2011

NCAA in the Middle

October 25, 2011 by John Infante

The day there is substantial news from one of the people or organizations committed to reforming the NCAA always seems like a red letter day for the reforms and a black letter day for the NCAA. If that is the case, Monday was doubly so, as the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics questioned President Emmert at a meeting in Washington D.C. and the National Collegiate Players’ Association announced it had gathered 300 signatures on a petition for a very specific change to the NCAA in a pilot program.

Except days like this highlight the biggest obstacles for NCAA reformers: other reformers.

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics has, since 1989, pursued the mission of “ensuring that intercollegiate athletics programs operate within the educational mission of their colleges and universities.” The most recent report from the Knight Commission asks for transparent financial statements, greater focus on academics, and reducing commercialism. In the view of the Knight Commission, the continuum of ideas about college athletics looks like this:

Knight Commission <—————————> NCAA

The National Collegiate Players’ Association has, since 2001, pursued a mission of “providing the means for college athletes to voice their concerns and change NCAA rules.” The NCPA’s most recent study on cost of attendance and athletic scholarships recommended that new TV revenue flow to athletes, scholarship commitments be increased, and athletes be allowed to explore commercial opportunities. In the view of the NCPA, the continuum of ideas about college athletics looks like this:

NCPA <—————————> NCAA

But in the view of the NCAA, a view that is closer to reality, the situation really looks like this:

NCPA <———— NCAA ————> Knight Commission

The NCAA sits in between those pushing for a more professional college sports environment and those yearning for a deemphasis on competition and greater focus on academics. The two sides cannot see each other, cannot collaborate with each other, and cannot debate each other. The NCAA ends up standing in as the advocate for both sides as often as it is their opponent.

If reform is presented as a competition, battle, or zero-sum game, any victory will be a fleeting one. Once someone “beats” the NCAA (whatever that means), they have to contend with another opponent, who not only wants to unwind all the recent victories, but go even further in the opposite direction than the NCAA ever did. Not to mention this new foe will be motivated by seeing, in their eyes, an even worse version of college athletics than before.

There is a persistent myth in college athletics that it can be “fixed”. That there are some set of reforms which once enacted will solve every problem forever. This myth is embodied in the claims that major reforms to bedrock NCAA principles are uncontroversial tweaks and that only two rules or ten commandments are need to keep college athletics in line.

It is far more likely that we are entering an extended period of upheaval and change, which historically last for around 20 years in the NCAA. The first, the rise of intercollegiate athletics itself, created the NCAA. The second surrounded the academic scandals and point-shaving of the 1940s and 1950s, culminating in a dramatic showdown over the Sanity Code. And more recently the 1970s and ’80s were consumed by which initial eligibility standard to use, who would govern women’s athletics, and how to clean up rampant cheating. College athletics runs in 15–20 years cycles of change and stability. It would be noteworthy if intense debate had not come up now or in the near future.

The major difference in the current cycle is the relative influence of outside factors, including would-be reformers. The NCAA has shown that, like an extended family, it can fight amongst itself and come out stronger on the other side. Surviving a twenty-year tug of war between different vision of college athletics is something altogether different.

The better model is that the NCAA, proponents of professional college athletics, and members of the academy (roughly the three big groups) be the three legs of a stool rather than three points along a line. Without one the other two fall over, and balance is always a little tricky. And all three are connected by a single purpose. Issues like realignment, budget disparities, and student-athlete welfare are not going away anytime soon. No sense in seeking an imaginary victory in a fight that can never be won.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: reform

Different Country, Same Questions

October 21, 2011 by John Infante

One of the biggest recent successes of the NCAA is that the message is finally getting across that there is no such thing as “The NCAA”. There is an organization headquartered in Indianapolis with those initials. But when it comes to how college athletics is regulated and controlled, the national office is just one part of a larger network that is populated largely by member schools but which also includes conferences and coaches associations.

Now that the NCAA has convinced many to zoom in and take a closer look at the actual structure of college athletics, the next goal for the NCAA should be to convince the public to zoom out and look at the NCAA as simply one part of an even larger system. That system, messy at its best and corrupt at its worse, is the one that takes millions of children from their first experience playing sports and eventually produces a few hundred or few thousand world class athletes.

Plans for significant NCAA reform generally make two assumptions. First, that college athletics should continue as the primary method for developing professional or Olympic athletes. And second, that the effect of changes in college athletics on youth athletics can or should be ignored. The result is that many reform plans are like engineers tasked with making a car go faster, but only by focusing on the engine, not the entire vehicle.

College athletics, as currently constructed, has a lot of advantages. It broadens the talent base. It requires athletes to make progress toward a career as a non-athlete. It funds a high level of coaching and support for many athletes through university subsidies and fan interest that is unrivaled in what is ultimately a U–23 youth league.

It has its drawbacks though. Mixing class and practice limits the amount of time athletes can train. Those large subsidies come at a time when many universities are strapped for cash. Scholastic and intercollegiate sports are almost universally tied to a system of amateurism as well.

Because the NCAA is often viewed as representative of all athletic development in the US, a lot of the failings of our development system are attributed to our peculiar attachment to high-level sports run by schools and the traditional attachment to amateurism that has come along with it. But across the pond they’re struggling with the same issues.

The Football League has agreed to adopt the Elite Player Performance Plan, which was developed by the Premier League (they are actually separate entities). The plan takes the current two designations of youth football teams (Academy and Centre of Excellence) and breaks it into four levels. Level 1 will require a budget of at least £ 2.5 million and 18 full-time staff members. In exchange for that investment, clubs have no limits on the time young players can spend in training (currently limited to 3–5 hours per week) and no limit on where players can come from (currently limited to within a 60–90 minute commute from the training ground).

That comes along with a standardized compensation system when youth players move to new clubs, with much lower initial payments and higher payments if the player becomes a productive professional for the first team.

The plan was initially met with a furious reaction from the smaller clubs, who described a parade of horribles that should sound familiar to college sports fans. Bigger clubs would gobble up all the young players, either by scouring the country for schoolboys or poaching players from the smaller clubs on the cheap. Getting passed over by a big club early would be more harmful to a youngster’s pro prospects, so the fear is agents will become prevalent for nine and ten year-olds. And a valuable source of income for some teams will go away as it will be much harder to be a feeder club, one that develops good young pros, then selling them to the richer teams.

The questions are the same in England and the US. Where should potential pros get the bulk of their playing time? Should talent be widely distributed or concentrated in a few large organizations? Is playing for a local team in meaningful games better for development that the advantages that the big boys can provide? What is the appropriate time for young athletes to start thinking about agents and contracts, salary and bonuses?

All those questions need to be asked here directly instead of through coming up with ideas about how the NCAA should operate. The NCAA is just one piece of the puzzle in the career of an elite athlete. It is time to think about that whole career and the NCAA’s place in it. Or at the very least to think about how changes to the NCAA affect the rest of that path.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: agents, amateurism, reform

Athletic Departments Under Attack

October 11, 2011 by John Infante

When the NCAA announced it was embarking on significant reform, it presented an opening for others to present their own reform ideas. When plans for reform started piling up from faculty members looking to rein in college athletics and the media and student-athlete advocates arguing for the professionalization of college athletics, it was not out of the realm of possibility that the NCAA would become the victim of its own reform movement. But a recent and disturbing trend is attacking something more basic and fundamental than the NCAA. Rather than going after the NCAA as an organism, would-be reformers are challenging the cells themselves: the athletic department.

