where I come down on this, but Jay has espoused the idea that if you’re a student athlete and I’m an agent and it’s a legitimate above-board business deal and I sign you up, then that’s OK. As I said, I don’t know exactly where I come down on that one yet, but I don’t think it’s ridiculous. I’ll put it that way.

I think the model has changed over the years. Am I in favor of the universities having to find a way to foot the bill to pay the players? Probably not, because I don’t think it’s feasible because you’ll run into Title IX issues, you’ll run into tax implications. There are all kinds of problems that if I just said, hey, let’s do it this way, that you aren’t thinking about, but I do think there are ways to get more creative and perhaps give full value because there was value last year to being Cam Newton. There was value. And there was value in being Terrelle Pryor and John Wall a couple years ago, and they do get it in the pros ultimately, but at some point they had some value earlier than that. I’ll put it this way: I’m not vehemently opposed to guys profiting from the position that they get.

Clark and Rece Talk Paying Student-Athletes and the NCAA Rulebook

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Clark gave his thoughts on the topic, though not without Rece jumping back into the mix.

Clark: There’s been a lot of conversation about what they actual scholarship pays for and what the cost of attendance is. There’s a pretty significant gap between that number and what it costs to go to college, and I would like to see some discussion—I think there will be discussion—I would like to see some action put in place to close that gap. I’ve heard talk about Pell grants closing that gap.

I would just use my own children as an example. All three of our kids were Division I scholarship athletes, volleyball and basketball, and yet even though they actually were on full scholarship, I was in a position, thanks be to God, to give them $100, $125, whatever we determined, on a monthly basis just to help with the cost of attendance in terms of just incidental things. They’re not allowed to work, for the most part, because the time constraints are too much. Their job is being a student-athlete, that’s their full-time job, and they get well compensated for that with a scholarship, but it doesn’t cover some of the gaps in what it costs to attend. I understand that students work and pay their way through school. Students take out loans. The scholarship athlete can avoid that. But there still is a gap in the cost of attendance.

Is there some way to bridge that gap and make that a little more equitable and fair, across the board? My daughter was a volleyball scholarship athlete at Georgia Tech. That’s a tremendous educational opportunity, and we were thankful for it, but there were still finances that were needed to help during her time of attendance, and when you’re on scholarship, it’s really a job. It is a job. It’s a privilege, but it’s a job. You don’t get the same type of free time that the typical student does. Now, you’ve got some perks that the typical student gets, but that doesn’t change the gap between the cost of attendance and what the scholarship provides. If we could bridge that gap in some equitable, reasonable manner, I think that would be a step in the right direction.

I agree with Rece. Being creative in how you actually allow student-athletes, within reason and within the spirit of rules and laws, to be able to take advantage of things that other students would be able to do, if you could bridge that gap…

The thing we can’t legislate is integrity. That’s why we have this massive NCAA manual to try to cover every eventual step out of bounds and you can’t do that, and that’s what needs to be changed. You have to get back to some basic principles that are realistic and reasonable in the climate that we’re in, understanding the dynamics of what goes on in certain sports. Never to disparage the women at all, but there are certain sports that obviously are the drivers. I mean, football is an animal in and of itself! And it needs to be dealt with the differently than the other sports.

Basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball, probably women’s softball, maybe, those are probably the highest profile of the women’s sports, maybe track and field. But if you tiered them, there are certain sports that carry a little more cache, and that’s fine, but they should be dealt with based on that at some level.

All of us need to be able to embrace and understand that. Fair is not always equal. You’ll have children and you’ll be learning that with your kids, your son and daughter. You’ll be treating them exactly fairly, but differently, based on how they respond to discipline, what their personalities are, and it’s the same in this arena. You’ve got to understand that fair is not always equal, but fair is fair. That’s a real complex puzzle to put together. I think talking about it and being able to be honest about it gives us a chance to make some headway. 

