NCAA Tiptoes Toward Change in Compensating Student Athletes

ANAHEIM, Calif. — If you came to the NCAA convention here expecting to hear a bold, defined vision of the future of college athletics, well, you were naive going in and disappointed coming out.

The governing body of college sports doesn’t do bold. It tiptoes toward change, and only when pressed.

What we got in Anaheim was a lot of vague rhetoric about a willingness to evolve in the face of coast-to-coast legislative and legal pressure, and very little in the way of what those changes will look like. NCAA president Mark Emmert gave a speech Thursday night that acknowledged the criticism of his organization as “unfair” to the athletes. He said it’s up to the NCAA to fix itself, while also…