Oddly enough, it was a student-athlete advocacy group, the National College Players Association that first lent credence to the idea:

The FBS non-revenue team expenses show that these schools spend far more than what’s necessary to field these teams. BCS schools spend an average of about $350,000 more on each non-revenue team when compared to FCS schools. FBS schools average 18 non-revenue generating teams per campus, which means they spend an average of about $6.3 million/year more than FCS schools on non-revenue generating sports. Schools often question where they would find the money to increase athletic scholarships. But to put this in perspective, if those excess expenditures were evenly divided among 85 scholarship football players and 13 scholarship basketball players, each player would receive about $64,000 without reducing any non-revenue generating players’ scholarship or their teams.

Jay Bilas asks about representation of not just athletes from revenue sports, but elite athletes from revenue sports:

Just one athlete per working group does not seem to allow the athlete much of a voice in the process, and one can reasonably question whether the actual experience of the typical “revenue-producing” athlete is fairly represented, let alone the views of the elite revenue-producing athlete.

The NCPA and Bilas nibble at the edges. Cutting back on non-scholarship expenses and ensuring that football and men’s basketball athletes with professional prospects are represented are one thing and raise serious questions about what the role of athletics should be in a university. But what Frank Deford is arguing is something else entirely:

I’m all for the wonderful intrinsic values of sport: exercise and competition and team spirit, but especially in these parlous economic times, it would make much more monetary sense to conduct minor college sports on an intramural basis. Would the universities’ educational mission be diminished any by that decision? Would good student applicants reject them for lack of league lacrosse games? Come on.

This sounds like it could have been written by one of the professors from Rutgers that had their phone service cut off, as Deford mentions. This does not:

All the worse, the current national model has it that some impoverished kid from the inner city risks concussions and obesity to play football in order to pay for the scholarship of a javelin thrower and the salary of an assistant swimming coach and the plane fare for the volleyball team.

Let’s address these ideas one by one.

No one is suggesting that athletic subsidies are not controversial and should not be approached cautiously. But for professors facing budget cuts and students going deeper into debt to while athletics keeps or increases subsidies, does it matter where the money goes? I doubt it makes the student or the instructors feel better when they are asked to do more with less if the money flows to the football program rather than the women’s basketball team.

As far student-athlete representation, it is the representation of elite athletes rather than representation of all athletes that would make a major difference. In his wildly popular and well-reviewed critique of the NCAA, Taylor Branch offered giving student-athletes a 20% vote as a change that would have wide-ranging impact on many facets of college athletics. Except last year, even if student-athletes had more votes than the Big Ten, Pac–12, and SEC combined, there was no legislative issue where that many votes would have changed the outcome and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee’s position differed from the Legislative Council’s final vote. To get major change, that 20% vote would need to represent only the opinions of a tiny fraction of student-athletes.

When someone pitches the idea of defunding nonrevenue sports or reverting them to intramural status, it undermines their claim that they believe in the value of elite athletic competition. High-level athletics either have intrinsic and/or academic value or they do not. To suggest that the only athletes and sports deserving of investment by universities are those that can produce revenue strips athletics of any intrinsic value, just like saying the only majors a college should offer are ones that draw enough donations and research dollars to support themselves.

This is what President Mark Emmert meant when he said college athletics are not a business. Changing conferences to grow revenue might make business sense, but not if that money is used to keep the wrestling team from being cut or to fully fund scholarships for rowers. President Emmert’s comment was somewhat aspirational, as he acknowledged the frenzy of the deal seemed to be overtaking more important considerations.

Even Division I members struggle with this issue. A lot of administrative furniture is being hastily rearranged to increase the maximum value of a scholarship. This will primarily benefit athletes who are already receiving full scholarships in sports with the largest budgets. But Division I financial aid rules still require a student-athlete who is not getting already getting tuitions, fees, room, board and books to give up aid that has nothing to do with athletics because [it counts against team limits][7]. It is an issue that Division I has gone back and forth on as much as cost-of-attendance, but which occurs is under the radar since it rarely, if ever, affects football or men’s basketball. That discussion is being put on hold for now in order to provide more for revenue sport athletes.

As often as college athletics is taken to task for looking like a profit-seeking enterprise, it gets chastised just as often for not acting like a business. As the NCAA seeks to blend higher education with elite athletics that people just so happen to be [willing to pay a lot of money to watch][7], there will always be that tension.

The goal of Division I should be to constantly expand and improve athletic and educational opportunities for student-athletes. That means all student-athletes. It means not resting on the laurels of the full grant-in-aid or APR. By the same token, it means bringing more and more sports up to the same level of financial aid and support that the revenue sports enjoy. But what it absolutely does not mean is dismantling or gutting athletic departments to feed two teams.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: basketball, Football, nonrevenue sports, reform

No Good Solution to Unofficial Visit Issues

October 7, 2011 by John Infante

There’s really no need to rehash Pete Thamel’s excellent article on some of the problems caused by the unofficial visit. In the bylaws, an unofficial visit is:

An unofficial visit to a member institution by a prospective student-athlete is a visit made at the prospective student-athlete’s own expense. The provision of any expenses or entertainment valued at more than $100 by the institution or representatives of its athletics interests shall require the visit to become an official visit, except as permitted in Bylaws 13.5 and 13.7.

Official visits, those financed by the institution, do not start until a prospect starts their senior year of high school. Even then, a prospect gets five official visits and only one to each school. And in football, basketball, and baseball, an institution is limited in how many official visits it can provide each year.

Thamel’s article does not present many good solutions for solving the unofficial visit issue. One idea thrown out that is getting discussion this year is allowing official visits to begin at some time during the junior year. That might help some, cutting down on big “junior day” weekends that look a lot like official visit events and draw prospects from around the country, raising questions about how they paid for it. But with only five visits and one chance to see a school, the official visit is not the answer without significantly raising recruiting costs.

The reason the unofficial visit is such a vexing problem is that many coaches and recruits are fond of early commitments. There are a lot of coaches who are good at recruiting, but far fewer who truly enjoy it. Most would prefer to wrap up a couple classes as soon as possible so they can focus on the players who have already enrolled. Parents want the best situation or most money (in equivalency sports) for their child, so starting early gives them a leg up. Not to mention some recruits do not enjoy the process, and get it over with as soon as possible.

This gives an advantage to a recruit who has a family with means and sophistication to be proactive in the recruiting process. Until a recruit finishes their sophomore year, it is hard (within the rules) for a coach to reach out to them. Coaches can express their interest to high school or club coaches and show up regularly at the prospect’s games. But it is largely up to the prospect to call the coach and potentially visit the campus on their own dime in order to secure a scholarship offer and make a commitment.

To erase this advantage, prospects are turning to parties willing to finance an unofficial visit. That could be the institution paying under the table, the prospect’s coach, a handler, or a family friend. Sometimes it seems the prospect is almost an unwilling or unknowing participant in the visit, not realizing that their road trip with their club team is primarily a tour of schools that may or may not have paid for the opportunity.

The unofficial visit is such a hard problem to solve because both the solutions are unappealing. Deregulate the official visit sufficiently and you drag prospects out of school with alarming regularity and raise the cost of recruiting a great deal. Deregulate who can pay for visits and prospects who cannot afford their own visits are at the mercy of those willing to foot the bill. It might just be one of those rules that we have to live with and that has to give a few schools some lumps before monitoring catches up with the tricks.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: recruiting, violations

A COA Q&A

September 29, 2011 by John Infante

It appears no recent NCAA rule change has caught the imagination of the public quite like a possible increase of scholarship limits to cover unitemized expenses in the cost of attending a school. While a new reform movement is underway, cost of attendance is an old friend. Cost of attendance scholarships were last formally proposed in 2002 (Proposal 2002–83-B), but were defeated in favor of allowing athletes to receive other financial aid to cover the gap between a full grant-in-aid and cost of attendance (Proposal 2002–83-A).

