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Reason amid the mess

August 18, 2011 by

A new round of Division I conference realignment conjecture has moved everybody to Defcon 2, and the allegations against the Miami (Florida) football program are troubling, to say the least.

The commentary has been white hot, with almost every principal getting lit up in one place or another. The unfortunate proximity to last week’s presidential retreat, with all of its promise, has been noted.

So it was good, in the midst of all this, to find a calm, reasonable assessment of the current state of affairs.

Duke professor Charles Clotfelter, please take a bow.

“Rule-breaking in college sports is often viewed strictly in moral terms, as a reflection of defective character,” Clotfelter wrote in Tuesday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But it would be a mistake to ignore the powerful influence of the universities themselves and the incentives they create by attaching such importance to athletic success.

“Cheating won’t be solved just by tighter rules and better enforcement. A century of big-time college sports tells us that much.

“Real change won’t happen until university trustees, not just presidents, show they value the academic mission more than winning games.”

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider

2011-12 POPL Review: Personnel and Amateurism

August 16, 2011 by

The 2011-12 Legislative Cycle kicked off with the release of the Publication of Proposed Legislation (affectionately known as the POPL). If the Division I Manual gets a hard time for being over 400 pages, the POPL is no less weighty. 81 proposed changes to the Division I Bylaws cover 136 pages. Over the rest of the week, I’ll give my thoughts on all of them. That’s just the start though. A number of proposals linger from last year. And in October and January the results of the Presidential Retreat and men’s basketball recruiting model may push the total number of new proposals over 100.

Today are personnel and amateurism. Personnel proposals often look a lot like recruiting proposals because who recruits is often as important as how you recruit. Both the personnel and amateurism proposals have a strong deregulatory bent, although it is more a mixed bag in personnel. What seems like a small change could be presented as a test case for a major rewrite. That’s one reason a lot of small, common sense changes fail to make it through. But before we get on with those two big areas, we start by number the days for an entire 22-page bylaw.

2011-11: Removal of Bylaw 21

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Administration Cabinet

Intent: To specify that the Administration Cabinet shall oversee the administrative functions related to the management of the Division I governance structure and Division I representation on Association-wide and common committees; further, to remove Bylaw 21 from the Division I Manual and specify that policies and procedures related to selection, composition, duties, term of office and operation of committees and cabinets shall be published on the NCAA website.

Analysis: This will certainly lighten the Division I Manual a bit. Bylaw 21 is just over 20 pages long, although plans are in the works to only publish select rules in the actual Manual, thinning the book itself further. There are two issues. First, the Admin Cabinet does not include a representative from every conference. And second, this makes changes to the NCAA’s governance structure, which can affect championship selection, more opaque. If the Admin cabinet expanded itself as a “third branch” alongside the Legislative and Leadership Councils, some of these fears would be soothed.

2011-12: Personnel – Graduate Assistant Coach – Basketball

Sponsor: Big East

Intent: In basketball, to permit an institution to employ one graduate assistant coach.

Analysis: Basketball has not been able to use two of the special categories, primary around concerns that volunteer or graduate assistant coaches would not be substantially different than countable coaches, and squad size does not require them. But with limits potentially coming to non coaching staff, adding the relatively inexpensive graduate assistant coach is a good compromise. Even if running camps will provide them with a decent chunk of change.

2011-13: Personnel – Graduate Assistant Coach – No Previous FBS or Professional Coaching Experience

Sponsor: Big East

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that a graduate assistant coach must have either received his or her first baccalaureate degree or have exhausted athletics eligibility (whichever occurs later) within the previous seven years; or the individual must not have not previously served as a coach (either on a salaried or volunteer basis) at a Football Bowl Subdivision institution or in a professional football league.

Analysis: The graduate assistant coach in football was limited recently to individuals who received their bachelors degree or exhausted their eligibility within the last seven years. This proposal would provide an exception to that limit for coaches who meet the spirit of a graduate assistant coach: those looking for their first job to break into the ranks. Even if a 10-year NFL career takes a former player out of the seven-year window.

2011-14: Personnel – Graduate Assistant Coach – No Previous Collegiate or Professional Coaching Experience

Sponsors: Pac-12, Big Ten, MAC

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that a graduate assistant coach shall have no previous professional or collegiate football coaching experience as a head or assistant coach.

