ESPN analyst Jay Bilas talks NCAA, amateurism at UNC conference

ESPN analyst Jay Bilas sure knows how to warm up a crowd.

In his opening remarks in one of three keynote addresses at the annual College Sport Research Institute Conference at the Friday Center, the former Duke basketball player asserted that he was responsible for more UNC wins against Duke than Michael Jordan.

“A lot of times I’ll come to visit (Chapel Hill) or a do a game here and people will come up and say to me, ‘You’re the only Duke guy I like,’” Bilas said. “My wife will say to me, ‘That’s a nice thing of that person to say.’

“I’ll tell her, ‘No it isn’t, it means I sucked as a player and they didn’t really sweat me.’”

But after the lighthearted anecdotes, Bilas was all business.

His address focused on the concept of amateurism as defined in NCAA bylaws.

The conference, which takes place through Saturday, is organized by first-year exercise and sport science graduate students. Attending undergraduates present academic research relevant to college sports, said Richard Southall, director of the conference.

Bilas said the concept defined by the NCAA is “phony” and instead, college athletes should be compensated for their work.

“We’ve created this fiction that players don’t have value … if the players don’t have any value, then why do we have to restrict them?” Bilas said. “They have tremendous value, and everybody knows it.

“It’s immoral for us to suggest that they don’t and to keep them capped when no other person in a university community is capped.”

As someone with experience in college athletics, Bilas also spoke to the necessary change in culture around the idea of a student athlete.

“The idea that we’re trying to sell — they’re students first and just happen to be athletes — that’s so stupid, nobody buys that,” Bilas said. “Why are we trying to sell it?”

Bilas told the crowd the only solutions to fix the complicated problems of the NCAA are by either a change in NCAA structure or a player strike.

Though both measures are drastic, he said, it may take such radical action before changes are made.

The controversial pay-to-play theory is a hot topic in college athletics and was a major factor in asking Bilas to come to the conference, graduate student organizer Brian Day said.

“In our first meeting, we discussed the biggest issues in college sports and having individuals who are involved in those conversations,” Day said. “Jay Bilas has been pretty vocal in those discussions.”

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