A Jersey Guy: Baker could be right choice

It took Charlie Baker less than a day to focus on the key to success in his new job as President of the NCAA.

The out-going Massachusetts governor, who will officially replace Mark Emmert in March, spent much of his day in zoom conferences with the real power brokers of college athletics--the conference commissioners.

The problems facing the NCAA in college football and to a lesser extent in college basketball are wide spread and expanding.

Lack of direction by the NCAA in football and a failure to grasp hold of the new trends of Names, Image and Licensing and the transfer portal has turned big time college athletics into its perception: An out of control, money-grabbing entity, driven by one prime factor: money, money, money.

And we are talking BILLION dollar operations in basketball, where the NCAA tournament known as March Madness is a cash cow which feeds the entire membership and in football, which now resembles an outlaw community, basically leadership, where the rules of engagement with few consequences.

Added to this mixture is the political nature of the new look of major college athletics which is an NFL and NBA lite level of competition. Any talk of "amateurism'' and student-athlete'' should be left at the FCS and Division II and III level.

Emmert, for a variety of reasons, has left the NCAA in a strong financial situation, but in chaos in almost all other areas.

And the key element to success right now is familiar with the political geography.

Baker, as a two term REPUBLICAN governor, who maintained his popular status in a Democratic state, knows how to do this.

He is also a much better "people'' person than Emmert ever has been or can be.

"It's big and its complicated,'' conceded Baker last week when the announcement that he was the new NCAA president was made.. ""So have been a lot of things in my life, but most of the time, they were absolutely worth doing.''

Baker does not have to fiddle much with college basketball.

March Madness is arguably one of the greatest events in all sports.

Football is on the cusp of moving into another level with a 12-team playoff system.

The NCAA has backed or sprinted away from having anything to do with FBS football and it will remain in the background.

But Charie Baker can help by getting the Power 5 commissioners to get on the same page. If that happens, order will be re-stored and the sport can move into its next phase.

Saving the NCAA is worth doing for a variety of reasons.

There is nothing to suggest Charie Baker can't do that job.