Although Bill Muse is best known as the Hall of Fame basketball coach of the Connors State Cowboys, for the past 23 years he has also been the athletic director at Connors and so VYPE talked with him about some of the big changes in college athletics that have affected that side of his job in the past few years.
VYPE: What has been the biggest change and biggest challenge for you as an athletic director?
MUSE: “Funding our athletic program has continued to be the biggest challenge for me and most colleges big and small for the past several years. The cost of everything from equipment to travel and especially scholarships have gone up each year while the funding we receive from the state has not kept up. So it’s been on us to find ways through donors or fund raisers of some kind to help make up difference.”
VYPE: Let’s talk about the transfer portal and the impact that has had on college sports.
MUSE: “There’s no sense of loyalty to a program for kids to stay and there aren’t any rules to force them to, so it’s free reign to change schools anytime you want. Even at our level you used to be able to hold a student for a year or until they got a release but it’s hard to do that anymore with the threat of lawsuits hanging around. From a coach’s point of view, it’s frustrating to put in the effort to coach up a kid only to see them go somewhere else for a little more scholarship money or financial aid and now at the higher levels, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money plays a part in that.”
VYPE: So let’s talk about NIL. Do you see that filtering down to the junior college level?
MUSE: “We haven’t seen NIL become a problem at our level which to me makes junior college athletics the purest level of college sports there is today. These athletes are still practicing, still working to improve to get to the next level without the financial enticements of the big schools. I’m not sure I see NIL reaching the junior college level because the money just isn’t there and I don’t think it’s sustainable on the major college level they way it’s going. I am a little concerned that NIL may be leap frogging junior college and starting to filter down to the high school level because I’m hearing stories of high school NIL in some places.”
VYPE: The NCAA rules committee recently met and one change that seems to be gaining momentum is changing men’s basketball from playing halves to quarters like the women. What are your thoughts on that?
MUSE: “The idea of trying to get all of basketball on the same page has been discussed for some time and I really hate to see the game change. It seems every few years they’re tinkering with changes like the 3-point line, adding the restricted area under the basket and the use of the shot clock which started at 45 seconds, is now down to 30 and I think will probably drop to the NBAs 24 seconds before long. I really enjoy the game the way it is now, but I think eventually the men’s game will probably go to quarters.
