 Welcome to the sports playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelot. Today's guest is Maggie McKinley, the Deputy Athletic Director and Senior Women Administrator at the University of Cincinnati. We are here to discuss governance challenges in college athletics, modern issues in administration. Welcome Maggie. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me today. Absolutely. I'm thrilled to be here, but please share with us what are your primary responsibilities as the Deputy Athletic Director and Senior Women Administrator at the University of Cincinnati? Yeah, so on a day-to-day basis, I oversee the internal operations of our department. So that's everything from compliance and governance to our facilities and operations and game management, our equipment and apparel, our health and wellness, which we have sports medicine under that umbrella, our sports performance, nutrition, mental health. So a lot of things that impact the daily lives of our student athletes. Sounds like a lot of the key pieces that support the AFS student athletes. And from 2016 to 2021, you serve for five years on the NCAA Division One Governance Council. In this role, you've been involved with some important issues like name, image and likeness, or what is now known as NIL. On June 21st, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the NCAA versus Austin case that in limiting education-related benefits schools can provide to athletes. The NCAA was in violation of anti-trust law. So nine days later, the NCAA adopted a policy that allows athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness. This is such a huge shift from prior NCAA governance restrictions that instituted a blanket prohibition on athletes from being compensated. This monumental change happened in the final days of your serving on the D1 Council. So what can you tell us about the council's recommendation to the NCAA board to adopt an interim NIL policy? It was a very exciting time, those last 12 to 18 months serving on council because one of our priorities was trying to find a pathway for student athletes to benefit from their name, image, likeness. And so there were a lot of working groups doing a lot of work in trying to change and modernize our legislation to allow student athletes to go down this pathway. We knew it was coming. We knew there was a lot of litigation out there and we knew this was the right path to go down. And so a lot of work went into it. And then it all of a sudden was like now is the time. We have to move forward. We have to put something in place. And so the interim policy was a very slimmed down version of about 20 pages of legislation or amendments to regular legislation that we wanted to put in and said we just we have to move and we have to move now. And part of that is also pressure from the states that had started to make executive orders or legislation within their own state saying. Institutions must be able to must allow student athletes to benefit off their name, image, likeness. So that interim policy, I was very proud that that was one of my last votes that I got to participate in to move us forward down this path. But it was it was really exciting and there were a lot of discussions around the table, but we got there and there's still a lot of work to be done, in my opinion. So an exciting time for you to be an influential force on the governance council, but tell us a little bit. How does NIL actually impact the NCAA member institutions like the University of Cincinnati, as well as student athletes? Yeah, you know, there's I call it two buckets, you know, if I had two buckets of name and image likeness, one is kind of that run of the mill marketing deals that you would think of student athlete or someone endorsing a product, but then maybe it's an influencer on social media. Maybe it's just someone who's making a commercial and saying, you know, this is my favorite food by this and that that person or that entity gives them something in exchange. So there's a quid pro quo there. The other bucket that we're starting to see and we knew was going to come on board was the impact on institutions and the NCAA in the recruiting aspect. There are entities out there who want to influence prospective student athletes and the choice of their institution. And that is one of those avenues that there's a lot of gray area. And we're looking for more guidance from the NCAA and interpreting that interim policy and maybe even federal legislation that can marry all of the policies and so that we're all operating under one umbrella. I think that's the most confusing piece right now for institutions is we have to follow our state law, but people we're competing against for recruits have a completely different set of standards and maybe some more leeway that they can operate in that recruiting space. So institutions are sitting there saying, OK, well, you can do this, but you can't do that, or this is how you have to say it. You go to the NCAA and you're asking for an interpretation and the interpretation that currently a lot of institutions are receiving is we'll just follow your state policy. You know, so it's it's confusing on campuses for a lot of people. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if the states have adopted different policies and procedures and athletes are trying to consider what their options are. And that may be different by state. So I'm sure that is really complicated. And the NCAA has always tried to protect athletes from being compensated for choosing a particular institution. So is this still a concern with NIL? Very, very large concern. That is the number one thing we've heard from coaches and institutions nationally is they they really are looking for someone to come in and provide that guidance, eight to use the word guardrails because it's overused, but provide some guardrails in that so that everyone's kind of operating on as even footing as possible. You know, and that's the thing we're also trying to protect our our student athletes as well from being misled and making a choice to go to an institution predicated on a false promise or something that's not the reality of what they're going to receive. And then they're not happy there. So what we're really trying to say is get it out of the recruiting space. Let that start once they become a student at that institution. And then everyone's kind of on even footing there. But we it's a we will see unfortunately. Does this provide opportunities for universities to create NIL opportunities for student athletes then so that they can sort of package things together and create a kind of incentive for student athletes maybe to choose certain institutions because they know there may be more opportunities