Analysis: You are forgiven if you believe you are seeing double. This proposal is different from the Big East’s in two respects. First, it replaces the seven-year limit rather than adds an exception to it. And second, it requires no collegiate or professional experience rather than just no FBS or pro experience. Between the two I prefer this one since it cuts the total number of rules in the book.

2011-15: Personnel – Student Assistant Coach – Full-Time Graduate Student Within Five-Year Period of Eligibility

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To permit a full-time graduate student within his or her five-year period of eligibility to serve as a student assistant coach, provided he or she meets additional criteria, as specified.

Analysis: The student assistant coach was originally a position for student-athletes who played their first four years, but had a fifth year on their five-year clock remaining. It was expanded to include any athlete still working toward their first degree, but at the expense of student-athletes who graduated in four years and started a graduate degree. The SEC’s proposal neatly fixes this oversight.

2011-16: Personnel – Student Assistant Coach – Football Nonparticipant

Sponsor: Southern Conference

Intent: To specify that in football, an individual who has neither engaged in intercollegiate football competition for the certifying institution nor engaged in other countable athletically related activities in intercollegiate football beyond a 14-consecutive-day period at the certifying institution may serve as an undergraduate student assistant coach, provided the individual meets the remaining criteria applicable to an undergraduate student assistant coach, as specified.

Analysis: When the student assistant coach was expanded a couple years ago, there was debate about how to handle students who were not good enough to stay on the team long enough to exhaust their eligibility but who still wanted to get into coaching. One idea to allow athletes to give up their eligibility in exchange for a coaching spot, but fears of running athletes off killed the idea. The SOCON is giving it another shot, with the idea being that students who failed to stick with the team after a tryout or would rather try coaching should have that opportunity.

2011-17: Personnel – Outside Income – Part-Time or Volunteer Staff with Sport Specific Responsibilities

Sponsor: Big XII Conference

Intent: To specify that contractual agreements between a part-time or volunteer athletics department staff member with sport-specific responsibilities and an institution shall include the stipulation that the staff member is required to provide a written detailed account annually to the president or chancellor for all athletically related income and benefits from sources outside the institution.

Analysis: As athletics administration has expanded, more and more staff are helping out as part-time or volunteers both with coaching staffs and with central administration. Who needs to report outside athletically-related income has gotten a bit fractured. This resets the requirement to all full-time staff members and any part-time or volunteer staff member who is working directly with a team, like a director of ops. or video coordinator. A decent compromise.

2011-18: Recruiting – Receipt of Calls from Prospects

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To eliminate the restriction on the receipt of telephone calls from prospective student-athletes (or prospective student-athletes’ parents, legal guardians or coaches) that requires such calls to be received by the head coach or one or more of the assistant coaches who count toward the numerical limitations.

Analysis: As difficult as the monitoring of coaches calling prospects is, prospects calling staff is even worse. Most cell phone records do not show who an incoming call came from. So it’s certainly a major monitoring win, while not allowing more people to call prospects. But the proposal comes from one of the big boys. And it would allow coaching staffs to pass some of the recruiting of lower-level prospects to non coaching staff, since these prospects are typically more eager. More worrisome might be boosters and former student-athletes becoming “volunteer recruiting coordinators,” now able to receive calls from student-athletes.

But this is not a significant competitive equity issue. If a coach passes a recruit off to a noncoaching staff member, that leaves an opening for other schools to show greater interest by maintain contact through the coaching staff. And prospects still need to want to make the calls, so there is not a major student-athlete welfare issue. Hopefully this proposal goes through, especially given some of the other phone call legislation in the cycle.

2011-19: Personnel – Limits on Number of Off-Campus Recruiters – Spring Football Evaluation Period

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that all nine assistant coaches may evaluate prospective student-athletes at any one time during the spring evaluation period; further, in championship subdivision football, to specify that all 11 coaches may evaluate prospective student-athletes at any one time during the spring evaluation period.

2011-20: Personnel – Limits on Number of Off-Campus Recruiters – Women’s Basketball Spring Nonscholastic Evaluations

Sponsor: Big East

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that four coaches may evaluate prospective student- athletes at any one time at nonscholastic events during the spring evaluation period.

Analysis: 2011-19 and 2011-20 are the same concept applies to different sports. Women’s basketball gets one weekend in the academic year to evaluate at AAU events, so allowing a fourth coach out for those four days makes sense. And both football and women’s basketball have limits on how many person-days coaches can be out recruiting, either during the year or during specific evaluation periods. This could be the first step to eliminating the limit on the number of off-campus recruiters in favor of tighter recruiting calendars or person-day limits.

