NCAA president visits Virginia Tech to discuss future of college athletics
NCAA President Charlie Baker joined Virginia Tech President Tim Sands and Athletics Director Brian White for a fireside chat on the changing landscape of college sports and the student-athlete experience.
NCAA President Charlie Baker visited Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus this week, spending time with university leadership, Virginia Tech Athletics, and student athletes, providing his perspective on the future of college sports.
Baker, who became NCAA president in March 2023 after serving two terms as governor of Massachusetts, spoke to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors on Tuesday, addressing the status of the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act of 2026, designed to stabilize college athletics amid major legal and structural changes. The U.S. Senate passed the act in September, but the bill faces an uphill battle in the House of Representatives.
“It creates a national standard around eligibility, which we do not have at the moment,” Baker said. “It gives you a transfer policy that makes sense and would apply to everybody, and there is a standard and rules for agent representation, which we currently don’t have either. To my way of thinking, you solve a whole bunch of issues.”
“If we can get some of this other stuff cleaned up and create stability that people are looking for generally, I think the future is actually quite bright [for the NCAA]. But the courts and the lack of any national rules on some of this stuff that can be enforced creates a ton of uncertainty and a lot of challenges for people that are looking to try and do things that I would describe as the right way.”
On Wednesday, Baker joined Virginia Tech President Tim Sands, who currently chairs the NCAA Division I Board of Directors, and Vice President and Director of Athletics Brian White for a fireside chat about the future of college athletics.
Baker remained optimistic about the eventual resolution of the current chaos in college sports, noting that “you’re still living in a world where, for the most part, sports are an investment that schools make in their community, their culture, and their student body.”
White, who joined Virginia Tech earlier this year, spoke about the need to maintain focus on the student-athlete experience.
"I don’t know that there’s an athletic director in the country that doesn’t believe strongly that the student-athlete experience is something we need to constantly be striving to improve,” White said. “It’s the right thing to do and it’s who we are.”
According to Sands, college athletics remains a significant and effective learning and development program for students.
“That’s why you see companies looking for student athletes as premium employees,” Sands said. “Because they come in with that ability to understand how to manage their time, how to drive themselves hard, how to be a leader and team member.”
Baker, who chatted and took selfies with a group of student athletes attending the event, said he feels a lot better about the future of the country when he “talks to the kids.”
“They’re smart, they’re motivated, they understand how to be part of a team, and they get the grind,” Baker said. “I think there’s a lot to being a student athlete that’s incredibly valuable and important societally.”