at certain places. Oh, absolutely. And I know that across the board and even at our institution, one of the things that we've really tried to do is, you know, all of our student athletes are disclosing their deals and we're trying to package that together to show recruits. This is what student athletes at the University of Cincinnati have been able to do. You know, and so if you come here, there might be can't promise, but there might be similar opportunities, right? Like here's what we've been able to take advantage of. Here's all the things that we have on the horizon where we've made investments to create additional opportunities that you can opt into. You can take advantage or you can say, sorry, I just don't have the time to participate in those things. It's sort of like you're you're talking about using it as a marketing tool to help with help recruit athletes. And so do you see this as a precursor to pay to play for athletes? It's going to be very interesting. There are several senators in Congress, men and women right now who are proposing basically name image likeness bills. And some have been very clear in their proposed bills that student athletes will not be considered employees. And others have said, yes, they should have the right to be compensated. I I think this could go either route right now. You know, if you ask me tomorrow week, yes, absolutely. This is the pay for play. And then the next day, I'll be like, nope, I really think this is going to be, you know, the clear line of they could do all the you know, all the sponsorship, commercial entities, things like that. But in terms of an institution compensating. Absolutely. That that makes a lot of sense. So it could go either way. And the future is maybe yeah, yet unknown. I know you've been quoted as stating that there is an educational piece to NIL, which is to teach student athletes how to brand themselves and what they want to associate with their brand. So what steps are you taking to help students with this educational piece? What are you doing at the University of San Diego? What's what's in the future of what educational opportunities you'll provide them? Yeah, so we actually just went out and partnered with Alteas and we're one of, I believe, it's six institutions in the country that has hired a general manager to be on site in our building. So they work and employed by Alteas, but they are here on campus and their sole responsibility is they are going to be providing the education to our student athletes on name, image, likeness from everything of questions to ask, how to get deals, how to market yourself, how to brand yourself. And then also they would be an active participant in building those relationships in our community of creating opportunities that our student athletes then can go take advantage of. So we're very proud to be one of those first schools to do this. So that person actually starts October 3rd. We cannot wait for him to start and we're ready. I bet the education couldn't happen soon enough, especially since seasons underway. So yes, seasons underway, that's right. Well, you also served on the NCAA Division One Council when covid struck and caused massive disruption to all NCAA sports. So tell us a little bit about the challenges you faced and the importance of being fluid during a worldwide pandemic. Yeah, I think it was probably one of the I hate to say this, the pandemic taught me more in my career professionally than I think I had in the previous 18 to 19 years because we were meeting every single day on campus and we were almost meeting weekly and then monthly as a Division One Council because of issues that were coming up and that we needed to address in the moment so that our coaches and our student athletes on campuses knew what was happening. So it was great in terms of being able to pivot. You know, hey, I'm comfortable. This is the answer today. And then being really uncomfortable or comfortable saying, nope, OK, change my mind. We have new information. This is the direction we need to go. So I got very comfortable being uncomfortable. And being able to tell people, yeah, I know that's what I said four hours ago. But based upon new information, we're going to change directions. And I think that has helped us tremendously as we move forward in all the changes we've wanted to make just in the department as we transition into a Power Five Conference next year. So serving on the the governance council were were you privy to early information about how decisions were changing so that maybe did that help your institution make those necessary adjustments? Oh, yes. And it was it was fantastic because I knew all the options that were on the table. So I would sit there and I would talk to our associate to be for compliance and say, OK, tell me if we did this. How would that impact us if we did this? How would this impact us if we did this? How would it impact us? OK, great. All right. Now we're we're ready to go regardless of which decision the council moves forward with. It was the best experience in terms of always having kind of like that inside information ahead of time and being prepared to pull the trigger no matter how the vote went. Like we're ready. We're going. We're on the forefront. You know, we're kind of sneaky that way. All right, let's go. You know, how's this going to work and how's this going to work at the University of Cincinnati? Was there one issue that that came up during the changes with covid that was most surprising to you or made the largest impact at the University of Cincinnati? I would say the one decision that made the largest impact at the University of Cincinnati was at an additional year of eligibility. And I can tell you that our football team who made the college football playoffs last year greatly benefited from having some exceptional student athletes have an additional year of eligibility that they would not have had but for covid and that leadership and that experience made us the number four team in the nation at the end of the season. I would say that's a pretty positive outcome of it was a pretty positive outcome of it was a lot of additional student athletes that, you know, were on aid and on teams. And, you know, those are resources that we had to invest in. But it was, you know, for the benefit of those student athletes, they wanted to come back and continue to participate. And so we said, you will have that opportunity. Other institutions, you know, made decisions, whether it was none, some, all. But that's where we that's where we landed. Let's talk about another key change that the NCAA made that benefits student athletes, and that's the transfer rules. They recently made a change for division one athletes that took effect in