As a long-time supporter of the university, a true believer in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and other fine academic programs here, and an SU sports fan since Ernie Davis graduated from my high school, I am sad, angry but not surprised at the latest troubles in our basketball enterprise. For many years, this SU sport in particular, though not exclusively, has needed leaders inspired by Maxwell’s iconic Oath of the Athenian City State — committed to leaving the university a better place than they found it.

There is no defense for the grossly misplaced athletic values Syracuse has tolerated: neither the sports practices of other universities, the deficiencies of the NCAA, nor big financial rewards. Those are excuses for the absence of leadership that values education above all else and have the courage to pursue genuine reform. The deeply flawed character of SU basketball is particularly harmful in the current environment of severe challenges to traditional universities, especially those not among the elite institutions. With a sense of urgency, then, I hope the new chancellor and the board of trustees at last will take aggressive, sweeping actions consistent with the good governance expected of leaders when the reputation and work of their organizations are in jeopardy.

In my 40 years of professional experience with many companies large and small, as well as various philanthropic, educational and military institutions, I have learned that sound cultural values, and respect for them, depend most heavily on the expectations created by senior leadership that truly cares about high standards, refusing to accept rationalization or obliviousness as excuses for violating them, especially more than once. I have also learned that times of trouble generate the opportunity for an organization to emerge stronger than it was, with a greatly enhanced reputation. But that positive outcome requires leaders to take dramatic action, unencumbered by risk-averseness, endless studies, task forces and “academic time.”

I believe Syracuse should move rapidly to become a new, uniquely principled model for big-time college sports programs everywhere. That would reflect the best of the university’s history as a force for progressive change, symbolized by the establishment of the country’s first — and one of its most preeminent — graduate schools of public service, post-war openness to Jewish students, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy and much, much more that distorted athletic values endanger.

Walter Montgomery ’67