However, there’s a cost. Allowing all the coaches to recruit at once means all the coaches could be off campus at once. For 2011-20 and women’s basketball, one weekend is not a major concern. But football could have all of its assistants gone for and entire work week. And with no limit on off-campus recruiters, there is no need to replace them and have coaches return to campus for a breather. We could see a spring evaluation period where coaches remain off-campus for weeks or even the entire month and a half, with finals smack in the middle. This must be addressed, even if programs should have more freedom to use their limited recruiting resources how they see fit.

2011-21: Personnel – Football – No Return to Campus During Contact Periods

Sponsors: Big East and Big XII

Intent: In football, to specify that during a contact period, a replaced coach is not required to return to the institution’s campus before engaging in additional recruiting activities, provided not more than seven coaches engage in off-campus recruiting activities each day.

Analysis: 2011-21 attempts to bring the concept of not requiring coaches to “touch home” when they switch who is recruiting to the academic year for football. But again, the most important contact period for football is smack in the middle of finals, meaning all the coaches could be gone at once.

2011-22: Personnel – Men’s Basketball Bench Personnel

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: In men’s basketball, to specify that during a contest against outside competition, institutional bench personnel shall be limited to four coaches, one director of basketball operations (or similar position) and two additional individuals (e.g., athletic trainer, team physician, manager).

Analysis: If being a coach means anything, it means getting to sit on the bench and help athletes win a game. So if you are not a coach, your usefulness on the bench is debatable. Instead of limits on who an institution can employ, limiting who gets to act like a coach during games is a good alternative. I just wonder if we’ll start to see front rows of “fans” in suits holding clipboards relaying stats and consulting with coaches during games.

2011-23: Amateurism – Definition of an Agent

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Amateur Cabinet

Intent: To specify that an agent is any individual who, directly or indirectly, represents or attempts to represent an individual for the purpose of marketing his or her athletics ability or reputation for financial gain, or seeks to obtain any type of financial gain or benefit from securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment at an educational institution or from a student-athlete’s potential earnings as a professional athlete.

Analysis: This proposal has already picked up the names of any number of individuals. It is a good start to defining the type of conduct we want to prohibit. But it does not solve all the problems in a case like the Cam Newton case, such as what the appropriate penalties are when there is no proof a prospect or student-athlete knew they had an agent or if there is no proof of financial gain by the athlete or anyone else.

2011-24: Amateurism – Expenses from Sponsors

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Amateurism Cabinet

Intent: In individual sports, to specify that, prior to full-time collegiate enrollment, a prospective student-athlete may accept up to actual and necessary expenses associated with an athletics event and practice immediately preceding the event, from a sponsor (e.g, neighbor, business) other than an agent, a member institution or a representative of an institution’s athletics interests.

Analysis: This is one of those proposals (along with 2011-25) that will get everyone on both sides of the amateurism debate fired up. Proponents of the NCAA’s definition of amateurism will point to this proposal to show just how fair amateurism can be and how much student-athletes and prospects can get under it. Opponents will point out how allowing sponsorship robs amateurism of principle. Having seen kids have to repay a lot of money from their neighbors and local community, I’m a fan.

2011-25: Amateurism – Tennis – $10,000 Prize Money Per Year Prior to Enrollment

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Amateurism Cabinet

Intent: In tennis, to specify that, prior to full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may accept prize money based on his or her place finish or performance in open athletics events, not to exceed $10,000 per calendar year; further, to specify that once the individual has reached the $10,000 limit, he or she may receive additional prize money on a per-event basis, provided such prize money does not exceed his or her actual and necessary expenses for participation in the event.

Analysis: Like 2011-24, this proposal will launch a philosophical debate about amateurism. But it will also draw a bit of fire for being what appears to be an arbitrary number. Given the NCAA’s track record, there is bound to have been a lot of research and calculation done to come up with that number. Either it is well below what Division I tennis prospects spend on their sport, or anyone who earns more than $10,000 per year professionalizes themselves in other ways (has an agent, signs endorsements, etc.). This was proposed back in 2007 before, but was withdrawn.

2011-26: Amateurism – World University Games

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet

Intent: To include the World University Championships in all bylaws that apply to the World University Games.

Analysis: Not to much to say about this one other than its a no-brainer for the NCAA to expand international experiences for athletes. It is notable mostly because it may be the first fruit of a stronger relationship between the NCAA and the USOC, so stay tuned.