Rece: You mentioned the NCAA rule book too. I think too many people crack down on the NCAA and say, well, it’s this massive rule book that’s causing all the problems. I was with [former Notre Dame coach] Ara Parseghian a couple weeks ago, and he said, “You can’t fix it totally because we have jails everywhere and they’re all full” because people won’t abide by the rules. People will always choose to try to gain an advantage. Not all people, some will.

But as Clark was saying, you have to try to find something that is as fair as can be, try to do whatever you can to promote the people with the greatest integrity into positions of authority making decisions, and hopefully, they’ll act that way.

You know, there’s no magic pill or magic formula that’s going to fix it and address all the compensation issues and address all the cheating issues. I’ve got books about the history of college football. In some ways, it was far worse 100 years ago. A hundred years ago, when football was just starting, you had guys barnstorming around, playing for colleges, supposedly students, who never walked in the door of a classroom at all, being paid under the table, and when the other guy paid them more, then they “transferred.” That happened 100 years ago, so if you want to compare to what’s happening now, what we have now is far more advanced than that system.

I think sometimes we get the idea that it used to be pure and now it’s not, and I don’t think that’s accurate. These guys might have a better perspective on it since they were Division I athletes. My guess is that in many respects, there are different challenges now than there might’ve been 25 years ago but I think that maybe, just out and out going out and buying guys, I think it’s probably cleaner than it’s ever been. That’s my perspective. 

Clark: I would concur with that.

Lisa Leslie Chimes in on Paying Student-Athletes

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Lisa Leslie talked about her own struggles as a student-athlete at USC once Rece and Clark had their say.

Lisa: Well, I think that they both hit on the exact points. Being a student-athlete at USC, the scholarship was great, but my survival skills had to kick in. You’re there among a lot of students who come from, you know, pretty good backgrounds at USC with BMWs and all that type of stuff. Meanwhile, you’re in a world managing, like I’m eating Burger King and going to the burrito truck, cutting the burrito in half, two dollars, really struggling, because you don’t have enough money, and you have these student-athletes there. Most of my friends who were not student-athletes had a job, so there needs to be something that closes the gap to really help, and I think you guys hit a great point in terms of being fair because how do you divvy this up?

It’s going to be tough if the universities start trying to pay, but there is a certain thing we used to get. We used to get the little meal cards and a stipend, and I think it would have to go through that where some of those things are increasingly happening so that the student-athletes have enough money to survive.

It’s difficult to because no one else cared. I mean, you could go to school and get books and you could study, and that’s great, but you’ve got to eat, you need gas, you need to live, you might need a shirt. You need something and there’s no room for that in terms of the scholarship and what you have. It becomes hard as an athlete because you walk around and then, all of a sudden, your picture is somewhere and you’re in a magazine and you start to see yourself in this way like, wow, these people don’t even know that all I had enough money for was a burrito, that I ate part of it for lunch before practice and the other part of it was my dinner. When you look at it that way, it is a little bit tougher than probably most people even realize for the student-athlete.

Now, if you really start to get into the dynamics of where these student-athletes are coming from, the percentage is probably really high when it comes to the types of background in terms of resources, finances. You know, when my mom would put $200 into my account, that was huge. I mean, she was doing a whole lot. It was everything, that 200 bucks. You don’t know what you’d get, but I was so thankful that my mom would do that, and that was her working really hard to get that, so there definitely needs to be something.

I’m definitely for all of the athletes, and I’m not sure getting paid is the right word to use, but they definitely need a little bit more assistance for their time to be able to survive, and I think that’s why you see some of the players, and I saw this at USC when I was there, are walking around on campus and everyone wants their autograph and this and that. They don’t have clothes, they’ve got maybe two or three outfits, they don’t have a lot. You want to have a lot. You want to look like you have a lot, and that’s why you get those guys selling the jerseys on the side or taking a car from somebody just to be able to get from your apartment to the campus. It’s really a pressure thing to sort of look the part, and with all the social media we have now, it’s beyond that. You can’t look like some dude who’s like, man, this guy, his shirt’s all dingy. It’s a certain look and appearance that you want. I’m for it, but again, as Rece said, it’s definitely going to take some real thought on how, but I definitely think it’s necessary. It’s necessary. And it’s not even a want, it’s a need.

