The NCAA at 100

Boston College Law School and the BC Law Review hosted a free, all-day symposium that examined the legal issues surrounding the unprecedented growth of the NCAA over the last 100 years and the impact on amateurism, academic standards, student rights on Oct. 15. The event was co-sponsored by the law firm Ropes and Gray.

In 1910, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was rechristened the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Since that time, the NCAA has grown dramatically to include 400,000 student athletes in 23 sports, with some universities reaping more than $100,000,000 in gross revenue from sports programs. Given such growth, many legal questions arise.

The symposium featured a special lunchtime program during which Roy Kramer, Former Commissioner of the SEC and Founder of the BCS and Matthew Sanderson, Executive Director of PlayoffPAC, a federal political committee dedicated to the establishment of postseason championship for college football, discussed postseason football, the BCS and the National Championship. Jeremy Schaap of ESPN moderated.

Distinguished law faculty from throughout the country presented papers on legal issues surrounding the NCAA, including student-athlete compensation, commercialism and constitutionalism to be published in the Boston College Law Review. NCAA experts were on hand to weigh in with their opinions during a series of panel discussions throughout the day. Among the panelists were: Jon Wertheim and Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated; Deborah Corum, the Associate Commissioner of the SEC; Petrina Long, Senior Associate Athletic Director of UCLA, among others. Boston College Law Professors Alfred Yen, Joseph Liu and Richard Albert presented, as well as faculty from the Marquette Law School, U.C. Davis School of Law, Pepperdine Law School and Vermont Law School.