Baylor President and NCAA Board of Governors Chair Linda A. Livingstone sits down with ADU’s Tai M. Brown at the 2025 NCAA Convention to discuss the evolution of athletics and its purpose within a higher education framework. Livingstone: “Athletics is a huge window into a campus – we talk about it being the front porch of a university – because it gets so much visibility, especially when you’re in an autonomy conference. It represents deeply our mission as an institution, our academic quality as an institution. It’s why at Baylor, we care deeply about the coaches that we hire, that they live out our mission… and then we want student-athletes that represent the broader mission and image of the university.”
Livingstone and Brown reflect on the emerging “transactional” environment student-athletes exist within due to issues such as the transfer portal and NIL as well as the pain points that environment creates for coaches and administrators who are seeking to offer an integrated experience for athletes. Livingstone also discusses the evolution of athlete identities as students transition out of competition from the perspective of a former student-athlete and parent of an athlete.
Livingstone and Brown wrap with insight into Livingstone’s leadership philosophy as the chair of the NCAA’s Board of Governors as well as a University president: “My role as a leader is to help ensure that the people that work with me and for me have the ability to do their job as well as they can; to remove barriers, to provide resources but also it’s to help facilitate the vision and direction of the institution so that the people that I work with know where to direct their attention and their time… A lot of my job is solving problems, to make life easier for other people in the organization.”
The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).