the fall of 2021, where student athletes who meet certain criteria can now seek immediate eligibility when transferring from a four year school to an NCAA division one school. So how has this transfer rule change impacted the University of Cincinnati and other similar division one institutions? It's it's been very interesting because before we were doing a lot of waivers. So I used to joke around that at the University of Cincinnati, we always thought they were going to be immediately eligible because we were just going to file a waiver. So it's alleviated a little work on our compliance office now because they can be immediately eligible. The impact it's had on our institution is the kind of realign the way our coaches think. So knowing that, hey, I can go into the transfer portal, see if there is a student athlete available that might be an immediate film, immediate need, you know, where I need maybe someone with a little bit more experience rather than a freshman, but also then they're thinking of, oh, gosh, I need to make sure that my team, my student athletes, are I'm retaining them and that they're happy here and they're getting what they need and they feel as though the University of Cincinnati is still the place they want to be. So it's kind of we have always, like in my estimate, we've always done a great job with our student athletes in terms of making them love being here. We don't have we didn't have a considerable high amount of transfers. Previously, we have not seen an increase in transfer outs. We have not seen an increase in transfer outs. Actually, our transfer rates actually have gone down because we've been tracking this. So it's been great here. Now, I will say, I don't know, Angela, if you saw the latest news, every compliance person in the country is a little losing their mind because the vision council and the board directors came out with transfer windows within the last week where student athletes on campuses can only enter the transfer portal during specified windows of time. And so now there's, you know, in the true fashion, there's a long Q&A that keeps getting updated on how does this work? What does this mean? And so student athletes can only enter the transfer portal during designated windows. If they don't follow those windows, then there's a violation and they're not eligible immediately to play at their next institution. What's the rationale behind the windows of time in which they can enter the portal? It's a great question. The rationale is that these are set up after the season's over, so there's not disruptions to the season. So the window starts immediately following championship selection, and then it's about a 45 day. I believe it's 45 days following that period of time. That way there's a defined time period. It's not during the season so you don't have someone on your roster who's looking and talking to other coaches. And then there's also an end. OK, you're in the transfer portal during this time. You're either staying or you've decided where you're going. And then that coach knows whether or not they have that available scholarship to go and find another person to bring on the team or that person's returning to our institution. So I guess that prevents a coach from benching an athlete who is already indicated that they want to leave. And yes, they make them a less desirable recruit on another campus. Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, another interesting change in Ohio in January, twenty twenty three is sports measuring or sports betting. It'll become legal in the state of Ohio. And CWA rules those still prohibit student athletes from participation in sports wagering activities involving intercollegiate amateur professional athletics competition. So the belief is that sports wagering can undermine the integrity of athletic competition and impact student athlete well being. So when sports wagering becomes legal in Ohio, what is the anticipated impact on your university? Yeah, we've been preparing for this knowing this is coming down the pipeline. And at least we are sneak peak because Indiana has legalized sports wagering already. But we have been ramping up our education. We have always educated our student athletes because this has been the rule for a long time. But don't bet on it. But we have ramped it up because now it will be very accessible. It's going to even have opportunities in local restaurants and bars bordering campus, especially ones that we know our student athletes frequent that they're going to be able to place bets right there. So we have been really ramping up our education. We have explored opportunities with a company called U.S. Integrity to monitor betting lines so that we can see if any lines are moving at a that would maybe indicate there's some sort of fraudulent activity that are influencing the outcome of the game. So we've been investing in those things for our student athletes and just trying to drive home. What we have found is through surveys across the NCAA, a lot of student athletes don't realize that some of the activities they're participating in in high school. Are actually considered sports wagering. And I use fantasy leagues as a great example because they're so readily available, they're at fingertips and if they're placing wagers, they're supposed to be 21, but they might be using like a parents account to sign up. They don't realize that, oh, that is that is under this umbrella of sports wagering and it's something they've been doing for a handful of years for fun. And now we're trying to get them out of those habits because NCAA rules preclude them for participating in those. And we keep telling them just four or five years or here's some free options. But it's going to be some I'll call it, you know, it's a point of emphasis with our compliance office and the education surrounding it. So it's going to be much more widely accessible for these student athletes and potentially risk their eligibility, which would be a shame for something to happen that negatively impacts them. So what about the NIL piece and student athletes endorsing some of these companies? Is that permissible under NCAA rules? Yeah, so this is a good point is you cannot endorse something if you are not a user of it. So it would actually I don't even know the law would be there is a law that would say, hey, you can't say like, you know, you should go out and do this if it's something that you actually don't partake in. So there there are actual other regulations that prevent student athletes or coaches or staff members from endorsing something that is a sports wagering activity, such as some of the most common fan duel, Draft King, some of those pieces. That's why you don't see NCA coaches endorsing those