2011-27: Amateurism – Sponsorship By Professional Sports Organizations

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet

Intent: To specify that a professional sports organization may serve as a financial sponsor of an intercollegiate competition event, including regular season and postseason events, provided the organization is not publicly identified as such; and that a professional sports organization may serve as a financial sponsor of an activity or promotion that is ancillary to the competition event and may be publicly identified as such; further, to eliminate the prohibition on professional sports organizations or personnel as acceptable advertisers in conjunction with NCAA championships.

Analysis: This is likely to be one of the most hotly debated and misunderstood proposals of the cycle. Coming on the heels of 2010-26, expanding sponsorship and promotional activities in the midst of a reform movement is bound to draw scrutiny. The proposal does not allow for professional leagues or teams to begin filling the coffers of athletic departments. The idea seems to be more marketing of the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament during Lakers games, as one example. But whether the effects of the proposal can be explained to everyone’s satisfaction is the big question.

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.

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: ,

Open and closed minds

August 15, 2011 by

Media reaction to last week’s Division I Presidential Retreat was generally favorable, especially if you grade on a curve to allow for the sportswriter Grinch factor.

Dennis Dodds of CBSSports.com was positively effusive. During the proceedings, he Tweeted the following:

dennisdoddcbs Dennis Dodd

The NCAA presidents have moved more in the last two days, then they have in the last 60 years. Seriously.

dennisdoddcbs Dennis Dodd

We’ll have to see what actually gets through the meat grinder, but this is huge.

dennisdoddcbs Dennis Dodd

Wonder what Walter Byers is thinking right now?

dennisdoddcbs Dennis Dodd

…This is beyond politics. NCAA suits have never mentioned some of these words before — ever.

dennisdoddcbs Dennis Dodd

Kudos to NCAA CEOs. If they put in half the stuff they just talked about it will be major.

(I think I can help with the Byers question. The NCAA’s original executive director is living in Kansas on the family ranch and, from what I hear, generally regards college sports as a closed chapter in his life. He still stays in touch with a tight group of former associates, but I doubt if he was tracking much on last week’s events.)

As you might imagine, the NCAA staff monitors what’s written about college sports, and it appears that most of the coverage of the retreat was either neutral or positive. In general, commentators believed the presidents were charting the course for a fresh approach and that they demonstrated a will to succeed.

One notable outlier was Pete Thamel of the New York Times. He was determined to write that (a) commissioners are running the show in Division I sports and (b) that the retreat was cheapened because Big Ten and Southeastern Conference Commissioners Jim Delany and Mike Slive didn’t attend. The fact that those conferences were represented at the retreat by 10 presidents did nothing to sway Thamel.

Here was the exchange between Thamel and Emmert at Thursday’s post-Board of Directors news conference:

Thamel: “There’s a perception out there, Mark, fair or not, that Jim Delany and Mike Slive were able to strong-arm their guys through and get eligible, and in the case of Ohio State it really backfired and provided a black eye for both the NCAA, I think, and Ohio State. Can you address that perception (a) Mark and (b) talk about the power of conference commissioners right now in college sports with them being billionaire negotiators and fireman compliance guys and is there a concern that those gentlemen, er, conference commissioners in particular have become too powerful?”

Emmert: “I think, Pete, you’ve seen in the past week or two conference commissioners being active partners in trying to address some of the issues we’re describing right now. My experience with all those individuals and their presidents is they’re very like-minded about addressing the serious integrity issues in intercollegiate athletics. The notion that they are exercising undue influence in our decision-making in the NCAA office is just plain wrong. People who want to believe that are going to believe it, but I know the facts, and that’s just contrary to the realities of the day.”

Thamel: “(Delany and Slive) are considered, Mark, as two of the most powerful guys in college sports. Why weren’t they at these meetings the last two days?”

Emmert: “This was a presidential meeting. This was a meeting about the people who are actually in charge of the NCAA. Conference commissioners work for presidents, not the other way around.”

Thamel: (The recording is garbled, but the question related to how Big 12 Conference Commissioner Dan Beebe and other non-presidents attended the retreat.)

Emmert: “Yeah, well, we had representation from each of the major divisions within Division I. So we had commissioners and ADs from the automatic-qualifier BCS conferences, the six conferences there, we had representation from the non-automatic qualifier BCS’s – those five conferences – one from the FCS’s and from the non-football conferences. So, we asked those individuals to identify a commissioner or an AD that they wanted to have in the room, so for among the BCS automatic qualifiers that was Dan Beebe of the Big 12.”

