Walter Byers

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Walter Byers in 1951

Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was an American sports executive and sportswriter. He was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.[1]

Early life

Byers was born in

Kansas City.[2] He graduated from Westport High School.[2] He never played athletics, and though he took classes at the University of Iowa, he did not graduate from college.[3][4]

Career

Byers began his career as a

United Press reporter.[3] He left wire service journalism to take a job as an assistant sports information director with the Big Ten Conference.[3]

In 1951 Byers was a 29-year-old former Big Ten assistant sports-information director who had never headed anything.[5] That year, Byers was appointed the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, a job that did not have a description.[6]

He served from 1951 to 1988.

U.S. Supreme Court ruling that freed the colleges to negotiate on their own.[10]

In 1970 the NCAA -- in a decision in which Byers was involved -- banned Yale from participating in all NCAA sports for two years. The decision was made in reaction to Yale -- against the wishes of Byers and the NCAA -- playing its Jewish center

Kingman Brewster.[11][12][13][14] The decision impacted 300 Yale students, every Yale student on its sports teams, over the next two years.[15][16][17]

Byers famously disliked

University of Nevada-Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, with whom he was very much at odds, and said "Tark’s black players play a fast city-lot basketball without much style. Grab ball and run like hell, not lots of passing to set up the shots.”[18] He described U.N.L.V.’s style as “ghetto run-and-shoot basketball” with little concern for defense.[18]

The Chicago Sun-Times described his "reign" as "near-dictatorial," and The Washington Post likewise described him as a dictator.[5][24][25]

Book

In his book Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes[26] Byers turned against the NCAA.[26] He said it developed the term "student-athlete" in order to insulate the colleges from having to provide long-term disability payments to players injured while playing their sport (and making money for their university and the NCAA).[26] Byers said that Congress should enact a "comprehensive College Athletes' Bill of Rights."[26] He said that "the federal government should require deregulation of a monopoly business operated by not-for-profit institutions contracting together to achieve maximum financial returns... Collegiate amateurism is... an economic camouflage for monopoly practice. . . , [one which] 'operat[es] an air-tight racket of supplying cheap athletic labor.'"[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ Walter Byers, Ex-N.C.A.A. Leader Who Rued Corruption, Dies at 93. The New York Times (May 27, 2015). Retrieved on 2018-01-11.
  2. ^ a b "Walter Byers, first NCAA director, dies". The Oklahoman.
  3. ^ a b c Thomasson, Dan (June 4, 2015). "NCAA's first director built it into a hypocritical, self-serving monster". Las Vegas Sun Newspaper.
  4. ^ Weber, Bruce (May 28, 2015). "Walter Byers, Ex-N.C.A.A. Leader Who Rued Corruption, Dies at 93". NYTimes.com.
  5. ^ a b "The tainted legacy of NCAA president Walter Byers". Chicago Sun-Times. May 30, 2015.
  6. ^ McCallum, Jack. "IN THE KINGDOM OF THE SOLITARY MAN". Sports Illustrated.
  7. ^ Grimsley, Will (December 24, 1986). "Byers Speaks Seldom but Carries a Big Stick". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ "U.S. Basketball Writers Association". www.sportswriters.net.
  9. ^ "Are NCAA Athletes being exploited? timeline". Timetoast timelines. March 1, 1906.
  10. ^ Taylor Branch. "The NCAA: A High House of Hypocrisy". The Atlantic. (September 26, 2011). Retrieved on 2018-01-11.
  11. ^ "AAU News," Volumes 43–46, p. 7, Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, 1972.
  12. ^ "Yale Junior Caught In NCAA Feud, After Playing In Maccabiah Games," Rhode Island Herald. February 6, 1970, p. 16.
  13. ^ "Cross Campus". Yale Daily News. January 15, 2009.
  14. ^ President's Commission on Olympic Sports (1977). The Final Report of the President's Commission on Olympic Sports, U.S. Government Printing Office.
  15. ^ “Rationale for the Student-Athletes Bill of Rights”, June 25, 2002.
  16. ^ "YALE STORM CENTER QUITS BASKETBALL". The New York Times. October 9, 1970.
  17. ^ Gordon S. White Jr. (January 16, 1970). "RULING TO EXTEND TO ALL ELI SPORTS; Penalty Stems From Yale's Unwavering Stand to Use an Ineligible Player". The New York Times.
  18. ^ a b c Nocera, Joe (December 25, 2015). "Jerry Tarkanian and Walter Byers: Adversaries Who Left Mark on N.C.A.A." The New York Times.
  19. ^ Lipsyte, Robert (January 24, 1970). "The Plot". The New York Times.
  20. ^ Bennett H. Beach and John L. Powers (January 17, 1970). "Soaking up the Press". The Harvard Crimson.
  21. ^ AAU News. AAU Publications. 1972.
  22. ^ "19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER". Sports Illustrated. April 20, 1970.
  23. ^ "Remarks of AAU President John B. Kelly, Jr.", November 1, 1972.
  24. ^ Sally Jenkins. "NCAA lost its teeth in court in 1984, and no one’s been in charge since", The Washington Post.
  25. ^ Brian Goff (April 26, 2020). "NCAA World Evolving But Toward What?". Sports Economist.
  26. ^ a b c d e Byers, Walter (1995). Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes. USA: The University of Michigan Press.

External links

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