 A new report from the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics suggests a set of recommendations that could build for more equity and opportunity for black athletes at Division I colleges and universities. Here to talk with us about this landmark report today and some of the implications for historically black institutions. Two of the co-chairs for the study, Jacques McClendon of the Los Angeles Rams and Chantiana Keys. I want to make sure I get this right. This is Chantiana Keys for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association. Thank you, brother and sister for joining us today. Thank you for having us. We're excited. Let's talk about the overarching nature of the report. Now we've seen the NCAA. We've seen advocacy organizations talk about opportunities for better equity and access of black athletes, particularly at the Division I level. This sets out a set of recommendations that specifically speaks to some key areas about access. What can we do to make athletes more successful during a college tenure? How can we hire more black coaches and more black administrators within Division I programs, men's and women's? What is it that served as the backbone for this report and upon its completion, what has been some of the feedback that you've gotten either from the NCAA or for some of your peers in coaching and in athletics that say that this is a much needed report and this is the time to get some of these recommendations done? As far as I would say the backbone, the Knight Commission tasked Jacques and I and Lynn with leading the charge for this. And so for the backbone for us is, and Lynn always says it, go from pledge to policy. So we've got a lot of lip service in the past. Things have been caught in process or committee or people with the best intentions have tried to improve in this area, but we wanted to have concrete things that athletic directors, institutions, the NCAA can do to employ to improve the experience. And the feedback we've gotten has been great, but we definitely need to create more of a dialogue right now around this report and get some of these things pushed through. Yeah, and just it's just a piggyback off Chantiana. Like it's been an unbelievable process. And I think I've learned so much right because I do think that we are such a discrepancy and that's why this thing was the racial equity task force, not the racial equality task force. We as, you know, as former athletes and minorities understand what that experience, what that experience is like. And it hasn't been an experience where everybody's on the same playing field. And I hope that's one thing that people get from our report is that we're not operating as things are equal because they're not. But what we are trying to do is show that there needs to be more equity so we can close the gap. And so everything we're doing is about closing the gap and trying to develop best practices and protocols and procedures to be able to help with that. Let's talk about that equity, because that's an important thing. And one thing that is that is strong about this report is it specifically identifies HBCUs to talk about institutional equity, particularly for the Division One programs within within the HBCU sector. A part of the recommendations that you guys lay out is that there is more support from the NCAA for APR compliance and APR success rates. We know that HBCUs over many years have struggled and have been unfairly targeted in some ways in terms of consequences for falling short of APR marks. These things have been suspended by the NCAA. Your recommendations have now come out to say maybe this is something that you continue for a period. What do you think that APR looks like after this suspension period? Or should it go away totally when you think about what HBCUs, particularly in the resource area, struggled to cultivate in meeting that APR standard? Yeah, I don't think we will see the APR go away after, you know, not only this report, but after this two year suspension, I don't think we'll see it go away. And a Knight Commission has been an advocate for the APR and setting standards. But I'll say that, you know, there has to be a better understanding of the mission of HBCUs, right? We talk about 70 percent of HBCU students coming from low income families and 40 percent of them being the first person in their family to enroll. There has to be a better understanding with those who are legislating that that is that is the mission of these institutions. And so should they be held to the same standard? You know, we could have discussion about that. But we have talked about how long these students or, excuse me, these organizations or institutions have to meet the standards. That is also important, especially when you talk about the systemic issues that have created some of the some of the issues that we're talking about, right, like these things didn't happen in the vacuum. So there's has to be a better understanding. I think at the NCA office and that includes, you know, having more HBCU present as you legislate. So those are a few things that come to mind for me in terms of that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with my co-vice chair, I mean, right? I think everything is predicated upon shifting the economics. And we can't sit here and try to hold the standard of, you know, what power five institution is driving a hundred million dollars in revenue to the same thing that the HBCU does, even though those students are just as in need, just as just as hungry as those students, but it's not level, right? So to say we can treat everybody the same without finding a way to make those those practices fair. So we're never we're never saying to take away a barometer of what that looks