Here’s what came out of that exchange in Thamel’s story in Friday’s New York Times:

“Two key people who did not attend the meetings were Mike Slive, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, and his counterpart in the Big Ten, Jim Delany. Few would dispute that they are the most powerful men in college sports. Although the presidents of Hope College and Molloy College [they attended, representing Divisions II and III] might have provided keen insight into the future of college athletics, they are not exactly the rainmakers.

“That is because conference commissioners have become ever more powerful in the past decade. Their duties include being chief negotiators of billion dollar television contracts, administrators of coach and player punishment, and compliance firemen.”

“Slive and Delany are as much a part of the problem as they are a part of the solution. Since Mark A. Emmert became president of the NCAA last year, he has been pummeled in a blur of controversies, highlighted by the cases of two quarterbacks: Cam Newton, whose father shopped him to Mississippi State before Newton enrolled at Auburn, and Terrelle Pryor, who sold memorabilia while at Ohio State.

“Emmert basically inherited these problems, but he has also perpetuated them. The Auburn and Ohio State situations were made worse because of the actions of Slive and Delany, and the feeble reactions of the NCAA.”

I’m a big fan of the New York Times, but what kind of Alice in Wonderland world is it when a reporter essentially quotes his own question rather than the response he was provided? A highly truncated version of Emmert’s response finally showed up several paragraphs later, after Thamel got everything off his chest.

Nobody’s asking anybody to pump sunshine about the many problems that currently face college sports, but is it too much to ask for reporters to keep an open mind?

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider

Now Comes The Hard Part

August 11, 2011 by

The results of the NCAA’s Presidential Retreat exceeded even my wildest expectations. I expected clear topics to study with deadlines for proposals around this time next year. I never expected actual solutions to emerge, and the deadlines to flesh those solutions out into NCAA legislation beginning as soon as October.

Presidential initatives have a mixed history of success because once the presidents start down a path, most of the work is left to athletics administrators. They have their own mix of short- and long-term distractions, and hear more of the objections coming from coaches and boosters. Many a grandiose vision has failed to be reduced to a new group of words in the Division I Manual.

One of the main reasons the NCAA members struggle with this is that the governing of college athletics is mostly a part-time job. In fact, given that administrators and coaches who serve on NCAA committees are not paid for their service, calling it a hobby would not be too far off. This slows down processes of reform. It also means an athletic director who just listened to his football coach complain about losing recruits may show up and decide the fate of phone call deregulation.

In order to better seize moments like this when the NCAA members are geared up for reform and to great more of them, it’s time for the governing of college athletics to become a full-time job. To put it another way, the NCAA needs politicians.

Conferences would select someone to go live in Indianapolis and represent the conference full-time. That person would be paid by the NCAA and would serve a fixed term, maybe three or four years. The conference would need the NCAA’s approval to remove the legislator. This grants them a bit of independence.

These NCAA politicans would fulfill most of the functions currently carried out by staff members of NCAA member schools. They would vote on legislation, serve on committees, provide guidance to NCAA staff members, and hear appeals. They, along with outside members, would form the Committee on Infractions and Infractions Appeals Committee.

Instead of committees meeting three or four times a year in person, they could meet monthly, or even weekly. When urgent issues such as the preceived loophole in the Cam Newton case arise, they could be addressed in a matter of weeks, rather than having to wait roughly a year.

Two current groups in the rule-making structure would likely remain: an expanded Board of Directors including a president from every conference and the Leadership Council. But their jobs would no longer be to study issues and propose actual legislation. Their mission would be to give direction to Diviison I’s new congress. And all of the sport-specific committees would likely still remain.

The presidents have repaired a bit of the NCAA’s image, for now at least, by articulating a more detailed reform plan. Imagine the gains that could be made if everyone knew that representatives of those presidents were ready to tackle these issues full-time starting on Monday, rather than somewhat sporadically over the coming months.

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.