Prior to now, it was hard to come up with on opinion of cost of attendance scholarships because we had no idea what the proposal would be. It could have been a relatively minor change to address revenue sports. Or it could have been an exotic proposal for only full scholarship athletes that would have dramatically changed recruiting in equivalency sports. Without knowing what the proposal was among 5–7 options, all you could do was be in favor of the idea in principle or not.

After the presidential retreat, the Board of Directors appointed working groups to address certain issues. In October, the BoD will hear recommendations from the group focused on student-athlete well being. A member of that group, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, let slip what the group was working on. On that note, here’s a Q&A on where the issue stands.

Q: What is the proposal?

A: The proposal is to increase the limit on athletic scholarships from tuition, fees, room, board, and books to the lesser of the cost of attendance or the current limit plus $2,000. In equivalency sports, the amount of the $2,000 would be prorated. The proposal would also be on a conference basis, meaning that a conference would likely need to adopt a conference rule to authorize its members to use the increased scholarship limits.

Q: Are there still some unknowns?

A: Yes. One question is how much freedom coaches in equivalency sports would have. The amount is prorated, but there is no indication if coaches have to give it to athletes. Two examples to compare:

A full grant-in-aid is $20,000. A women’s soccer student-athlete receives a $10,000 scholarship. The student-athlete receives an additional $1,000 per year under the new proposal.
A full grant-in-aid is $20,000. A women’s soccer student-athlete receives a $10,000 scholarship. The student-athlete receives no additional aid, but the coach has an additional $30,000 (15 x $2,000) to give to other athletes.

Another question is whether athletes will always get cash. A full scholarship football player would get $2,000 unless he has parking tickets or overdue books on his account. But does our women’s soccer athlete above get $1,000 cash, or just another $1,000 toward tuition?

Q: How much would it cost?

Because the proposal covers all sports, cost depends on how many sports an institution sponsors. Stanford’s associate AD of business strategy and revenue enhancement estimated it would cost the school $750,000. Stanford runs the largest athletic department in the country, so that number might be considered to be something of a maximum.

To figure out a rough estimate of cost, we need to figure out the average athletic department. The NCAA’s membership report has the average number of men’s and women’s sports sponsored by FBS, FCS, and non-football institutions. The NCAA’s sport sponsorship and participation report lists which sports are sponsored by the most institutions. So combining the two, we can figure out an “average” athletic department and estimate the costs based on scholarship limits. And those costs are:

FBS: $504,400
FCS: $436,400
Non-Football: $282,400

Obvious in those figures is the effect of football. An FBS football team can expect an increased scholarship bill of up to $170,000 while an FCS program should set aside $126,000. The range for athletic departments that fully fund all their teams would probably be somewhere between $200,000 and $750,000.

Q: What about four-year scholarships?

A: The same working group is also working on a multi-year scholarship proposal. Swarbrick’s comments suggest that four-year scholarships are on the same fast track as the cost of attendance proposal.

Q: What is the next step?

A: The Board of Directors will take up both proposals in October. Most likely is that the Board will forward proposals to the membership for a vote in January. Given the widespread support from both presidents and athletic directors, passage seems likely. The BoD could choose to skip the Legislative Council and adopt the proposals as emergency or noncontroversial legislation. That seems unlikely since the proposal is not one of minimal impact and more debate could improve the proposal. And given the proposal would most likely apply to the next round of scholarships (2012–13) at the earliest, undue hardship is not likely if adoption occurs in January vs. October.

Q: What do you think of the cost of attendance proposal?

A: The reason cost of attendance was not adopted sooner is the wide variations in the gap between cost of attendance and a full grant-in-aid. The National College Players Association calculated gaps of $200 to almost $11,000. The number also represents an amount of cash that athletes will receive and is thought to be subject to manipulation, although that would have far-reaching consequences for all other students at the institution.

A person’s opinion on this proposal is telling as to their attitude toward the NCAA. Ultimately the proposal means more financial aid for student-athletes. This is a good thing. Division I should continually work to provide as much financial aid for as many athletes as possible, so this is just one step in a process that should never end.

College athletics will not be perfected overnight. If that is the measure of NCAA reform, the NCAA is set up for failure. This proposal moves Division I closer to providing the proper amount of financial support for athletes. It does not go all the way, but it is a big step closer. To reject the proposal as inadequate and evidence of the NCAA’s corruption or apathy is to hold the NCAA and its members to an impossibly high standard.

Q: What about the multi-year scholarship idea?

A: It is harder to have an opinion on the multi-year scholarship proposal since there are so few details. There is one reason for pessimism though and it is this quote from Swarbrick:

“The process for nonrenewal of an annual grant probably would look just like the process for terminating a four-year grant.”

That means that a scholarship could be cancelled between years for any reason, just like a scholarship could be nonrenewed for any reason. Multi-year scholarships only work if cancellation is subject to at least the same conditions as canceling a scholarship during the year now. That can only be done for one of five reasons:

The student-athlete renders him- or herself ineligible for competition;
The student-athlete is guilty of gross misconduct;
The student-athlete lies to the university;
The student-athlete quits the team; or
The student-athlete violates a non-athletic, non-medical condition in the scholarship agreement.

Unless these conditions are kept for multi-year scholarships, the change is mostly administrative. Scholarships would not need to be renewed from year to year, but could be cancelled in between academic years. It would be a net loss for student-athlete welfare, since currently the actual contract an athlete or prospect signs must be for one year only.

Four years is also a bit of a red herring. After one year, five years, six years, or until graduation make the most sense. The five-year clock is the most important eligibility rule in Division I, and six years is the federal standard for earning a bachelor’s degree. But four years is no less arbitrary than $2,000 and under the right circumstances would be as much an improvement for student-athletes, so I will not complain about four vs. five vs. six.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: cost of attendance, financial aid, reform

Realignment’s Effect on the NCAA

September 19, 2011 by John Infante

Conference realignment in the NCAA has generally resulted in more conferences. When the Southwest Conference folded, Conference USA was created out of it. The Mountain West Conference was created when the Western Athletic Conference (the original 16 team football conference) split in two. Conference movement is a constant across all of Division I. Since 1985, only 1992–93 saw no conference movement.

A lot of how the NCAA works seems to be geared toward steady growth in member institutions and member conferences. When the size of Division I grows, a lot of things happen almost automatically. Tournaments expand, the governance structure grows and shifts, and the administrative needs of Division I are reassessed.

When the number of conferences shrink, what happens is less clear. Nothing needs to happen. If a conference disappears, but not its member institutions, that just means another at-large bid is available to tournaments where the conference qualified for automatic qualification. The conference can be removed from the governance structure, which may not even affect all committees and cabinets. This is a feature of the way the NCAA operates. This allows the very autonomous institutions of the NCAA to shift around without toppling the structure above.

The current events may necessitate action. The conferences that might cease to exist would be among the largest and most powerful conferences in the governance structure. At some point realignment driven by football may be deemed to be too much for multi-sport conferences and the idea of an institution being a member of one conference for most sports could end.

Votes in the Legislative Council would be substantially changed. If the number of large FBS conferences dropped to four, it would mean that without another change, six votes are lost in the Legislative Council. The four superconferences would have a majority on FBS issues and one would assume be able to vote as a bloc more effectively with four rather than six constituencies. But on issues facing all of Division I, the FBS conference would lose their majority. All 20 FCS and non-football conferences would need to be united and it would only be a small majority, but it would be a shift in the delicate balance.

