CSCAA and ICAC Support Knight Commission Model

The College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association, along with twenty members of the Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition (ICAC), support the Knight Commission proposal to tie revenue distribution and spending in NCAA Division I programs to the broad educational mission of intercollegiate athletics. The C.A.R.E. model - Connecting Athletics Revenue with Education - recommends restructuring distributions from the NCAA, the College Football Playoff, and DI Conferences, to align with programming that serves student-athlete education, health, safety, well-being, gender, and racial equity, and broad-based sports participation.

“The Knight Commission has long been the conscience of college sports, but this goes further by offering a well-designed, tangible and well-tested model that incentivizes institutions to invest in student-athletes’ interests,” stated Greg Earhart, CSCAA Executive Director. “I don’t think anyone can argue against the principles of oversight and transparency, gender equity, fiscal responsibility and broad-based opportunities.”

“The ICAC was formed to give coaches a collective voice on matters involving program support, legislation, and sustainability,” said ICAC executive director Rob Kehoe. “Early in the pandemic, ICAC members contributed to blocking an attempt to reduce sport sponsorship minimums in Division I, and we continue to direct our efforts to support initiatives that promote broad-based sports sponsorship, and, to oppose trends that present a direct threat to Olympic sports at D I schools. Without structural change that incentivizes the sponsorship of broad-based programming at the highest levels of Division I, Olympic sports will continue to be sacrificed and opportunities for talented student-athletes extinguished.”

The NCAA appointed a Constitution Committee in August to identify areas where the organization needed reform. The Knight Commission’s C.A.R.E. model was developed to address the incongruities between the goals of higher education and the incentives for revenue distribution in the current system.

The coaches’ associations that support the Knight Commission C.A.R.E. model are:

  • American Baseball Coaches Association

  • American Hockey Coaches Association

  • American Volleyball Coaches Association

  • American Water Polo Coaches Association

  • College Gymnastics Association

  • College Rifle Coaches Association

  • Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (Women)

  • College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America

  • Golf Coaches Association of America

  • Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association

  • Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association (Men)

  • Intercollegiate Tennis Association

  • Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association

  • National Collegiate Equestrian Association

  • National Fastpitch Coaches Association

  • National Field Hockey Coaches Association

  • National Wrestling Coaches Association

  • United Soccer Coaches

  • U.S. Fencing Coaches Association

  • Women’s Golf Coaches Association

  • Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association

About Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition (ICAC): The ICAC was established in 2017 as an organization to support the intercollegiate coaching profession, to engage in communication pertaining to matters that impact intercollegiate athletics, to represent the views and voice of college coaches, and to share association related information to benefit and support ICAC members.

Division I, LegislationGreg Earhart