Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was the first executive director of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Career

Byers was the first executive director of the

. He served from 1951 to 1988. He also helped start the

United States Basketball Writers Association The United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) was founded in 1956 by National Collegiate Athletic Association director Walter Byers to serve the interests of journalists who cover college basketball. Scholarships The USBWA annually awa ...

in 1956. Byers expanded the NCAA men's basketball tournament in 1951 from 8 to 16 teams. WFAN New York's Mike Francesa referred to him as an "Oz-like" figure who ran the NCAA with ultimate control. Byers was also described as a "petty tyrant." ''

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'' said that he was sometimes known as "That power-mad Walter Byers." Byers negotiated TV contracts that preempted individual colleges' rights on the way to building a billion-dollar business, leading to a 1984

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruling that freed the colleges to negotiate on their own. The NCAA Walter Byers Scholarship is named in his honor. On May 26, 2015, Byers died at the age of 93.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.

Book

In his book ''Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes'' Byers turned against the NCAA in its then-current form, saying it established "a nationwide money-laundering scheme." (P. 73). Byers also said that the NCAA 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). (P. 69). Byers said that

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

should "Free the Athletes," and enact a "comprehensive College Athletes' Bill of Rights." (P. 374). 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. . . , ne which'operat san air-tight racket of supplying cheap athletic labor.'" (Pp. 376, 388).

References

External links

SI.com article on Byers

The Shame of College Sports
– Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, September 7, 2011
‘Student-Athlete’ Has Always Been a Lie
- By Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Jay M. Smith, and Stephen T. Casper, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2021 {{DEFAULTSORT:Byers, Walter 1922 births 2015 deaths American sportswriters National Collegiate Athletic Association people National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees

Career

Book

See also

References

External links