The way votes are distributed amongst the Division I conferences means consensus tends to rule the day. The Legislative Council rarely votes on “party line” and legislation is rarely adopted via a close vote. Generally a consensus is found or proposals are modified before going to a coin-flip vote. There’s value to maintaining the current legislative structure and distribution of votes since it has seemed to produce a legislative process that serves the needs of the greatest number of institutions. It also appears good for student-athletes. In 2010–11, the Legislative Council voted against the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee position only three times.

Going back to institutional voting would radically change how the NCAA is governed but it might be necessary. Voting would be less about consensus and more about majorities since the same type of debate would be impossible. One could see the end of the Legislative Council as a voting body, with institutions getting together to discuss legislation (formally or informally) but voting and institutional positions managed online. Groups like NACDA (and its affiliates) and coaches associations would become more important in developing legislative positions.

If multi-sport conferences disappear, that could mean more conferences than institutions, as every sport looks to rebuild the structure provided by today’s conferences. Conference based governance would be impossible, changing the relationship between the NCAA and its members. Without a middleman, the NCAA would deal with institutions on an individual basis. That would roll back the delegation of some functions to conferences, like administering medical hardship waivers (a.k.a medical redshirts) and the reporting of the most minor violations.

Pretty much everyone in college athletics wishes this round of conference realignment is over. With such major changes possible, the hope is that a period of stability will follow. I agree with President Emmert that an “NCAA Commissioner” deciding who will be in what conference is not likely and not a positive. There might be a role for the NCAA to establish a more formal, national process for when and how institutions change conference affiliation.

Once the dust settles on conference realignment though, the effect at the national level needs to be sorted out. That means this is both an opportunity for major change and unanswered questions presenting a possible hurdle to reform. Either way, these conference changes are more likely to be the first act rather than the final one.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: conferences, governance, realignment, reform

NCPA Presents Good Question, Hints At More Radical Change

September 14, 2011 by John Infante

The struggle over whether to pay college athletes is relatively simple. Or at least, it is compared to the struggle over what to pay college athletes. Proposals to allow a greater degree of compensation to college athletes are a dime a dozen and it is easy to find objections to a specific proposal. This is actually a positive. It means the NCAA is getting enough right that it is hard to change and please a substantial majority of people.

The recently released study by the National College Players Association and Drexel University’s Department of Sports Management is one of the most detailed and well-executed pay-for-play proposals in recent memory. It offers a detailed plan that addresses multiple issues. It offers a plan to see these reforms turned into actual change. And it offers no shortage of data in support of the proposal.

However, the NCPA paints a very different vision for Division I athletics that most college athletes, fans, and administrators are used to. In making a series of assumptions, the NCPA study embraces a cynicism that is hard to go along with even given the quality of the proposal and the data to support it. If the NCPA wants its proposal to be taken seriously by stakeholders in the NCAA and the rest of college athletics, it must address these issues.

Major League Pay in the Minor Leagues

One of the tried and true criticisms of the NCAA is that the association is operating minor leagues for the NFL and NBA, either through implict acceptance or outright conspiracy. Which is why I find it confusing that alternate revenue models default to collectively bargained revenue sharing agreements that are only common in the major leagues. I’ve covered this issue before, but if any pay-for-play system developed in college athletics, it seems more likely it would resemble minor league or developmental pay, rather than major league pay.

Calling a collectively bargained revenue split “the free market” is also something of a misnomer, especially when citing a number that was simply offered one side in a negotiation. A collective bargaining agreement restricts the free market in order to make it a more competitive market. In a free market, the Miami Heat might have paid the Big Three more and had a different and better compensated supporting cast.

Finally, the study does not address a very important exception to the NBA and NFL revenue splits. High school seniors–and in the NFL college freshmen and sophomores–are offered 0% of the revenue. No matter what the NCAA is offering, it is better than nothing. Absent evidence that the NCAA wanted this situation and helped bring it about, that discrepancy must be addressed before anointing the results of a CBA process as fairer than the NCAA legislative process where student-athletes do have a voice, whether you belief it is sufficient or not.

The True Value of Being a Student-Athlete

The NCPA study takes pains to focus the conversation on the immediate status of student-athletes. This prevents the pay-for-play debate from moving into the realm of the value of an education or the dollar figure that should be attached to instruction from coaches. It makes for a much simpler and more practical debate.

The study takes the value of room and board, essentially the living expenses provided to student-athletes, and measures it against the national poverty line. The study generally finds a full scholarship wanting. However, the study did not take into account the additional financial aid or benefits that are available to student-athletes, not counting the portion of the NCAA’s revenue distribution earmarked for student-athletes (that is a seperate issue).

In addition to room and board, student-athletes receive a number of other benefits. While institutions cannot provide clothing at their discretion, what is available to student-athletes for “practice or competition” is interpreted rather broadly. When a student-athlete is on the road or starting the night before a home game, meals can be provided. Not to mention that a full-grant in aid covers the academic year (typically 8–9 months) while the poverty line is based on the entire year and the other months (semester and summer break) can be covered by another source (vacation period expenses or summer aid).

On top of that, there is additional aid. Federal grants, state grants, scholarships, and need-based aid. All of this helps fill the gap between a full grant-in-aid and the cost of attendance. Admittedly, the best organization to undertake a comprehensive study of what full scholarship student-athletes are paying out of pocket taking into account this additional “income” is the NCAA. And while the NCAA should make that study a priority (and likely will given that the membership is currently debating this issue), that does not mean these sources of financial aid and basic necessities for student-athletes can be ignored.

The Cure Cannot Be As Bad As The Disease

One source of assistance for student-athletes in meeting the gap between the full grant-in-aid and cost of attendance is the Student Assistance Fund. The study is dismissive of the SAF, claiming it is an element of control over student-athletes.

It is entirely reasonable to say the SAF is not enough, and could not be enough no matter how well-funded. It is also reasonable to disagree with the SAF regulations, which allow the money to spent on student-athletes in ways other than providing direct benefits to individual athletes. It is even reasonable to suggest that institutions should direct more of the SAF money to revenue-sport athletes, although I vehemently disagree with that position.

It is not reasonable to not give the NCAA and its members credit for the SAF. If the scholarship gap is a practical problem, millions of dollars that can go to student-athletes to fill that gap cannot be discredited or worse vilified. It puts the NCAA in an impossible Catch–22. Provide the money and the NCAA is a “welfare state” using the money to control student-athletes. Don’t provide the money and the NCAA is hoarding revenue that student-athletes helped earn. Outside income is either a philosophical issue separate from the scholarship gap or the scholarship gap is not a practical student-athlete welfare issue. It cannot be both.

Defunding Non-Revenue Sports

I have to start by giving credit where credit is due. Most arguments for NCAA reform fail right off the bat because they have not considered basic questions about what college athletics should look like. How many schools should be in the top level of college athletics? How many sports should they sponsor? How many athletes should be competing on the same level for the same rewards?

The NCPA has thought about these questions. While it is not explicit, the focus on the scholarship gap suggests the NCPA does not mind a smaller Division I. While I may be reading too much into this and other NCPA studies, it seems reasonable to say the organization believes institutions in Division I should be able to fully finance their student-athlete’s educations. What is explicit is how many sports institutions should be sponsoring at the highest level, in this case men’s basketball, football, and just enough women’s sports to meet the school’s legal obligation under Title IX.

Saying institutions should only invest in non-revenue sports what is legally required or the bare minimum necessary to field a team is asking the NCAA and its members to embrace a cynical view of intercollegiate athletics. That college sports should be run as a profit-maximizing enterprise and under-performing business units shuttered or defunded.