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: , , , ,

In advance of the Retreat

August 9, 2011 by

Some thoughts on the Division I Presidential Retreat, which begins today in Indianapolis:

  • Divisions I and II have developed excellent quantitative measures of graduation outcomes, but the qualitative information is harder to come by. The principle of institutional autonomy dictates that each member school is responsible for policing its own curriculum, but it’s hard to get around commonly held attitudes that certain athletes are routed to easy majors and accommodating professors. If the criticism is true, then the problem needs to be addressed; if it’s not true, then there’s a collective responsibility to demonstrate that the educational experience of student-athletes reasonably mirrors that of other students (emphasis on “reasonably”).
  • I understand the frustration of the largest programs and how they view efforts to legislate a “level playing field.” They do have a multitude of advantages, including resources, and if they can create a better experience for their student-athletes, more power to them. That said, the other side of the blade is a winnowing effect on the number of programs that can keep up. It’s not necessarily a problem now, but what will things look like 10 or 20 years from now – especially if the economy continues to falter? There’s a balance to be found here.
  • A simpler rules book is among the most promising objectives of this meeting, but meaningful change in this area will require collective acceptance that every rule cannot be sharpened or interpreted to perfection. Considering the competitive, financial and legal complexities of the real world, that’s a big ask. Still, few improvements would serve the Association as well as streamlined rules that could be better explained and defended.

One additional observation: There is a sad juxtaposition occurring with this meeting. Former Indiana University President John Ryan, the original chair of the NCAA President Commission, died Saturday. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Friday on what would have been his 82nd birthday.

Ryan was a great leader, both for the NCAA and IU. The NCAA was making presidential leadership out of whole cloth when Ryan assumed his Presidents Commission role in 1984. He took on the task with energy, knowledge and collegiality − and ultimately left a big mark on the Association.

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider

Now That’s a Model

August 8, 2011 by

The NCAA’s governance structure often gets the deserved criticism of taking too long. Multiple committees, subcommittees, working groups, and blue ribbon panels have come and gone without producing much. It’s the byproduct of any legislative process that includes as many different people and institution’s as the NCAA does. It’s also the result of legislating part-time.

So for the Leadership Council’s top-to-bottom review of the men’s basketball recruiting model to wrap up within a year is a small victory for Division I’s governance structure. The results of that review are even more encouraging.

A recruiting model should think about two things: how coaches evaluate and select new student-athletes, and how they convince them to attend a particular school. The Leadership Council split into two subcommittees somewhat along those lines and came up with recommendations for both.

To evaluate prospects, the Leadership Council has recommended the return of evaluations at AAU events in April. Coaches would have two weekends, which would move if they interfere with the SAT or ACT. The July evaluation period would be shortened, either to three four-day weekends or two seven-day periods. But the biggest change is allowing tryouts, or “on-campus evaluations.”

One option is Division II’s tryout rules, which allow each school to tryout each prospect. A better option is the NABC’s proposal from 2004, which give each prospect six on-campus evaluations and each institution 18. Tryouts would be centered around the official visit, with a prospect needing to be on an official visit for a tryout until after a prospect’s senior season.

This ties into changes in how contact recruits. Official visits would be allowed starting April of a prospect’s junior year. Contact would be allowed during September and April of a prospect’s junior year as well. Phone calls and text messages would be unlimited starting August of a prospect’s junior year.

When the entire model is put together, it looks something like this:

  • Coaches would use the April and July evaluation periods of a prospect’s sophomore year to pick the members of that class they will target.
  • Starting that August, coaches would establish communication with prospects to gauge interest. Interested prospects would meet coaches in person in September.
  • Over the junior year, coaches confirm their evaluations, and secure commitments with in-home visits, official visits, and a final evaluation on campus that spring.

The model, with the NABC’s limited tryout rule, would greatly favor coaching staffs who can make good evaluations during the spring and summer before a prospect’s junior year. It also gives prospects additional bargaining power if they hold onto official visits and tryouts into their senior year.

There’s still work to be done. The July evaluation period and tryout model are still not set. And the entire exercise could be derailed by tacking on a summer practice rule to a recruiting proposal, especially as the debate over required summer school continues.

The biggest danger to any model, be it recruiting or summer school or financial aid, is to keep it in one piece when it goes in front of the membership. It’s easy to see coaches argue for April AAU evaluations, unlimited tryouts, no change to July, and no change to the contact rules, while administrators fight for reducing the July evaluation periods, deregulating contact, and passing on April AAU events and tryouts.

There’s a glimmer of hope though. The Leadership Council has gone for consensus in putting together the model. And all 31 Division I conferences are represented in that group. When the final proposal goes to the Board of Directors in October, the whole of Division I will have blessed its contents. Then it is up to the individuals on the Leadership Council to see that their vision stays intact.

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.

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: , ,

Power to the purpose

August 5, 2011 by

Robert L. King’s recent piece in Inside Higher Ed featured some shots at the NCAA, but it is the sort of criticism that offers an opportunity for introspection.

