Kansas City, Mo. — What happens when you put 48 basketball coaches, athletics directors, conference commissioners, university presidents, high school administrators and game officials into a Bartle Hall Conference room for 21/2 days?
A lot of hot air is released into the atmosphere, that's what.
"It was professional, but at the same time it was also fairly intense," Kansas basketball coach and NABC president Roy Williams said of the "Pursuing Victory With Honor Summit on Men's and Boys Basketball."
"I did think it was great we had all those different groups of people in there. It was one of the few times we've ever had that segment of all the college population and high school population in one room stressing issues at the same time."
Did the group, which included coaches Williams, Jim Boeheim (Syracuse), Kelvin Sampson (Oklahoma), Tubby Smith (Kentucky), Dave Odom (South Carolina) and Mike Montgomery (Stanford), agree on everything?
"No. Not at all," Williams said with a laugh.
The group which had a mission to develop a "Game Plan for Amateur Basketball" did agree on enough matters to come up with dozens of proposals that will soon be adopted by the group and published later this year.
Some of the proposals adopted that will likely be passed on to groups such as the NCAA. As stated by the group, these are:
Schools have an ethical obligation to not fire coaches during the season except for extreme misconduct or insubordination.
Label all scholastic and non-scholastic coaches as "teacher-coaches" in recognition of the responsibilities they have for building character and development of their student-athletes.
Background checks on all teacher-coaches of youths under 18 through a clearinghouse created by Congress or individual states.
Rewriting amateurism rules to allow foreign student-athletes to play college basketball as long as they have not taken compensation to play even if they played in a league with professional players.
Adopted codes of ethics for administrators, coaches, athletes, officials and spectators at the youth, interscholastic and intercollegiate levels.
Recruiting only those prospects who have a serious interest in education. If it reasonably appears that the student-athlete is not serious about getting an education or is seeking a transfer for just sport purposes, the athlete should not be recommended for admission.
Conflict-of-interest proposals that bar financial gain for coaches of prospects.
Coaches should not have a role in selecting referees for games.
Officials should call rules as written and call them consistently during the game and the entire season.
"The topics we discussed significantly advance the NABC's Guardians of the Game initiative and clearly emphasize the role of the teacher-coach in providing for the health, welfare and conduct of student-athletes at the youth, scholastic and intercollegiate levels of the game," KU's Williams said.
Note his use of the word "teacher-coach." The working group is serious about using that moniker to describe college and high school hoop coaches.
"This isn't a public relations issue. It's an issue of trying to identify the field of coaching in a way that's maybe been lost in recent years, to identify the coach as first and foremost a teacher," said Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute, who moderated the meetings.
"The real serious coaches have treasured that kind of teaching role," he added. "Roy Williams made a special fact what he treasured the most is at a awards banquet one of his players said 'Roy Williams is the best teacher I ever had (at Kansas).'''
It should be noted this group has no authority to impose its recommendations, but members are hopeful the NCAA and other groups will seriously consider passing some new laws after reading the group's report.
"Any plan is just a plan unless you can implement it," Josephson said. "We hope to create energy to have others to look at it, adopt it, implement it ultimately as a grassroots program."
The bottom line?
"There were great people in the room. We reached a consensus on a number of items. I am thrilled about what we got accomplished," said former KU athletics director Bob Frederick, one of the 48.
"I do think the entire meeting was very informative," Williams said. "We attempted to discuss a lot of items that are very important. We'll just have to wait and see what comes out of it." List of Summit attendees in Scoreboard.
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