That claim requires more than simply a statement that concludes non-revenue sports are lavish excesses. To justify taking money away from programs where coaches rarely make millions and where new money is often spent improving the student-athlete experience, you need an explanation of why only football and men’s basketball players deserve a well-funded, elite athletic experience.

Small Reforms, Massive Tweaks

The NCPA’s report is one of the better and more detailed studies of economic issues facing student-athletes. It has shortcomings but those do not detract from the larger point. Colleges could provide more to their student-athletes within the principles the NCAA has established. Of the reforms offered, the NCAA has committed to exploring all but two: deregulation of athletically related income and Congressional action (which if the current reform movement bears fruit would not be necessary).

As soon as non-revenue sports are presented as a source of funding for these reforms, this ceases to be about fixing one system and becomes a call for a new system. One where expanding opportunities for women, training Olympic athletes, and providing educational opportunities for more athletes is seen as a negative. It is no longer about holding the NCAA accountable for the association’s own mission. It is about fundamentally changing college athletics. When the two are confused, no honest or productive conversation about reform can occur.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: amateurism, financial aid, reform

“Untouchables” Still a Bit Unobtainable

September 9, 2011 by John Infante

After Yahoo! Sports released its investigative report of the alleged extra benefits and recruiting scandal at Miami, former NFL agent Josh Luchs endorsed an idea that comes around every few years. Whether you house them in the athletic department or not, compliance officers are employees of the university, subject to the possibility of any number of ethical dilemmas. Luchs suggests the NCAA pay for and place compliance officers at schools. As employees of the NCAA, they cannot be fired by the school for doing their job, thus solving many of those ethical dilemmas.

Let’s assume the logistical issues could be solved. Working as an NCAA-employed compliance officer on campus would be like a State Department or FBI field office assignment. You move every couple of years until you made it to the national office in Indianapolis. Attracts a certain type of person, but that’s part of the goal here. There is still a Good, Bad, and Ugly to this type of system.

The Good

The biggest benefit would be a much simpler and more consistent major infractions process. Lack of institutional control and failure to monitor charges would not exist. The NCAA would now be in control and it would be the NCAA’s responsibility to monitor. Beyond the actual violations, the only questions would be how many people subverted the monitoring systems the on-campus staff had in place, and how severe should the show-cause orders be.

The Bad

The biggest drawback is that the majority of these NCAA positions would be new positions, not replacement or reassignment of existing staff. There are some compliance responsibilities an NCAA staff member on campus cannot perform. Decisions about whether to file a waiver, arguments for mitigation in student-athlete reinstatement cases, and how the Student Assistance Fund is managed should be made by university staff.

And if the NCAA is permanently represented on campus, expect schools to “lawyer up,” so to speak, by retaining or hiring their own compliance staff. That’s great if you’re in the compliance industry. But whether this is paid for with new or existing money, it means that money is earmarked for a larger administration rather than for a better student-athlete experience.

The Ugly

A system of permanent on-campus NCAA staff creates a more adversarial system. One big benefit of an adversarial system is that it sets very clear motives and roles. It’s my belief you get a better compromise when two people with clear and opposing motives are forced to come to an agreement. But we’re not talking about negotiation here. We’re talking about the enforcement of rules by the authorities.

In that case you get less compromise and more argument. If coming to a compromise takes a long time, winning an argument takes longer. And while that arguing is going on, innocent student-athletes and coaches will be caught in the middle. That means longer reinstatement cases and a slower secondary infractions process.

There’s a role for a long-term presence by the NCAA on an institution’s campus when something goes wrong. Probation and parole is overseen by a probation officer, not the judge. Failing an external audit should mean having to allow the NCAA to come in for a year or two to fix the issues. At the very least, that should be the pilot program before changing the relationship between the schools and the NCAA in a way that cannot be undone if it doesn’t work.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: career, institutional control, reform

2011-12 POPL Review: Eligibility

August 29, 2011 by John Infante

The amateurism and recruiting proposals in this year’s legislative cycle had a clear overall move toward deregulation. But every year has a few ideas that are a little out there. It’s a combination of good “outside the box” thinking and throwing proposals out more to generate conversation than to actually be passed.

This year most of those proposals are in the eligibility category. There’s a recycling of an idea that comes up every few years (five seasons of competition) and a brand new proposal that potentially changes how we think about acceptable academics.

2011-62 – International Eligibility Form

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To eliminate the requirement that the eligibility of an international student-athlete shall be certified on an international student-athlete eligibility form.

Analysis: The General Eligibility Form for International and Select Student-Athletes is duplicative and a burden. The trouble is that international student-athletes are often instructed by their coaches on how to slip through the Eligibility Center without being checked. The international form is completed when a student-athlete arrives on campus, so the chances for deception are reduced. If the form goes away, the Eligibility Center needs to alter who is automatically cleared by the computer.

2011-63 – Graduate Student After Final Term

Sponsor: Pac-12 Conference

Intent: To specify that a student-athlete who is eligible during the term in which degree work is completed (or is eligible as a graduate) remains eligible for any postseason event that begins within 60 days after the end of the term in which the student completes the requirements for the degree (or graduate eligibility).

Analysis: This proposal is the codification of a waiver that was issued for 2010-11 that allows a student-athlete to compete after graduate not just in the NCAA Championships, NIT, or a bowl game, but in any postseason event. So this cover events like the College Basketball Invitational, or the Dad Vail Regatta. Makes sense to treat all postseason events equally.

2011-64 – Five Seasons of Football Eligibility

Sponsor: Colonial Athletic Association

Intent: In football, to specify that a student-athlete shall not engage in more than five seasons of intercollegiate competition and may only engage in a fifth season at an institution at which the student-athlete previously used a season of competition.

Analysis: Originally thought to be an FCS-only proposal, FBS will vote on five years of eligibility for football players. I see three major issues that need to be sorted out before this proposal is passed:

If the proposal no longer applies to just FCS, why is there still the transfer restriction (i.e. that a student-athlete cannot transfer to use his fifth year of eligibility)? Especially given that restrictions on transfers in the last year of eligibility for student-athletes who graduate were recently loosened.
What happens when a coach has committed and/or signed a class, and suddenly in January or April his seniors all have another year of eligibility? It’s the oversigning problem to end all oversigning problems.
Is it not a major Title IX issue to allow one group of male athletes to play five seasons, but to allow all female athletes to play only four?

I also suspect that this proposal will not stay football only. Some major conference will offer an alternative to include men’s basketball, while a smaller conference may offer another alternate covering all sports.

2011-65 – Year of Academic Readiness

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

Intent: To establish a year of academic readiness for two-year college transfers, as specified.

Analysis: This proposal basically allows nonqualifiers to enroll for a year at a junior college, practice, and receive financial aid, but not use a year on their five-year clock if they don’t compete. To qualify they have to stay longer at the junior college (five semesters instead of three) and may only play two seasons in any sport once they show up at a Division I school. The move makes sense, but it also presents the first major threat to the five-year clock. That clock is the most important rule in Division I, and if exceptions swallow it, it would change the face of Division I.

2011-65 – Softball – Minimum Amount of Competition

Sponsor: Big 12 Conference

Intent: In softball, to permit a student-athlete to compete in an institution’s non-championship segment without using a season of competition, as specified.

Analysis: In fall sports like soccer or volleyball, a student-athlete can compete during the spring exhibition season without using a season of competition. The Big 12 is seeking to flip that rule for softball, a spring sport. It will allow for extended tryouts that include exhibition games. But if an athlete is put through such a tryout and is cut, it makes sense to not charge with a whole season of competition. Big question: how long until baseball asks for the same exception?