products because they can't participate in it. So would this be true for alcohol sponsors for minors? That is correct. That is correct. And Ohio law actually has a couple of carve outs for alcohol, tobacco products and then some casinos and some other adult activities that they would not be permitted to endorse. All the rules and it sounds like your job just keeps expanding as far as the educational piece and the administration of everything that you need to do. Yes, yes, let's talk about let's talk about Title Nine. You're a former college athlete who competed on the University of Cincinnati women's track teams. So you got converted from a student athlete yourself to now administrator in athletics. And Title Nine has been instrumental in providing opportunities in sport for women, such as yourself. However, in 2005, members of the women's rowing team sued the University of Cincinnati, alleging the university was out of compliance with Title Nine. Although your university eventually won this case by summary judgment. Tell us how this case has affected your approach to staying compliant with Title Nine. Yeah, you know, it was interesting because it was very early in my career as a compliance person. I wasn't involved much with like the gender equity piece. And then when this lawsuit came on, I was kind of said they wanted. Maggie, we need someone to keep track of our participation opportunities. We need someone to kind of hold us accountable, roster sizes. You know, what are the right and appropriate roster sizes to feel a competitive team? And so we went down that path. And so ever since then, somehow this became one of my responsibilities. And it's been great because I am now in the position where I can influence a lot of things. And I can be one of the people around the table who says, OK, well, then what about this or what are we doing for this? What is the how are we creating equitable opportunities across the board for all of our student athletes or across the genders? So on an annual basis, I am constantly examining, you know, what our roster numbers are, what are our sizes? How are we making sure that we're out fitting every team with the appropriate amount of apparel that they need for their sport? So it's it's not a dollars and cents to dollars and cents piece because equipment in football is a lot more expensive than equipment and tennis, right? So it's not the apples and oranges, but it's looking at, OK, how are we making sure we all have the same opportunities? How are we looking at this? How am I sitting around the table and saying, OK, I need to find, you know, my women's basketball team needs charter flights to all of their away competitions because we've been chartering our men previous to that for all these years and no one called that into question. And so when I got to that point where I was at the table with it, OK, so here are some things we need to immediately address. And then we put a plan in action and we did that. So name and image like this is the next thing that we talked about because it was this unknown thing. Like, how does Title IX law apply to name and image likeness? Quickly, we realized if we have an institutional involvement in helping arrange fields or opportunities, we're going to look at it from a Title IX perspective as well. And what opportunities are we also creating across the board for our men and our women? So that is, you know, it's evolving constantly. It's I call it fun because you never can sit there and go, oh, like, totally forgot about that. And this year, you know, being the 50th anniversary, the 50th year of Title IX has really helped us like start like looking back and going, OK. What are we doing? What are we doing intentionally? It's not a just OK. It's, you know, twenty twenty two. We're going to check a box. We're going to say we're in compliance. No, like, let's start looking at this and being serious about how we're creating, how we're celebrating and how we're moving the needle forward. Sounds like you have some very concrete examples of how you've made strategic changes to stay compliant with Title IX. And I know a part of that I know we're kind of at the end of our time here, but another part of that is about the sexual harassment and sexual violence that are prohibited under Title IX. So how do you educate student athletes regarding expectations for this behavior, particularly athletes who may have come from a high school culture where they were excused from the consequences of their behavior? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, we've partnered with our Office of Gender Equity and Inclusion and we about a year, a year and a half ago, that office hired a new director and she's been phenomenal doctor Adrian Lyles and she has helped us tremendously in building an education program that speaks to our student athletes. So they understand that they're there as a service and that they are there to help them navigate these pieces. And so we have real talks with our student athletes about expectations, about healthy relationships, about bystander intervention, how you can help your teammates out of situations or mitigate something before it happens. So you're preventing, we, we preach prevention. So we preach how to not, you know, here's the expectation on your behavior, not, oh, gosh, now, like what's happened, let's, you know, talk about the process. We're saying here's if you behave and carry yourself in this manner, this will never be called into question. You will not have an issue over here. It's not perfect. No institution is ever going to avoid something. But we prepare our student athletes. We get in front of them the second they get on campus. So when they enter, whether it's they enroll in the in the summer, whether it's their orientation in the fall, and that's the first time they're stepping on campus, it's one of the first things they hear. And they hear it from a lot of different people. And then we continuously push the message throughout the semester in the fall and in the spring. So if not they're hearing it once, it's this is the culture. This is what we expect, follow it. Or it just you're probably not going to be at the University of Cincinnati. Right. Absolutely. There's a lot of education for these student athletes. And you certainly experience a lot of challenges, particularly in recent years. So thank you for your insight into the governance challenges in college athletics and modern issues and administration. Thank you to our viewers for joining us today on the Sports Playbook. In two weeks, our guest is Kevin Gibson from VA Momentum, who will discuss hosting running races that give back to the community. We will see you then. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.