Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will lead a newly formed college basketball group to “fix a system that clearly is not working,” the president of college athletics said Wednesday. Rice will be charged with making “substantive changes” as the FBI was conducting a wide-ranging investigation into alleged fraud and other corruption among college coaches and administrators, National Collegiate Athletics Administration (NCAA) President Mark Emmert said in a statement.
Rice was perhaps a natural choice for the position because of her past as a member of the College Football Playoff selection committee, which was also affiliated with the NCAA.
A total of 10 people who were part of prominent Division I college basketball programs have been arrested last month and charged with fraud, including bribery. Each coach, including th University of Louisville’s now-former head coach Rick Pitino, was charged with “bribery conspiracy, solicitation of bribes, honest services fraud conspiracy, honest service fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and Travel Act conspiracy.”
Rice will have three main duties while leading the new commission: 1) examining the “relationship of the NCAA national office, member institutions, student-athletes and coaches with outside entities;” 2) reviewing the “NCAA’s relationship with the NBA, and the challenging effect the NBA’s so-called ‘one and done’ rule has had on college basketball, including how the NCAA can change its own eligibility rules to address that dynamic;” and 3) creating “he right relationship between the universities and colleges of the NCAA and its national office to promote transparency and accountability.”
The commission was expected to be in full swing by next month, the NCAA said.
The football group Rice previously served on was “the best committee I’ve ever served on,” she told ESPN in January. Everybody was there for a common goal and really working really hard toward it. There weren’t agendas in the room, and I really enjoyed it tremendously.”
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Condoleezza Rice To Lead New College Basketball Commission Amid Fraud Investigation was originally published on newsone.com