like. But we are saying they need to become more fair because the playing fields aren't level. So to set that expectation that it's, you know, we live on this mountain top of equality with when it comes to resources and availability, is not fair to those students or to those institutions because they are trying to drive change. They are trying to drive academically diverse human beings that are coming, they're going to come in and make an impact on this world. And, you know, we need to elevate that black voice. We elevate that minority voice, that female voice and make sure that we're doing a great job of making it make it equitable, not equal. Is it is it fair for the NCAA as an association of institutions to say, OK, we all need to put in to to make HBCUs better in this respect because I could I could hear and have her the argument to say, well, you know, frankly, and candidly, y'all ain't got to be here. Y'all don't have to be Division One. So what why is it why is it a why is it a responsibility of ours to just to create opportunities for you all to be or for HBCUs to have more resources that contribute to academic performance, which in a lot of ways would make you more competitive with us. And there's not too many institutions that say we want more competition from these set of schools. Oh, I think I was sorry. Sorry, Keith. No, I think I think over the past year, I think we've seen how elevated the black culture can be. I happen to work in the National Football League. Seventy percent of my roster is black and brown. Instead, it was in the NFL rosters and the NBA is probably an even higher number than that. When you look at these power five institutions, when you look at we look at men's and women's basketball, like we minorities are very successful as athletes. Minorities are very successful in this space. But how many coaches do you see? How many administrators do you see? But what you saw over the past year is that the black voice is marketable. Let's go back to Black Panther with Marvel. Let's go back to Dion Sanders becoming the head coach at Jackson State. Let's go back to ESPN Plus doing the special with Chris Paul and LaVell Moten on what they've got going on down there. So like there, you know, when you talk about the platform, this HBCUs have, it's very significant. And so if we're talking about making them member institutions, they deserve the same the same sort of visibility and platform. But to say that it's the same once again is not it's not fair. Nor is it equitable. We need to put in practices that show that these HBCUs have immense value are the vice president of this country is an HBCU grad. Where we are in 2020 and elevating the black voice, the minority voice is a completely different. I'm sorry, 2021 is a completely different position than we were just two years ago. And so we have an opportunity as an inflection point of this country to turn 2020 not into a moment, but into momentum forward. And I think that honestly, as my co-vice chair, Shantiana said earlier, we're trying to use this report as an opportunity to continue to propel that. And as we've seen, the HBCUs are at the center of this conversation because nobody has been talking to them. And all they have done is stay true to their values, vision and continue to produce outstanding candidates in this job world that don't get the same visibility, marketability and voice as others. And so we have to change that narrative because there is so many dynamic people from a student athlete standpoint, student perspective, administrative perspective that deserves this voice. And when you look at what the ESPNs do with the undefeated, like people are listening and we got to continue to capitalize and move forward and make sure that these voices are being heard. Do you think? Oh, I'm sorry, Gleason. No, no, I really didn't have too much to add, Jock. I think he covered all the bases on that. I guess the only thing that came to mind for me is that all all these institutions have put out statements, you know, saying that they support racial equity in the process to get there, right? And not even like recognizing that like HBCUs. Are there or were there, right? Because we were not allowed to go to their institutions. So like if you are truly committed to the to racial equity and the success of black people, even when they're not at your institution, then being a member institution that is fighting toward that end goal should be a no brainer. It's always felt like there's a bit of incongruence between the NCAA's mission and that of the HBCU. The HBCU takes all kinds of people from all kinds of places and all kinds of academic training grounds in your report. You reference how many students are coming from low income communities and probably from under resourced secondary institutions, right? So how is it that the NCAA almost penalizes the fact that HBCUs in particular, in particular with African American athletes are putting men and women in a position to try to raise them up to a standard of where you can graduate, you can earn a degree, you can be prepared for a job, you can also play a sport. And that helps you pay for your schooling. Why does it seem like that mission is not aligned with the NCAA's mission of opportunity for student athletes? At least as reflected in APR. Yeah, I don't know if Jacques has something to contribute, but honestly, I really don't have a great answer for that and for the people who make policy, right? Like, I really do think there is an ignorance about not only HBCUs, but again, the Black experience as it comes to PWIs. And so I think a lot of that legislation comes from that ignorance or lack of understanding. You know what, I completely agree, right? And I think that when you talk about where