King is the president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and the hook for his article involved a flap earlier this year over whether Kentucky erred in counting vacated wins in celebrating 500 wins for basketball coach John Calipari. In his piece, King builds outward from Calipari’s observation that larger programs might be forced to break away from the NCAA.

King’s thesis: “The rulebook governing collegiate sports has become so complex and so minutiae-driven that every Division I program in the nation has to employ lawyers on a full-time basis to be certain they are in compliance.”

After making his case on the Calipari incident, the circumstances surrounding former Ohio State football player Maurice Clarett and a seemingly minor extra benefit from a basketball coach, King concluded: “This is not a call for the end of the NCAA. But I do argue that the NCAA needs to rethink its current rule book and redraft a set of rules that focus on what actually matters: honest competition, the prohibition of performance-enhancing substances, fair recruiting practices, and competent and safe treatment of student athletes. All the rest deserves to be trashed.”

However harsh King’s article may be, the standards he cites in his walkaway are constructive. The trick, of course, is found in identifying – and then controlling − the details of what is honest, fair, competent and safe. The current rulebook is a monument to the complexity of that task.

For what it’s worth, King’s goals are largely reflected in the NCAA’s core purpose, which says (among other things) that the Association “is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner…”

To the degree that things are broken, there’s a good opportunity to make right at next week’s Division I Presidential Retreat. NCAA President Mark Emmert has not minimized the task at hand.

 “We have reached a point where incremental change is not sufficient to meet these challenges,” he said. “I want us to act more aggressively and in a more comprehensive way than we have in the past. A few new tweaks of the rules won’t get the job done.”

Stay tuned for an interesting week.

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: NCAA Insider

Criticism doesn’t add up

August 3, 2011 by

Way back when, we were all taught that two negatives make a positive. Let’s test the theory with Frank Deford and Jay Bilas.

In Tuesday’s weekly commentary on National Public Radio, Deford nestled in on familiar ground by zinging the NCAA, this time for the approaching Division I Presidential Retreat.

“Next week, at some place in Indianapolis where time has been instructed to stand still, Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA, will convene what is being called, without irony, a ‘retreat,’ ” said Deford.

Deford is all about erudition, so we had better pause for a trip to the dictionary:

retreat n  4. A group withdrawal for prayer, meditation or study.

Yep, that seems correct. Now, on to the substance of his complaint.

“The NCAA claims that amateurism equates to purity,” he said. “That is a canard; there is simply no proof of that. Otherwise we would have amateur musicians, painters and writers, and art would flourish pristine as never before.”

Just where does the NCAA equate amateurism with purity? We hear much about the oversized Division I Manual, but a search of its 432 pages does not reveal a single use of the word “purity.”

I’m not aware of anybody who attaches a special haughtiness to the collegiate model of athletics. Most of us who work in the field daily believe it’s a good and workable approach, even if adjustments are required from time to time. But as for a belief that amateurism equals purity, I’m throwing the straw-man flag on Frank Deford.

The second negative is Jay Bilas. This morning, he was all a-Twitter about the Deford commentary. “I’m sure heads in the NCAA office are exploding like in the movie ‘Scanners’ over this one,” Tweeted Bilas.

I regret if this blog somehow fuels that notion. I can reveal, however, in two meeting-packed days at the NCAA national office, the name “Frank Deford” has not been mentioned once in my presence.

I’ve paired Bilas and Deford in this space together before, but the linkage bears repeating. They are both smart guys, but they underachieve on their commentary about college sports because they are so predictable.

As an example, here’s a Bilas Tweet from over the weekend: “NCAA thin skin and circular logic: http://t.co/FkksZAZ Just because rule is passed by member schools doesn’t make it right or reasonable.”

Well, sure. But who said that Jay Bilas is uniquely positioned to declare what’s right or reasonable?

So, do these two negatives, Deford and Bilas, somehow multiply to become a positive? It doesn’t seem so. Maybe the answer is elsewhere in mathematics: Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider

Division III’s Problem Could Be Division I’s Solution

August 2, 2011 by

Conference realignment has been the talk of Division I for almost two years now, and likely will continue to be for some time. Most conference expansion though is relatively uncreative. Natural geographic fits that add value to a conference are snapped up, after which the conference which lost the team must respond.