Lisa and Clark Play NCAA Queen/King for a Day

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With all the talk about problems in college athletics, I decided to ask the three board members what they would do to fix things if they were in a position to do so.

Let’s pose a hypothetical here. Let’s say Mark Emmert, the president of the NCAA decides to step down, and the university presidents come to you and appoint you as the “king” of the NCAA. What changes would you make, not necessarily to solve all the problems of college athletics, but to make some things better, to get things going in the right direction, to make the system work better for the student-athletes? 

Clark: That is so encompassing. 

Lisa: I can think of two things. The two things that I would think of would be to find a way to help the financial situation of the student athlete and then create some sort of a real playoff for college football. I would just make it come all the way down to a real final like what we see in basketball. 

Clark: I don’t have a simple answer. One thing that I would do would be to foster consistent and meaningful dialogue between the stakeholders. I think the discussion goes on, but that it may need to go to a greater level. In terms of the sports, really being committed to making sure the coaches have a voice as well as the athletics directors in additions to the presidents and the management council because to have those folks really engaged in rubber-meets-the-road, practical, realistic, this is how things are, this is how we’d like them to be, this is what we need to do to try to get there.

I mean, I just don’t know if there’s enough of that kind of thing, and you always run into the bureaucracy of the structure, the size, the multitude of issues, but if you could cut through that with a real intentionality in terms of having the right people talking about the most important things in terms of how do we move our organizations forward, what are the two or three most pressing issues.

It’s not always what’s most important by the media that’s the most pressing issue. It could be something that’s beneath the surface. It could be that there’s not enough dialogue and communication between the right folks on a regular basis to identify and talk about the things that are most important, so whatever the core issues are beneath the surface, and I think communication and dialogue and a real heart for doing what’s right and what’s best, and not what we’ve done before or what’s most expedient or not what gives the best public impression, but let’s really get to the core of trying to make our association better and keep the interest of the student-athletes at the forefront of those conversations. Really, that would be far-reaching, but I just don’t know if there’s anything else.

Otherwise, I think it’s just a shotgun approach in trying to sugarcoat or trying to give the impression of dealing with things rather than trying to get to the root of what’s structurally wrong and what needs to be changed in terms of improving.

Rece Ascends to the NCAA's Throne for a Moment

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Rece then jumped on board and added more than just two cents to the discussion.

Rece: From a fundamental standpoint and kind of a broad philosophical standpoint, and boy, this is dangerous territory, but I’ll quote Dale Brown. Dale Brown once said, “We can write the Ten Commandments on a three-by-five index card and we can’t keep those” and we’re expected to follow this voluminous rulebook.

The first thing, I think, from a philosophical standpoint that I would do is cut the rulebook down. Fewer rules that are practical but that are enforced strictly would be more beneficial because I’m sure Clark and Lisa know of situations like this too. A lot of times, when there is confusion over an NCAA rule, one member of a coaching staff will make a call and get an interpretation. If they’re not really happy with that interpretation, they’ll have another coach call somebody else and they often get a different answer. So they get the green light, and it’s not anything with big overt cheating. It’s things like what they can have for breakfast when they’re on a road trip or something like that, so it’s not anything big. That kind of stuff needs to go away. I mean, the NCAA, I don’t think, needs to be legislating putting peanut butter on your bagels.

For instance, at Nebraska the other day, they had to self-report, and I know they’re not going to get in trouble for and it’s not even a big deal, but they had to self-report because some kids wound up accidentally getting recommended books for courses rather than required because you’re not allowed to get recommended books, only the required ones. That ought to be up to Nebraska. I think the universities are in a good enough place where they ought to be able to make that determination whether they’re going to required, recommended or both for the student-athletes.

So from a philosophical standpoint, I think I would try to reduce some of the rules for things that everybody thinks would be good for intercollegiate athletics and that you can enforce strictly.

The other thing I would do would probably be more controversial and more finite. I would significantly increase the amount of time coaches can be around players. 

Lisa: Increase the time? 

