Aug. 30, 2016
David Williams emphasized the innovative student welfare his Vanderbilt athletic department has implemented during a speaking appearance at the Williamson County Library Tuesday afternoon that examined the state of college athletics.
The veteran director of athletics rattled off the Commodores’ Study Abroad, International Travel, International Service Trips and perhaps the department’s crown jewel, the ground-breaking Internship Program that required a waiver from the NCAA to initiate, while discussing how Vanderbilt strives to develop the total student-athlete.
“The question is not how much money is in our budget but what we do with the money,” Williams said to an attentive audience. “If you are helping kids, there is never too much money.”
Williams pointed to his department’s Federal Graduation Rate of 92%, one of the top six in the nation and within a percentage of Vanderbilt’s elite student body, as a source of gratification. Vanderbilt’s graduation rate leads the Southeastern Conference in spite of its reputation as being one of the hardest universities in the country in which to gain admission.
“If we don’t graduate these young men and women we shouldn’t be allowed to do what we do,” he said referring to the collegiate athletic landscape.
Williams, who has a dual role on Vanderbilt’s campus as a professor of law, began the 90-minute session with an overview of a number of NCAA issues that included the current focus on easing student-athlete time demands, last year’s unionization vote by the Northwestern football team that has fallen out of the news but just recently was addressed by the National Labor Relations Board, the on-going concussion controversy (“the doctors making those decisions at Vanderbilt do not work for the athletic department and we like it that way because it keeps the player’s best interests at heart”), rumored movements of Power 5 Conference membership and a quick peek at NCAA revenue (92% comes from the Men’s Basketball March Madness).
Williams heaped praise on his SEC colleagues, noting the league’s long-standing policy of dividing the revenue evenly among the 14 members and home office helps keep the powerful conference vibrant.
The Vanderbilt athletic director looked into his crystal ball and felt there was a chance the current Power 5 Conference structure (SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast) that includes 65 institutions could eventually morph into four if a league lost a key strategic member or two to another conference.
“There is a lot of complexity to potential national realignment.” Williams said, noting that the Big 12 Conference is currently the center of speculation. “They could add two or four members from about 18-20 schools that appear under consideration or they could choose to stand pat. The SEC has no interest in expansion unless it was a defensive move. These moves are about “television sets and revenue”, noting the existence of the highly successful SEC Network, Big 10 Network among others.
The audience peppered Williams with many questions that included Vanderbilt’s athletic facilities, admissions policy, attendance challenges, Title IX, transfer student policies and its academic center tutors. He meets with a majority of recruits during their campus visit and said parents want their kids to go to Vanderbilt.
“We are the lucky ones,” Williams concluded. “It is great being around these kids. If you are ever down and discouraged, come spend a day with us and I guarantee you’ll feel much better. Our students are special.”