As my 2025-26 term as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on an era of unprecedented transformation. Driven by the realities of the House settlement, revenue sharing, NIL legislation, and the transfer portal, the landscape of college athletics has fundamentally shifted, continuing to evolve into what is being called “The Modern Era” of intercollegiate athletics. What I have learned/experienced from many conversations with student athletes, coaches, athletics directors, chancellors, presidents, and higher education practitioners across the country is that waiting for the dust to settle is no longer a viable strategy.

Institutions must proactively engineer modern, sustainable systems capable of adapting to the rapidly changing economics and governance structures reshaping higher education and intercollegiate athletics. To navigate this new paradigm, athletic departments must reconnect structurally with the broader academic mission of their universities. In our own attempt to control what we can control institutionally to meet the critical needs of financial sustainability, academic and athletic success, we (NIU) are looking forward to our transition into the Mountain West in football and gymnastics, Horizon League for the majority of our Olympic sport offerings, with wrestling in the Pac-12, all happening July 1, 2026.

As commercialization accelerates, there is a growing temptation to treat college athletics as a stand-alone professional enterprise. That would be a mistake. The better description is quasi-professional: College athletics increasingly looks, feels, and operates like a professional sports enterprise in certain respects, but it remains embedded in higher education, shared governance,........

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