Rece: Increase the time, and here’s why. If we’re going to say that Jim Tressel is responsible for Terrelle Pryor trading his gold pants and trinkets for tattoos, then why in the world would we say that Jim Tressel doesn’t need to be around Terrelle Pryor? You know, and sometimes the best influences…I’m not saying practice time because, look, if you overwork teams, if you become ridiculous, you’re not going to succeed and you’re going to wash yourself out.

What possible harm could’ve come to Nolan Smith over the last four years if he was allowed to be around Mike Krzyzewski even more? What’s wrong with that? So, that’s the one thing I would do. Maybe not necessarily practice time. Maybe a better way to phrase it would be to reduce the restrictions placed on coaches for how much they can be around their teams.

Rece Gives His Thoughts on a College Football Playoff

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Rece Davis has often been lumped in as a BCS lover, so I gave him the opportunity to clarify his stance on the possibility of a postseason playoff in college football.

Are you in favor of a college football playoff? 

Rece: If you did a “plus one” within the framework of the BCS, I would have no opposition to that. I’ve often been accused of being a BCS proponent. It’s not that. I don’t like the kneejerk reaction where everybody says the BCS is all that’s wrong with college football. It’s given us some tremendous national title matchups that we wouldn’t otherwise have had. We would’ve never seen USC-Texas or Texas-Alabama, Oregon-Auburn, Florida-Ohio State. We would’ve never seen those games without the BCS.

I’m not saying it’s perfect, but you have to understand that it does provide some good. It does provide some good matchups for the betterment of the sport. But if, and I don’t think it’d be bad for the sport, but if someone could put something together within the context of the sport, I don’t think more than eight I’d be in favor of. I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but I’m not a frothing at the mouth, got to have a playoff guy because I do think that the regular season in college football is the most significant regular season in sport.

Is it perfect? No. Are there teams that get left out? Absolutely. Is it better to leave out the ninth team than the third team? Probably. But, I’d want to see some way where it didn’t harm the regular season, and I think all in all, the BCS has been positive in many ways. You know, it’s taken a lot of abuse, with legitimate criticisms of the BCS, but I think there are positives.

Clark Pontificates About the NCAA Tournament

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Along those same lines, I asked Clark for his thoughts on the expansion of the NCAA basketball tournament.

Does the expansion of the NCAA basketball tournament cheapen the product at all? 

Clark: I really don’t think so. I mean, you added three additional teams this year. You think about where we were when the last expansion took place, 1985, in terms of the total number of Division I programs, far less than what we have now. I can’t remember the exact numbers but it’s a pretty significant amount. We’re at about 340 Division I teams now. Twenty-five, 26 years ago, I’m thinking we’re maybe around early 200’s, perhaps somewhere in there, so you’ve had tremendous growth in the number of Division I programs, so to add three teams within the format that was done I thought was a good place to land.

I was terribly against expansion to 96. If you were going to do that, I think you needed to just make it wide open like a high school tournament because there was always going to be the 97th and the 98th. That was my theory. If you weren’t going to open it up to everybody, the expanding it to 96 was far too many. The three additional teams, to me, was a good landing place. I’m happy with where we are in terms of the number of teams.

As I said, we’re up to roughly 350 teams; 68 make it to the tournament. That’s about a fifth, about 20 percent. That’s a pretty good invitation, earn-your-way-in type number to where it still has some value to get there. You’re typically going to get the type of teams that, more times than not, deserve to be there. If you’ve earned your right to be there, then you deserve to be there. I’m fine with where we are in terms of the number of teams, and it’s a special three weeks. I don’t think there’s any denying that.

I think sometimes in sports, you become accustomed to what technology can do to improve our lives and the enjoyment of sports that we tend to want to try to control and orchestrate everything, and that’s one of the great joys of sports is that you can’t. You can’t orchestrate the Packers getting to the Super Bowl and winning. You can’t orchestrate Seattle being a sub-.500 team and getting to the playoffs and winning in the first round. You can’t orchestrate this stuff, and when you get into the process of trying to manipulate, some changes are essential to make things better, change is inevitable, but if we are always trying to overly tweak things, I tend to think we run into danger.