2011-67 – Advanced Placement – International Certification

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: To specify that for purposes of fulfilling the advanced placement requirements for initial eligibility, “similar proficiency examination,” must be an advanced or higher level, nationally administered proficiency exam with a uniform grading scale that is taken after high school graduation; further, to specify that an institution shall use the NCAA Eligibility Center to determine the initial eligibility of an international student-athlete pursuant to the advanced placement criteria.

Analysis: There is a little-known rule that says if a university awards a student-athlete a full-year of advanced placement credit, they do not have to go through the Eligibility Center’s academic certification. So for international students from exam-based educational systems, you simply must be willing to award a full-year of credit and you can skip half of the certification process. This sets standards for what exams count, and requires the credentials for those exams to pass through the Eligibility Center.

2011-68 – Football Nine-Hour Rule – Exception for Team Academic Performance

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: In football, to specify that a student-athlete shall not be subject to the eligibility penalty for failure to successfully complete at least nine-semester hours or eight-quarter hours of academic credit during the fall term and earn the Academic Progress Rate eligibility point for the fall term, provided the institution’s Academic Progress Rate for football is 965 or higher as of the first day of classes of the fall term in which the penalty would otherwise apply.

Analysis: This proposal is the example of what appears to be a simple and logical exception but which asks a fundamental question. What should be the standard that schools are held to when it comes to educating their student-athletes? Should they be judged on their ability to generally educate student-athletes? Or should they (and the student-athletes) be held accountable for the academic performance of each student-athlete?

The other trouble with this proposal is the delay. If a school knows it will miss some student-athletes for the first four games, it has a whole term to manipulate the APR if it is close enough to earn a 965 multi-year rate.

2011-69 – 2-4 and 4-2-4 Transfer Requirements

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

Intent: To revise the two-year college and 4-2-4 college transfer requirements, as specified.

Analysis: This proposal has been in the works before the Presidential Retreat, but it was one piece of the reform that the presidents suggested. It would raise the required GPA to 2.500, and add a physical science credit requirement. And the research suggests the proposal is still a little generous. To predict a graduation rate equal to student-athletes who never enroll at a two-year college, you need a GPA even higher than 2.500.

2011-70 – Progress Toward Degree Waivers Committee

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

Intent: To increase, from eight to 14, the number of members of the NCAA Division I Progress- Toward-Degree Waivers Committee; further, to specify that the duties of the Progress-Toward- Degree Waivers Committee shall include oversight of the process for reviewing requests for waivers of the 2-4 and 4-2-4 transfer requirements.

Analysis: 2-4 and 4-2-4 transfer waivers are currently heard like all transfer waivers, by the waiver staff and the Subcommittee for Legislative Relief. But the waivers are almost always related to academics. This proposal puts those waivers in the hands of a committee who specializes in academic requirements and expands that committee to handle the load.

2011-71 – One-Time Transfer Exception – Women’s Ice Hockey

Sponsor: Big Ten Conference

Intent: To specify that the one-time transfer exception to the four-year transfer residence requirement shall not be applicable to student-athletes in women’s ice hockey.

Analysis: Along with football, basketball, and baseball, men’s ice hockey may not use the one-time transfer exception. This would add women’s ice hockey to the list as well. Women’s ice hockey is the first sport possibly added to the list since volleyball coaches requested they be added a couple years ago, an effort that failed. The same hurdle exists here: if rising transfer rates are the justification for eliminating the exception, why have the one-time transfer exception for any sport?

2011-72 – Outside Competition – USA Fencing National Championship

Sponsor: The Ivy League

Intent: In fencing, to specify that a student-athlete may compete during the academic year as a member of a USA Fencing member club team at the USA Fencing National Championships.

Analysis: Competing in national and international championships is a standard exception of the prohibition on outside competition. USA Fencing moved their championship from July to April, so it makes sense to establish an exception for fencers to participate.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: eligibility, legislation

2011-12 POPL Review: Recruiting

August 22, 2011 by John Infante

The review of the 2011-12 proposed legislation continues with recruiting proposals. The proposed recruiting legislation, by and large, is about deregulation. There are some notable exceptions, but if everything was adopted, coaches would be able to do more recruiting than they currently can. For those watching the size of the rule book, it would be a wash. Some of the deregulation in what we can do involves adding exceptions to the Manual.

Recruiting is also the largest section, with over 30 proposals, as is normally the case. So let’s jump back in.

2011-28: Recruiting – Parents of Enrolled Student-Athletes

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To specify that on-campus contacts between a prospective student-athlete or the prospective student-athlete’s parents (or legal guardians) and the parents (or legal guardians) of an enrolled student-athlete that occur on the day of a regularly scheduled on-campus athletics event shall be permissible.

Analysis: Parents are technically boosters and are prohibited from contact with recruits. That means a host of monitoring challenges: separate seating sections, having to follow prospects around, and splitting meals up (like tailgates). Parents of athletes are probably the most honest recruiters you’ll find though, especially when discussing the school with other parents. It is too much work to keep them apart and too much good information will flow from parents of student-athletes to recruits.

2011-29: Recruiting – Student-Athlete Contact Off-Campus Contact During an Unofficial Visit

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To specify that off-campus, in-person contacts between enrolled student-athletes and a prospective student-athlete are permissible if such contacts do not occur at the direction of a coaching staff member and the prospective student-athlete has notified the institution that he or she is making an unofficial visit.

Analysis: Along a similar vein, student-athletes cannot have contact with prospects off-campus except on official visits. This rule often comes into play when a prospect visits a campus and wants to go out for a meal with student-athletes. Like keeping parents away, confining student-athletes to campus once the prospect is already visiting is too much work and harms the decision-making of the prospect.

2011-30: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To deregulate the restrictions on telephone calls and electronically transmitted correspondence, as specified.

2011-31: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To eliminate the limitations on the number and frequency of telephone calls to prospective student-athletes, as specified.

Analysis: The biggest difference between the Big East Conference and the Recruiting Cabinet’s two proposals is that the Big East seeks to deregulating text messaging and other electronic communication along with phone calls. There appears to be enough momentum behind this idea that it might actually get done. There is just one issue with deregulating text messaging: if a coach can text message a prospect and ask him to call him as a junior, why not just let coaches call juniors?

2011-32: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – Compliance Administrators

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To permit compliance administrators to make telephone calls to or receive telephone calls from a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s parents or legal guardians) with no limit on the timing or number of such calls, provided the calls relate only to compliance issues.

Analysis: Having to wait for a prospect to call or for a coach to get a prospect to call the compliance office can be a pain. It hampers investigations and prevents the compliance office from properly advising prospects on initial eligibility. If ideas like yearly progress toward initial eligibility take root, this will not just be a good idea, it will be necessary.

2011-33: Recruiting – Limits on Contacts and Evaluations

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, women’s sand volleyball and women’s volleyball, to eliminate the limitation on the number of evaluations per prospective student-athlete.

Analysis: During the academic year, there is a limit on the number of times a coach can contact or evaluate a prospect off-campus. These three women’s sports have small teams and limited evaluation days, thus negating the need to limit coaches from evaluating an individual prospect. Coaches may feel the pressure to babysit though, spending recruiting days being visible to committed prospects rather than scouting for new talent.

2011-34: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Evaluations

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that evaluations of live athletics activities during the academic year evaluation periods (other than permissible nonscholastic events) shall be limited to regularly scheduled high school, preparatory school and two-year college contests/tournaments and practices; and regular scholastic activities involving prospective student-athletes enrolled only at the institution at which the regular scholastic activities occur.

Analysis: The July evaluation periods get a bad rap, especially in men’s basketball. It’s at these unorganized and unpublicized events where rule breaking is most likely to take place. There’s nothing to stop rule breaking at regularly scheduled practices, but at least there is some structure there rather than college coaches hanging out at pick-up games.

