Bennett Bows Out

 

“I am no longer the best coach to lead this program in this environment.”  

-Tony Bennett October 18, 2024 

 

Humility is one of Tony Bennett’s five pillars.  This morning that precept was on full display as Tony Bennett announced the reasons for his sudden retirement as the Virginia men’s basketball coach. Admitting that he no longer had the right mindset to lead the program, Bennett said, “when you know in your heart that it’s your time, it’s your time.” His time as Virginia’s most successful basketball coach ended this morning.  

 

The same issues with NIL and transfer rules that have driven other high profile college coaches into retirement have gotten the best of Tony Bennett.  His retirement is a huge blow to Virginia and to college basketball, really.  His style of play was not popular, and even Virginia fans have grumbled in recent years that his glacial pace unnecessarily hindered both his recruiting efforts and his team’s on-court success. Those same critics, however, will admit that Bennett is a great coach and a better person. In the slimy quagmire of college athletics, Bennett stood tall, above reproach, a beacon of rectitude, anchored by his faith. 

 

For most Virginia fans, the NIL and the transfer portal rules have existed as an abstract concept.   Sure, they knew that these new rules have upended college athletics and have had (mostly) unintended consequences that most see as harmful or even ruinous, but Virginia athletics seemed to be adjusting to the new realities wrought by these changes. Yesterday, for these same Virginia fans, the abstract became depressingly concrete. 

 

Did it have to be this way?  Of course not. As he turned Virginia’s program around with a systemic approach that allowed the Hoos to compete—and win—against the ACC’s heavyweights despite lesser talent, Virginia fans dared hope that the program had found it’s Coach K, a leader who would fall in love with Charlottesville and the school and make Virginia a lifetime job.  As the wins and championships piled up, those same Virginia fans nervously sweated out each offseason, as other schools and even the NBA inquired about his availability.  There was a collective exhale every time Tony said no, every time he signed a contract extension, every time he professed his love for Virginia, Charlottesville, and the gift of coaching and making a difference in the lives of young men.  

 

UVA didn’t lose Bennett to another school or to the NBA. It lost him because the current state of college basketball robbed him of the joy he got from coaching, mentoring, and competing. Bennett is a casualty of a broken business model. The NIL and portal rules have made coaching an almost untenable challenge for all but the coaches at the biggest schools with the most money. When Villanova’s Jay Wright retired a few years ago at the peak of his career,  he also cited the new landscape of college athletics as a determining factor.  Tony Bennett’s style and approach are in direct opposition to these new rules. He said so yesterday, calling himself “ a round peg in a square hole.”  Pundits had long speculated that he would be the next high profile coach to step away from the game. So, it was a huge relief when Bennett, after a very disappointing season that ended in a humiliating play-in loss to Colorado State, signed a contract extension in June that would keep him at Virginia until 2030, at least.  

 

As always, Bennett seemed to be leaning into the challenge.  His offseason portal efforts were deemed successful, and with the news that he would be tweaking his style to give his players a bit more freedom to play uptempo, it seemed that Virginia had weathered another storm. Bennett seemed motivated by the challenge to prove yet again that his critics were wrong and that the game had not passed him by.  Fans were optimistic.   

 

Then, the bombshell.  

 

The NCAA is discovering that the unintended consequences of these rules changes are driving some of the best coaches from the game.  While everyone is quick to blame the NCAA leadership, the fact is that thirty years of legal challenges to its structure have steadily undermined the NCAA’s ability to govern.  In June 2021, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that the NCAA’s prohibition against athlete compensation was in violation of antitrust law. Writing in Sports Illustrated about the decision, columnist Dan Murphy opined that the ruling “opens the door for future legal challenges that could deal a much more significant blow to the NCAA’s current business model.” The ruling upheld a lower court’s decision “that the NCAA was violating antitrust law by placing limits on the education-related benefits that schools can provide to athletes. The decision allows schools to provide their athletes with unlimited compensation as long as it is in some way connected to their education.”  In that same article, he further reported that “Justice Bret Kavanaugh published a concurring opinion that takes a harder line, suggesting that the NCAA’s rules that restrict any type of compensation—including direct payment for athletic accomplishments—might no longer hold up well in future antitrust challenges.” In that opinion Kavanaugh wrote that “the NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.” 

 

And therein lies the problem.  The NCAA’s business model is not intended to be like any other industry in America. As a non-profit organization, the NCAA is tasked with “regulating student athletics and organizing the athletic programs of its member schools and the 500,000 college athletes who compete annually in college sports.”  It is (was) a unique arrangement based on barter. In exchange for a scholarship and a forum in which to showcase their talents, athletes give those talents to their schools.  By way of definition, a scholarship generally provides the cost of tuition, room and board, a.k.a. rent and food, books, and sometimes living expenses.  

 

According to Wikipedia, “in its 2022-23 fiscal year, the NCAA generated $1.28 billion in revenue, $945 million of which came from airing rights to the Division 1 men’s basketball tournament.” And what does the NCAA do with that money? It uses those earnings to stage the various championships it conducts. “The money also is used for insurance coverage for the athletes, drug-testing programs, and other scholarship programs.”  Overall though, it distributes about 60% of that revenue to its member schools, who use it to fund their athletic programs, most of which produce limited revenue and are run at a substantial loss.  

 

As college athletics grew in popularity, so did the revenue. The athletes, many of whom struggled economically because most scholarships are partial and no scholarship covers all living costs, began eyeing the NCAA’s massive revenue pile and wondering if perhaps they shouldn’t be entitled to some of it.  Finally, in July 2009, former UCLA basketball standout Ed O’Bannon, who had played in the 1990s, filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, alleging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.  O’Bannon was moved to act after his likeness was used, without his permission or compensation, on the cover of an EA Sports basketball video game. Other athletes soon joined the suit and alleged that the “NCAA’s rules and bylaws operate as an unreasonable restraint of trade because they preclude FBS football players and Division 1 men’s basketball players from receiving any compensation—beyond the value of their athletic scholarships—for the use of their names, images, and likenesses in video games, live game telecasts, re-broadcasts, and archival game footage.” 

 

The case made it way through the courts and eventually, on August 8, 2014 the United States District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the athletes.  The case was appealed and partially affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  It was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued its above-noted unanimous decision on July 1, 2021.   The NCAA was effectively gutted.  

 

Emboldened by this judicial success, athletes went back to the courts to push for reforms to transfer rules.  The case, Ohio et al. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, also alleged that NCAA policies regarding transfers were an antitrust violation. The NCAA settled this case in May 2024, granting collegiate athletes the ability “to choose the institutions that best meet their academic, personal and professional development needs,” said Jonathan Kanter, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division.  

 

Taken together, these two rulings completely upended the structure upon which the NCAA’s amateur competition model had been built.  Power has shifted almost completely from the schools and coaches to the athletes.  Acknowledging that he was better equipped to coach “the old way,” Tony Bennett lamented that, in his view, “the game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot.” He along with many, have called for government legislation to provide order to the chaos currently in place.  Specifically, Bennett mentioned collective bargaining, salary pool restrictions for teams, transfer regulation controls, and agent involvement limits as potential solutions.  

 

Any changes will not be easily effected and surely will face court challenges from the athletes who have benefitted from these judicial triumphs.  The question remains, however, whether these triumphs will ultimately be ruinous to the amateurism concept that is at the heart of college athletics.  What is certain though is that Tony Bennett’s retirement is a fairly damning indictment of current policies and huge loss for college basketball.  He was a unicorn who won—and won often—doing it his way, a way that garnered respect even while being criticized as unwatchable.  We won't see his like again. Not in this environment, anyway.