we're at in this world, a lot of these policies were put in place at a different time of America at a different time of equity as minorities, as being black in this country. So as the world is continuing to evolve and needs to be on that same trail of evolution, these practices and policies need to be on that same pace. And they just haven't been right. They've been put in place at a time to where, you know, let's call it, you know, 20, 40, 50 years ago to where the world was different than it is right now. So they need to be reevaluated, right? Reform is good. Change is good. We just live in a world where people don't like to see that. And so I think that this is a unique opportunity to drive that reform, to drive that change because it is very much needed. And, you know, I love I love what you just talked about right there. And what you what we forget is that being a student athlete is about a journey and all journeys aren't the same. They don't start the same. They don't end the same, but they should have the same end result in mind. And that is to gainfully employ student athletes and propel them to a successful life that they would have not otherwise had maybe. I know for me, right, as somebody who comes from a single parent household, low income, free and reduced lunch is growing up. I don't have, you know, I'm working on my third degree right now. And I haven't paid for a single dime of any of them because people because I've had the opportunity for scholarship. And, you know, that's let's call it half a million dollars of free education. That's shifting the economics that's shifting resources. So when you talk about the systemic problems we have in this country, it really comes down to is that the black, the black, the black minorities, us, us as us as a people haven't been able to drive generational wealth. And it's the same thing with the institutions. We have to shift the economics. We have to shift the resources. We have to shift the platform visibility of their or we won't get anywhere. Right. So this is a unique opportunity to be able to do that. And guess what? Rising tides lift all boats and we need some people to be the tide because our boats are just as capable. We just we just we just need a little help getting up. So you actually segue into an excellent point. Part of the recommendations that you guys have are for institutions to take a more monitored and holistic approach to candidate interviewing to be more inclusive of minority prospects to develop sort of a runy rule. For collegiate athletics, we've seen across the board and in sports, people kind of anoint their successor in coaching. And that promotes a lot of racial, you know, being racially homogenous and executive roles, right? You guys have proposed a change to that. Do you believe that particularly in Division One, if you open the door a little bit wider for more black candidates to be considered either even just for assistant positions for associate AD position, sports information and athletic executives that that may drain unintentionally the opportunities for HBCUs with limited resources to be able to afford and hire some of that same talent. Is that is that an unintended consequence or how do you kind of balance that perspective? If you if you make it so more black folks can walk through the door over here, are they walking away from a door over there? See, I don't like to look at it like that. See, I see it as an opportunity for increased value, right? Look what's happening to Jackson State. Look what's happening to Tennessee State, where they just hired Hugh Jackson, Eddie George. You're talking about Pat White, the former QB of West Virginia, goes from Alcorn State to the running backs coach of South Florida, right? I think it provides more value to these to these HBCUs. Look, look what ESPN doing, especially with LaVell Moten, as I answered earlier, right? I think that there's an opportunity to promote. And it's just there's no different from a PWI, right? Like, you know, the head coach of the University of Florida interviewed for the Atlanta Falcon Shop. I think there's always going to be a different platform. Each individual can, depending on what their values and visions and opportunities that come into play. But this is also an opportunity to show that if you do go to HBCU, it shows that you can go that you can go up a step. And I think that that provides more value to get more young talent in the pipeline because they're more visible. And so I don't look at it as draining talent. I look as it bringing more visibility to these jobs and opportunities and where people, you know, from a universal perspective, try to look down. No, no, you can go down here. You can be successful. And if you have alignment or dreams of going somewhere else, guess what, you can come accomplish that here at these HBCUs. You can come win a national championship at a, you know, in an HBCU conference. And look, if you want to go somewhere else, great. If not, you can sit here and be just as successful as you want to be. You know, when you look at the platform that Howard has been in the nation's capital, right? Like there's a lot of value to that. You start to see recruits actually, you know, you saw that they've got their first five star last year, right? Like people are starting to pay attention. So I don't see it as as, you know, unintended consequences. I hopefully see it as a strategic value. And as long as we look at it like that and not pessimists, like when you see more ESPN broadcasts of HBCU schools, because more people are watching because they have higher profile coaches and higher profile players, that's where we went. We need to get these these high profile athletes, these high profile coaches at this space, because