http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/sports/college-sports-reform-may-merit-presidential-commission.html 2014-12-13 21:20:50 College Sports Reform May Merit Presidential Commission A group of legislators and proponents of reform held a closed-door meeting with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last Tuesday in Washington to push the idea of a panel. === After hearings on Capitol Hill this year to examine the Led by Representative Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, who recently introduced a bipartisan bill calling for a commission, the group of about 20 discussed the myriad issues facing colleges sports. They include a unionization push at Northwestern, several antitrust lawsuits aimed at the N.C.A.A., an academic scandal at North Carolina and a new governance system that will give the prominent athletic programs the freedom to make some of their own rules. At least one representative from the White House attended the meeting, as well as the former N.F.L. commissioner Paul Tagliabue; Northeastern’s athletic director, Peter Roby; and several members of the Drake Group, which advocates academic reform in college athletics. Moran said that a bill had no chance of passing in the lame-duck Congress but that he was encouraged by Duncan’s reaction. “The secretary indicated that the president is very interested in the issue,” Moran said. “The president may take this up.” Of particular interest to Moran are academic integrity, medical care for athletes, the budgets of conferences and schools and the N.C.A.A.’s oversight role. Those topics were discussed Tuesday, Moran said. “The N.C.A.A. was unsure as to whether they had any authority to intervene in Penn State,” he said, referring to the child abuse scandal there. “Are they the right body? I’m not sure. We have to look at it.” In the past year, a regional official for the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Northwestern’s scholarship football “This has to do with a major sector of higher education,” said Allen Sack, a professor at the University of New Haven and founder of the Drake Group, who attended the meeting. “I thought there was unanimity that the changes taking place are significant enough that it deserves some careful study and that’s tough to do unless you have the access to finances the federal government can get.” In 1975, President R. Gerald Ford used an executive order to create a commission on Olympic sports, which served as the basis for Moran’s bill. His proposal calls for a 17-person panel to undertake the study, with representatives appointed by both the White House and Congress. Moran is retiring after this session of Congress but expects his bill to be reintroduced by a Republican colleague next year. “If the president is not interested, it’s not going to go anywhere,” Moran said. “But if he does take this up, this has the potential to be a bipartisan achievement for the administration.”