I think what Rece said about the BCS is a perfect example. Hey, sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s far better than where we were. Now there are some positives, but this herd mentality gets on this soapbox and starts talking about playoff, playoff, playoff, like that’s the panacea, the be-all, end-all and cure-all, and it very well might not be! It might not be. It might disparage, and I admit too that the college football regular season, the magnitude of a weekly game on a Saturday, for the most part in college football, that’s a Saturday deal, the magnitude of that day is huge. Every Saturday. For about 10 to 12 weeks. That’s huge.

Would that discount it? I mean, you look at the college basketball season, me and Rece were talking about that, for so many people, the tournament becomes what the college basketball season is about, as opposed to winning the conference championship. For the student-athletes and coaches, the conference championship is the first goal they highlight. Winning our league, because if you do that, now you have a chance to play for the national championship. And if you’re good enough without winning your league, you still get an opportunity to play for a national championship. You want to be able to hang one of those banners in your gym as a conference champion and hopefully as a national champion, so I’m fine with where we are in college basketball.

I got a chance to see the women’s national championship game for the first time in person because it was at Conseco Fieldhouse. The Final Four for the men was in Houston, so I was able to fly from Houston right to Indianapolis to watch the ladies play, Notre Dame and Texas A&M. That was phenomenal! I loved it, absolutely loved it, so I think we’re in a good spot. You earn your way into the tournament either by having a strong resume, outside of automatically qualifying with your conference championship, and that to me is plenty of opportunity to get there.

Clark Kel-Logs His Thoughts on the NBA's Age Limit

As we began clearing our plates, I asked Clark for his thoughts on the NBA Draft age limit.

How do you feel about the NBA’s age requirement? 

Clark: I’m torn. In theory, again, my daddy used to play, a little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing, so being in college for a year when you’re fully in college for that year is better than not going to college. A good percentage of the one-and-dones that we’ve had over the last seven or eight years I think were anchored, probably half of them maybe, maybe a little less. In theory, that was a positive rule to try. In practice, not very good. Not very good, because you had those divided players. Then guys would leave and come to the NBA at 19, 20, 21, ill-prepared for all the NBA requires, whether it’s between the lines or outside the lines.

College coaches and players, I think, were in a tough spot, so I think in practice, it’s not something that is good for either game. Not good for the game of basketball. I’d like to see it so that you can leave right out of high school if you want to and pursue your dream of being a pro player. If you do choose to go to college, I’d love to see you be required to stay at least three years and not be draft eligible until after your third year. I would compromise at two if that’s what was needed. I just think it would benefit the players and the game. The players one, the games one-A. I think it’d just be better overall.

Clark and Rece on North Carolina as Preseason Hoops No. 1

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We were all just about ready to clear out, but I just had to ask Clark and Rece for their thoughts on the favorites in college basketball.

Rece: I’d say, preseason number one in basketball would be North Carolina. 

Clark: Oh I don’t even think about it until after Labor Day. I’ve forced myself not to get too caught up because when I’m in it, I’m in it. During the offseason, I casually keep up with what’s going on. Just knowing North Carolina, knowing what they’ve got coming back, I’d be hard-pressed not to think they’d be the preseason number one. Ohio State will be really good again. Kentucky should be pretty good, but I don’t know enough about their players.

The only team I would be comfortable claiming them as the potential number one, because I had them through the tournament, I had North Carolina through their regional loss to Kentucky, I had three or four times during the regular season, and they have everybody coming back. Everybody coming back. You hear me, everybody. They don’t have any unknowns, other than the guys that they recruited, but they’ve got known guys that, if they’re not hurt, should be better. Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, John Henson, Kendall Marshall, Dexter Strickland—all those guys back, so that to me is a real simple thing to say they could be the consensus number one.

When you’ve got unknown guys, I don’t care how good they were in high school. It’s nice to read about but what you do in high school has no bearing on what you’re going to do in college. None! None, it means nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. So those guys are going to be a team to beat, but other than that, I couldn’t even tell you.