A few recent moves bucked that trend though. Brigham Young’s move to football indepedence and the West Coast Conference harkened back to the days when Penn State was a member of the Atlantic 10 and Florida State was a member of the Metro Conference (one precursor to Conference USA). Hawaii will become a member of two conferences in 2012, the Mountain West for football and the Big West for other sports. And Texas Christian will join the Big East, which will stretch from Wisconsin to Florida and from Rhode Island to Texas.

Football has driven most of these moves, and it’s football that places a limit on how far the current conference model can go. Expanding beyond twelve schools, the amount required for a FB championship game, is seen as difficult because revenue needs to grow enough to justify splitting it more ways. But if we come up with new conference models, it opens up new avenues for change in the Football Bowl Subdivision while still preserving Division I’s broad membership base. Luckily, Division III has one of those ideas.

The Middle Atlantic Conferences is a Division III conference with members in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. The MAC is plural because it is an overarching conference for two other conferences: the Commonwealth Conference and the Freedom Conference. The MAC is treated as one conference for purposes of revenue distribution and voting. Where each of the two conferences has enough schools sponsoring a sport, the individual conferences get an automatic bid. Where they don’t, the two conferences combine their teams so the MAC gets an automatic bid.

It’s an intriguing solution for a couple of conferences. Imagine a Big East that solves the football/non-football school division by rearranging itself into two conferences under the Big East umbrella. Imagine a Big-Pac 24 that maintains the Rose Bowl by pitting its champions together before an FBS playoff.

Umbrella conferences in Division I could cut costs by consolidating conference offices. Legislation like conference nonqualifiers rules and intra-conference transfer legislation would slowly standardize across Division I (which is good or bad depending on your point of view). And attaching two conferences together has the potential to expand sports, like a combined SEC/ACC bringing lacrosse to the South and stronger baseball to the East Coast.

Obviously there’s numerous issues to be sorted out, not the least of which is that Division III is trying to kill off the concept. But it makes more sense in Division I, where automatic qualification is not as precious as in Division III. The current conference model is hitting a bit of a ceiling though. One way to break through it is with an umbrella (ella, ella).

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.

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

Level playing fields

August 1, 2011 by

The term “level playing field” has been bandied about lately. Curiously, the expression itself is rather unlevel.

Southern Mississippi football coach Larry Fedora trotted out the words in Sunday’s issue of the Orlando Sentinel. Discussing the prospect of full-cost-of-attendance financial aid packages for Division I, he said: “It just has to be a level, fair playing field.”

Pac-12 Conference Commissioner Larry Scott also employed the concept during Pac-12 media days last week. Addressing how he would feel if NCAA rules changes didn’t reflect the differences between the six Division I power conferences and everybody else, he said: “I think that would represent a tremendous failure of the NCAA if it comes to that. I’d like to think that we are at a crossroads, and at this (Aug. 9-10 presidential) retreat they’’ll recognize one size doesn’t fit all anymore. There really is no such thing as competitive equity or even playing field. Certain schools obviously have more money than others and have better facilities and can pay more for coaches. Yet a lot of rules are based on one size fits all. That’s just something the NCAA leadership is going to have to get over. If that’s the standard by which any policy can get made, then I think it’s destined to be an ineffective organization long term.”

You get the idea. From one perspective, “level playing field” is a time-honored, admirable goal. From another, it’s a harmful illusion.

Even our old friend Ramogi Huma of the National College Players Association recently evoked the phrase: “I don’t think cost of attendance will pass, not at this rate,” he said. “Where will the votes come from? If it’s going to be a proposal to just pay if you can pay, then of course the smaller schools are going to be hesitant because of competitive advantages. But the smaller schools aren’t being honest as well because there isn’t a level playing field right now anyway.”

Clearly, the term depends on what you’re talking about. There are contexts − rules governing actual competition, for instance – where complete equality is not only desirable but essential. But that’s not what we’re discussing here. We’re talking about financial commitment, and though it pains me to write the words, I agree with Huma (ouch!) that the bigs and the littles of Division I do not have much in common.

This is hardly something new, though. The NCAA restructured its form of governance 14 years ago, largely in response to concerns about excessive legislative equity. Division I no longer casts original votes as a group, and various governing bodies are weighted to reflect the division’s power structure. The 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences have permanent representation on the 18-member Division I Board of Directors, and six of those are the so-called “equity conferences.”

So I disagree with Huma’s assessment of how smaller conferences or schools are likely, perhaps even eager, to somehow obstruct big changes that the power conferences want. It’s not true practically or politically. That ship sailed years ago.

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider
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