2011-35: Recruiting – Recruiting Materials

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: In sports other than men’s basketball and men’s ice hockey, to specify that an institution shall not provide recruiting materials, including general correspondence related to athletics, to an individual (or his or her parents or legal guardians) until June 15 at the conclusion of his or her sophomore year in high school.

Analysis: This proposal would unify the starting date to send recruiting materials (which include email and text messages (assuming they are deregulated) as well as letters) to June 15 after the sophomore year. It makes no sense to have multiple rules for this. The only question is whether to move two sports back to September 1 or move every other sport up to June 15 (or some other date).

2011-36: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: To specify that an institution shall not send electronic correspondence (e.g., email, chat, instant messages, text messages) to an individual (or his or her parents or legal guardians) until September 1 at the beginning of his or her junior year in high school.

2011-37: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To specify that electronic correspondence (e.g., email, instant messages, facsimiles, text messages) may be sent to a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s parents or legal guardians), provided the correspondence is sent directly to the prospective student-athlete (or his or her parents or legal guardians) and is private between only the sender and recipient (e.g., no use of chat rooms, message boards, posts to “walls”).

Analysis: Both proposals seek to deregulating electronic correspondence, namely text messages. The major difference is that the cabinet defines what types of transmissions are permitted, while the WCC proposal is a little more open-ended. Which one you support likely rests on how fast you think technology moves, and whether social media sites and cellphone makes will blur the lines between private and public or direct and indirect.

2011-38: Recruiting – Automated Notifications

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Analysis: In the absence of the proposals that go further in deregulation, this would be a very common sense exception to the rule because a coach has no control sometimes over how a prospect is notified of events on a social media platform. But with the opportunity to attack the entire rule, there’s no need for an exception.

2011-39: Recruiting Camp Brochures at Event Venue

Sponsor: Southern Conference

Intent: To specify that an institution may make institutional camp or clinic brochures available at the venue of an athletics event involving prospective student-athletes.

2011-48: Recruiting – Recruiting at Sports Camps

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: In sports other than men’s basketball, to specify that it is permissible for an institution’s coaches to engage in recruiting conversations with prospective student-athletes during the institution’s camps or clinics.

Analysis: If camps were not already a major part of recruiting, they will be soon. Camps are the only way for coaches to run a tryout for most sports. And with a proposal on the table now for coaches to recruit at their camps and with coaches able to do some silent promotion of their camps at prospects’ games, it could become the center of recruiting. Gather as many elite prospects to your camps and then pitch them after they sleep in the dorms and see your coaching. The restrictions on men’s basketball elite camps could spread sooner rather than later.

2011-40: Recruiting – Entertainment Allowance

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To increase, from $30 to $40, the allowance that an institution may provide a student host for each day of a prospective student-athlete’s official visit to cover all actual costs of entertaining the student host(s) and the prospective student-athlete; further, to increase, from $15 to $20, the additional allowance an institution may provide the student host per day for each additional prospective student-athlete the host entertains.

Analysis: $30 for entertainment on an official visit is one of the most well-known recruiting rules. Maybe because it has been set at $30 since 1996. The Big East did the math and found that $43 dollars now buys what $30 bought back then, and rounded it down to $40. A minimal increase given that an official visit usually means a school has already paid to bring a prospect to campus, house them, and feed them for a couple days.

2011-41: Recruiting – First Opportunity for Unofficial Visit

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: To specify that a prospective student-athlete may not make an athletically-related unofficial visit (e.g., no contact with coaching staff, no athletics-specific tour) before June 15th at the conclusion of the prospective student-athlete’s freshman year of high school.

Analysis: The last time a ban or start date for unofficial visits was contemplated, it was for women’s soccer only and the start date was August 1 prior to a prospect’s senior year. Unofficial visits are hard to regulate though, requiring a coach to turn away prospects who show up on campus. This also codifies a progression that does not make sense, allowing a visit and in-person contact before allowing the sending of a letter.

2011-42: Recruiting – Entertainment of Nonathletics Personnel

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To permit an institutional department outside the athletics department (e.g., president’s office, admissions) to host nonathletics high school, preparatory school or two-year college personnel (e.g., guidance counselors, principals) at a home intercollegiate athletics event and may provide such individuals food, refreshments, room expenses and a nominal gift, provided the visit is not related to athletics recruiting and there is no involvement by the institution’s athletics department in the arrangements for the visit, other than providing (in accordance with established policy) free admissions to an athletics event.

Analysis: It makes sense to allow an institution to host individuals who have a good reason to be there even if they are connected to prospects in some roundabout way. But there’s a lot of rules added to achieve that fact. It is an example of a rule that has plagued the Manual: a good idea that adds rules and complexity to the manual.

2011-43: Recruiting – Limitation on Number of Football Signings

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that there shall be an annual signing limit of 25 on the number of prospective student-athletes who may sign a National Letter of Intent or institutional offer of financial aid from December 1 through May 31; further to specify that a prospective student-athlete who signs a National Letter of Intent or an institutional offer of financial aid and becomes an initial counter for the same academic year in which the signing occurred (e.g., midyear enrollee) shall not count toward the annual limit on signings.

Analysis: This is one part of the SEC’s over signing proposals. It drops the limit to 25 and expands it to include midyear enrollees that will take up initial counter spots the following year. I suspect this proposal will not simply get an up-and-down vote though, given the national debate and attention. Expect many modifications and alternatives to be offered.

2011-44: Recruiting – Submission of Transcript to Eligibility Center Before Signing

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

Intent: To specify that an institution shall not permit a high school prospective student-athlete (other than a prospective student-athlete who attends a secondary school in a foreign country or a home-schooled prospective student-athlete) to sign a National Letter of Intent or an institution’s written offer of financial aid until the NCAA Eligibility Center has received an official high school transcript for each high school the prospective student-athlete has attended through his or her sixth semester (or equivalent) of enrollment.

Analysis: The idea that an institution must evaluate a prospect’s academic status prior to signing them is not a new one, but it has taken time to take hold in Division I. This goes one step further, requiring all transcripts to be at the Eligibility Center. If this passes, expect a whole new flurry of activity around signing days.

2011-45: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Women’s Basketball Competition

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that an institution [including any institutional department (e.g., athletics, recreational/intramural)] shall not host, sponsor or conduct a nonscholastic basketball practice or competition in which women’s basketball prospective student-athletes participate on its campus or at an off-campus facility regularly used by the institution for practice and/or competition by any of the institution’s sport programs, and to establish limited exceptions, as specified; further, to specify that the use of an institution’s facilities for noninstitutional camps is limited to the months of June, July and August; finally, to prohibit evaluations at noninstitutional events, camps or clinics that occur on a Division I campus during evaluation periods.

2011-46: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Football Camps or Competition

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In football, to specify that an institution [including any institutional department (e.g., athletics, recreational/intramural)] shall not host, sponsor or conduct a nonscholastic football practice or competition (e.g., seven-on-seven events) in which football prospective student-athletes participate on its campus or at an off-campus facility regularly used by the institution for practice and/or competition by any of the institution’s sport programs; further, to limit the use of institutional facilities for noninstitutional camps or clinics that include prospect-aged participants to June and July in bowl subdivision football and to June, July and August in championship subdivision football.

Analysis: These rules actually make more sense for women’s basketball and football. Without the same type of money from shoe companies as found in men’s basketball, getting a sweetheart deal from a school is a bigger deal. But it raises the same issue as the men’s basketball ban, up for an override vote this January: is the best way to control these events to move them further away from colleges?