in turn that will drive more revenue for these HBCU schools and the pot will be bigger. And we can start to shift the economics at the end of the day. Economics resources is what it comes down to. And I think this is a unique opportunity in time as an inflection point to be able to do that. Shantia, I would ask you as as an athlete, as a coach, as someone who observes and recommends on policy for for for colleges, universities and athletics fear, it seems to me as as a HBCU graduate and as a lifelong fan of HBCUs, that even at the Division One level, our most successful programs across the board have been women's sports in in in recent decades. We've seen women's basketball, national and competitive forging upsets against bigger teams. We've seen women's bowling when an NCAA Division One championship. We've seen track and field at Division One and Division Two, excel and win championships. Do you think that? There is there is policy that can be created that that elevates the profile of these programs, even though they are non revenue bearing. They're not on television, but here's where even HBCUs can be, even with our resources and our facilities, nationally competitive. Is that a conversation worth having? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think the conversation about NIL is a big contributor to that conversation, right? If a player from a Division Two bowling team has a ton of followers, whether it be hometown or just, again, their influence on social media, right? Like she could very well be competitive with a player who's playing at Clemson as a big time player in at a power five, right? So I think, you know, we will see here in the future, you know, once this NIL conversation is over, that that legislation will help some of these other divisions and especially HBCU student athletes. I think as we talked about, like black culture is culture. Like we drive the conversation. So when you can allow the HBCU student athletes to be a part of that bigger conversation and bigger conversation of culture, I think we're going to see some revolutionary things that we have not yet seen. Do you think that on the subject of executive opportunity? So HBCUs have always been at the forefront of, you know, opportunities for African-Americans as athletic directors, as senior women's administrators for women in athletic executive positions. HBCUs have been at the forefront. Do you think that in part of your policymaking conversation that HBCUs could be a model for how you do these things in terms of executive talent search in terms of recruitment and retention? It's one thing to bring a black person into a role. It's one thing to recruit a black kid to play for you. It's another thing for that black student or that black executive to feel good about where they are. Is there a model that you think HBCUs can provide in that respect to accompany your report and say, here's how you get them. And here's how you keep them and help them to be productive in these places. Absolutely. We talk about a sense of belonging in our the black athlete experience aspect of this report and doing the research research into that. And that is a part of retention is having your student athletes feel like they belong and HBCUs are uniquely positioned to create that familial atmosphere, right? Like Jock and I both, we both grew up in the suburbs and went to predominantly white schools and then we went on to college and did the same thing, right? And that experience is very unique in that you always feel like an other no matter kind of where you are. And so, yeah, absolutely. HBCUs are the model in terms of how a black student athlete can feel. I don't want to say more at home, but yeah, you have that better sense of belonging that obstacle is not there in your development as a young adult. Yeah, I completely agree, right? I mean, we live in this role with a narrative is that, you know, whether if you're at Hanson at Harvard, right? Like, of course, people check that people check the Harvard. Like we just don't live in that world anymore. And I think it's very what's the best way it's unfair and it's also just a short of having an equitable process to say that when when these key administrators at these HBCU schools with limited resources are able to be successful, how would you not say they would be the best hires when these jobs come up about these Power Five institutions because they have unlimited resources? And so it just shows the political nature in the systemic problems that we do have in place. And yes, they could be a model, right? Because especially when you talk about when you look at these major Power Five schools at the make up of their let's call it their revenue generating sports when you talk about football, men's women's basketball. But when you once again, you look at the representation key, and it's probably about, you know, sixty five, seventy percent that look like us or black and brown, right? And so I think what happens is you create healthy relationships when the people up top are able to put the same lens as those athletes on. And I think that, especially for me, right? I did not have my first black head coach until I was drafted in the National Football League by the United States when I was Colton, it was by the man, I mean, a man by the name of Jim Caldwell, who did an exceptional job of leading men. And that was the first time in my life is I'm looking at somebody who wants to achieve and and climb the ladder within the organizational side. It can happen, right? And that was the first time in my life. Like, wow, you know, other than other than watching Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince, right? Like to see those platforms, you know, just to show that I said I grew up in a