Charlie Baker brings fiery presence NCAA has long needed as president aims to keep organization relevant

LAS VEGAS — If the NCAA is evaporating into irrelevance, it is not going away quietly. Not with Charlie Baker, the association’s 67-year-old president, who for a brief moment Monday took the “pulpit” out of bully pulpit. 

“I was certainly trying to be calm and have a discussion [with Baker],” Collin Sherwin, college sports editor at DraftKings Network, told CBS Sports. “He clearly wanted to get something off his chest.”

Sherwin had just asked a question while attending a gambling panel during the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics annual convention at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Baker sat in the back row as a spectator before speaking to the convention’s attendees later in the day.

When Sherwin rose to question a panelist’s suggestion prop bets be banned in the new legal sports gambling landscape, Baker told Sherwin, “I couldn’t disagree more.”

Baker didn’t relent, being seen later in an agitated discussion with Sherwin that looked one-sided.

“No cussing [from Baker],” Sherwin said, “but I did get hit with a, Lleave the kids alone.'”

If NCAA membership wanted an engaged, aggressive leader after the rudderless tenure of Mark Emmert, they got their man. Charles Duane Baker Jr. is no wallflower. Say what you will about what has certainly become a diminished NCAA, but its leader has shown a quality rarely seen in the association’s history: a level-headed, intelligent, involved ability to lead. 

If the membership wanted a pugnacious Northeasterner with a broad political background and an agenda, they got that too. 

Baker took the stage Monday to address that NACDA convention to the strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” The symbolism could have been taken multiple ways as Mick Jagger sang,…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/charlie-baker-brings-fiery-presence-ncaa-has-long-needed-as-president-aims-to-keep-organization-relevant/

Author : Dennis Dodd

Publish date : 2024-06-12 15:40:49

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