2011-47: Recruiting – Local Sports Clubs – Football

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In football, to prohibit a coach or a noncoaching staff member with football-specific responsibilities from being involved in any capacity in a football club that includes prospective student-athletes.

Analysis: When working with local sports clubs was banned for basketball, football was overlooked because football did not have clubs. Now with 7-on-7 growing, it makes sense to treat football and basketball the same. Maybe though a ban is not the best way to treat either.

2011-49: Recruiting – Volunteer Work at Nonprofit Camp

Sponsor: Mid-American Conference

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that an institution’s head coach may participate as a volunteer (e.g. counselor, guest lecturer, consultant) on one day in June or July outside the designated two periods of 15 consecutive days at a charitable or nonprofit camp or clinic, as specified.

Analysis: Volunteering for a nonprofit camp sounds like a noble enterprise. The issue is whether what nonprofit means in football camps will be the same as what nonprofit means in men’s basketball recruiting: a way to gather money to support a nonscholastic team. This would expressly permit something that has been prohibited in men’s basketball.

2011-50: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

Sponsor: Big East Conference, Conference USA, and Mountain West

Intent: In sports other than basketball and football, to specify that an institution may subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service involving prospective student-athletes, provided the service is made available to all institutions desiring to subscribe and at the same fee rate for all subscribers; further, to specify that an institution is permitted to subscribe to a service that provides scholastic and/or nonscholastic video. In basketball and football, to eliminate the restriction on subscribing to a service that includes access to nonscholastic video.

2011-51: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

Sponsor: Pac-12 Conference

Analysis: The major difference between these two proposals is that the first, 2011-50, would allow basketball and football programs to subscribe to recruiting services that provide video of nonscholastic video along with all other sports. 2011-51 would keep that prohibition in place for football and men’s basketball. The toothpaste is out of the tube with AAU basketball and 7-on-7 football, so it makes sense to allow coaches to use those events to make better evaluations in a cost-effective manner.

2011-52: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – NCAA Approval

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In basketball and football, to specify that an institution shall not subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service unless the service has been approved by the NCAA pursuant to an annual approval process.

Analysis: This sounds great, but there are two problems. First, the NCAA approval process was originally designed for men’s basketball, has not started yet, and could potentially be expanded to football right off the bat. Second, it does not solve the critical problem with how scouting services are regulated. If someone creates a permissible scouting service, they can still use it a front business to sell access to prospects.

2011-53: Recruiting – Donation of Athletics Equipment

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: To eliminate the restriction that precludes an institution from donating athletics equipment to a bona fide youth organization outside a 30-mile radius of the institution’s campus.

Analysis: More than eliminating the 30-mile radius, this is an area ripe for more deregulation. It is worth it to ask if a donation of used pads and footballs is enough to get a coach to swing his prospects toward a particular college.

2011-54: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball – July Evaluation and Dead Periods

Sponsor: Atlantic Coast Conference

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that during the time period of July 6-31, the recruiting calendar shall consist of, consecutively, a seven-day evaluation period, a 10-day dead period, a seven-day evaluation period and a two-day dead period.

Analysis: The ACC jumped the gun and offered for women’s basketball one of the ideas for a reworked July evaluation period that is being discussed for men’s basketball. This drops the number of days from 20 to 14, with a longer dead period in the middle. It does highlight the difference in the two approaches for the men. One (this one) is just about less recruiting days in July. The other (long weekends only) is more about changing the overall pattern of what coaches are doing during July.

2011-55: Recruiting – Football – January Dead Period

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to revise the recruiting calendar to specify that January 4 through the Sunday during the week of the annual convention of the American Football Coaches Association shall be a dead period.

Analysis:

2011-56: Recruiting – Fencing Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In fencing, to establish recruiting-person days and a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-57: Recruiting – Field Hockey Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In field hockey, to establish recruiting-person days and a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-58: Recruiting – Women’s Gymnastics Recruiting Calendars

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In women’s gymnastics, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-59: Recruiting – Men’s Ice Hockey Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In men’s ice hockey, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-60: Recruiting – Wrestling Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In wrestling, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

Analysis: A host of sports are asking for recruiting calendars, and two (fencing and field hockey) are asking for recruiting person-day limitations as well. It is reasonable to question if these sports need limits, but the fact that the proposals come from the coaches associations is in their favor. It is also reasonable to ask if creating a recruiting calendar is being done at least partly to get unlimited phone calls during contact periods, currently only for sports with defined recruiting periods.

2011-61: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Event Certification

Sponsor: Atlantic Coast Conference

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that a certified event shall not employ (either on a salaried or a volunteer basis) a current women’s basketball student-athlete.

Analysis: Just like moving nonscholastic events off-campus, it is worth asking if having student-athletes work these events is a positive influence. I would like to see the statistics on how powerful the effect of being around student-athletes is when it comes to camps. If camps are that strong in recruiting, this might make sense.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: legislation, recruiting

May 2013
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jul
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

About John Infante

Major League Pay in the Minor Leagues

The True Value of Being a Student-Athlete

The Cure Cannot Be As Bad As The Disease

Defunding Non-Revenue Sports

Small Reforms, Massive Tweaks

About John Infante

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

About John Infante

2011-62 – International Eligibility Form

2011-63 – Graduate Student After Final Term

2011-64 – Five Seasons of Football Eligibility

2011-65 – Year of Academic Readiness

2011-65 – Softball – Minimum Amount of Competition

2011-67 – Advanced Placement – International Certification

2011-68 – Football Nine-Hour Rule – Exception for Team Academic Performance

2011-69 – 2-4 and 4-2-4 Transfer Requirements

2011-70 – Progress Toward Degree Waivers Committee

2011-71 – One-Time Transfer Exception – Women’s Ice Hockey

2011-72 – Outside Competition – USA Fencing National Championship

About John Infante

2011-28: Recruiting – Parents of Enrolled Student-Athletes

2011-29: Recruiting – Student-Athlete Contact Off-Campus Contact During an Unofficial Visit

2011-30: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

2011-31: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

2011-32: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – Compliance Administrators

2011-33: Recruiting – Limits on Contacts and Evaluations

2011-34: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Evaluations

2011-35: Recruiting – Recruiting Materials

2011-36: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

2011-37: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

2011-38: Recruiting – Automated Notifications

2011-39: Recruiting Camp Brochures at Event Venue

2011-48: Recruiting – Recruiting at Sports Camps

2011-40: Recruiting – Entertainment Allowance

2011-41: Recruiting – First Opportunity for Unofficial Visit

2011-42: Recruiting – Entertainment of Nonathletics Personnel

2011-43: Recruiting – Limitation on Number of Football Signings

2011-44: Recruiting – Submission of Transcript to Eligibility Center Before Signing

2011-45: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Women’s Basketball Competition

2011-46: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Football Camps or Competition

2011-47: Recruiting – Local Sports Clubs – Football

2011-49: Recruiting – Volunteer Work at Nonprofit Camp

2011-50: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

2011-51: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

2011-52: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – NCAA Approval

2011-53: Recruiting – Donation of Athletics Equipment

2011-54: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball – July Evaluation and Dead Periods

2011-55: Recruiting – Football – January Dead Period

2011-56: Recruiting – Fencing Recruiting Calendar

2011-57: Recruiting – Field Hockey Recruiting Calendar

2011-58: Recruiting – Women’s Gymnastics Recruiting Calendars

2011-59: Recruiting – Men’s Ice Hockey Recruiting Calendar

2011-60: Recruiting – Wrestling Recruiting Calendar

2011-61: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Event Certification

About John Infante

Recent Posts

NCAA.org / blog

Recent Posts

Tags

Calendar