predominantly white community. I did not see successful black women and men put on a platform to show that this is what you can be. I just didn't see it. I didn't know it existed. And so it's really important for me to continue to drive that narrative personally because I want to be somebody that, you know, young women and men can look up as well. And so just just you can't be what you can't see. So the visualization of that and what that HVCU doctor in in in hierarchy can do for the greater good, especially in the college sports realm is definitely something that needs to be implemented, projected and have a snapshot of because a lot of people could use a dose of how they do do things and how they are intentionally being diverse because I can promise you an HVCU school would just as much to love to have a Caucasian member and include them in the fold just as much as, you know, doing what they do for the black community as well. It's why because they're for everybody. You know, I think I think that, you know, there's just this this real narrative that you can't be successful when you can be. And so I'm very much appreciative of the HVCU model. And I think that as as Dion and Eddie George and and these schools are starting to show like, guess what, we could put eyes on it because just as Shantiana says, the culture is marketable. It has always been marketable and always will be marketable. We just haven't had the right people telling those those stories and showing that visibility. So now that we have that that momentum, we got to continue to keep our foot on the gas. And then the final question, and I so much appreciate you guys time. It seems like on the HVCU side of things, we're moving along. You mentioned Dion Sanders, you mentioned Eddie George. We're seeing a lot more philanthropy surrounding HVCUs. But when you look at the PWI Power Five, you're still seeing stories like Texas got a problem changing the school song. You're still seeing things about Black Lives Matter, protests, participation. You're still seeing brothers and sisters who are saying, I don't feel comfortable here. You're still seeing stories about, you know, athletes being grouped together, something else in majors, something that your report talks about. And there's no consequence for that from the NCAA, really, you know, for degree manufacturing or just passing brothers and sisters through and they don't have proper training. HVCUs are moving and progressively kind of taking steps ahead for reasons that we, you know, we know some of them are tragic, but the PWIs are still stuck like we don't we ain't ready to move yet. Do you have optimism based on your report based on what you're seeing that some of the changes you hope will come are soon coming or are we still far down the road from seeing things possibly changing? I think we're optimistic and I think we we have. I think we have to be right. Like we I think people have been kind of grasping at what are some concrete ways to move this conversation forward? Again, we've talked about pledges and what's most important is policy, because that's the only way to kind of hold people accountable. I mean, I think that there are things within our report that can happen in the near future, right? We're not looking at five years down the road, right? We talk about eliminating standardized testing, right? That is based on eugenics. We know that that that system is flawed, right? As you mentioned, the clustering, we also talk about pouring more money into HBCUs via the AASP and giving more resources. We spoke to a president of HBCU and he mentioned that talent was being plucked away from his school because they didn't have the resources to pay them, right? So those are things that are that can happen, you know, a month from now, a year from now that are that are tangible and and immediately have effect. The hiring, again, we talk about being able to see your yourself and your coach, a coach with cultural competency who isn't going to have an issue, like you said, having to take down the the school song, like all those type of things that some coaches just are not aware of and and don't recognize they're bringing, you know, a student into an environment. I went to a school that was the the old antebellum Georgia capital. That's where I went to school. So there's like Confederate things all around the town, right? And thankfully, I had a black coach in that space, right? So that did make me feel more comfortable. But I just think there are there are a lot of things we can we can do immediately that can can cause some great impact. And I look forward to that. You know, I think she just hit the head on the nail right there, I think. But you know, only thing I would add is it really takes educated accountability and we live in a world where we can have conversations like this, dialogues like this. Student athletes have shown their power via social media and holding institutions accountable for their actions. And so I think we live in a world now to where it's not OK just to be in the status quo. And as long as the right people, the right group of people united are having the conversation, the social media pressure that can be applied nowadays will drive change. It's just really figuring out who really is aligned with those actions but who really wants to keep moving the needle forward because it will take work. But I do think educated accountability will definitely help move the needle and it can move sooner than we think it could. But I do think it's all going to be predicated on who really wants to sit down, roll up his sleeves, have these conversations and do the hard work. But also being educated on what the works on. So you have the right tools of the toolkit when you get to the table.