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How-To Guide for Moving the Basketball Season

February 1, 2012 by

One-semester sports are starting to get a buzz in the NCAA. As much as there is a push for a football playoff, most ideas try and end the season before the start of the spring semester. Dan Wolken of The Daily is not the first person to lay out a plan for a college basketball season that starts in January and ends in May, but his is one of the more complete and detailed efforts.

The reason for the push for one-semester seasons is that it often good not just for ratings and marketing but seems to make sense for academics as well. I’m not entirely sold on the academic benefits though. Squeezing games into one semester could mean more missed class time and finals during conference or NCAA tournaments. Perhaps a year-long season with fewer midweek games and a lighter practice schedule is better for academics.

If you move the basketball season to the spring, it’s not just a matter of moving the start and end dates. Some other rules would change and in the end, basketball would look a lot more like non-revenue sports than it does now.

1. Fall Basketball
Just because basketball teams would not be playing games in the fall that counted doesn’t mean there would be no fall basketball season. No sport is stuck with the NCAA’s strict limits on offseason practice for an entire semester.

Basketball’s nonchampionship segment would likely be a hybrid of fall baseball and women’s basketball preseason practice. A set of rules might look like this:

  • 30 days of practice and competition;
  • During a 45 consecutive day period;
  • During the months of September, October and November.

There would games as well. Basketball teams are currently limited to 27 games plus an exempt tournament or 29 games. Teams could play some of those games as exhibitions in the fall, or use their exempt contests like closed practice scrimmages or games against non-DI college. This would make scheduling easier, cutting down on the number of non-DI games played during the season and non-conference home and home matchups.

2. Academic Rules
The two biggest one-semester sports, football and baseball, each have their own special academic rules. This is to address the issue that if student-athletes have no competition that counts during a semester (spring for football, fall for baseball), they have less motivation to be eligible for that semester.

To combat this, football student-athletes are now required to earn nine (rather than six) hours during the fall term or risk being suspended for the beginning of the following season. Baseball student-athletes must be eligible at the start of the fall semester to play in the spring; they may not regain academic eligibility after the fall term.[1]

As a spring sport, basketball would likely get some version of baseball’s rule. While more difficult classes might be scheduled in the fall, student-athletes would still need to enroll full-time, meet the six-hour rule for the spring, and meet the 18-hour rule for the academic year or miss the entire following season.

3. Summer Basketball
If basketball became a single semester sport, there would be less need for the new summer practice rules. It would be less useful for competitive purposes, but more importantly it would be hard to even find the time. If the season lasted until late May, it may be a challenge to schedule the eight weeks of practice that coincidences with summer school terms, fits with the July recruiting periods, and is worth having when the season just ended.

It does not necessarily mean the idea would be scrapped. It would still be beneficial to have student-athletes work out with an institution’s coaches rather than private trainers, which avoids some potential amateurism issues. On shakier ground might be summer basketball leagues which could be less popular after a season that ends in May. Then again, that has not stopped summer baseball leagues from flourishing.

4. Transfers and Midyear Enrollees
Finally, it would be interesting to see how patterns of transfers develop. On the one hand, a midyear transfer looks a lot more attractive because after sitting out one year, you will get to play in the entire following season. On the other hand, some of the issues that cause midyear transfers, like a lack of early playing time, would not come up because the season has not started.

Midyear freshmen enrollees, which were something of a trend this year, would become more popular.[2] This would make the spring NLI signing period for basketball less important. Some prospects who would have signed in the spring will instead wait, graduate from high school, and then be available to enroll for the following spring semester when the situation surrounding a team is clearer. It might become the norm for one-and-done athletes to spend only a single semester in college.

Like my idea for a year-round football season, the biggest problem with such a radical change is that you cannot test it. You do some comparable research and make inferences, but it comes down to a leap of faith that this is the right thing for student-athletes and the sport.

  1. That is one example of a rule that is in numerous places in Bylaw 14.  ↩

  2. Midyear junior college and graduate transfers would still be blocked by a longtime basketball rule that was recently extended to baseball. That rule also exists in other areas of the transfer bylaws.  ↩

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: , ,

Taking Permission Out of Transferring

January 25, 2012 by

I wish I had a clever intro here, but I do not. The challenge is simple: Create a set of transfer rules that promotes what the transfer rules should (graduation and thoughtful decisions in recruiting) without requiring a student-athlete to get permission to transfer. I think I came up with a sufficiently complicated solution.

Fixing Permission to Contact

1. No Limits for Walk-Ons

A common misconception is that walk-ons are treated in a significantly different way than scholarship student-athletes. By and large rules apply the same to a student-athlete on a full grant-in-aid and a student-athlete paying his or her own freight to go to school. In general, this works out well for walk-ons.

But when a walk-on decides to possibly transfer and wants to talk to other schools, it should not necessarily be so. To have any degree of control over a student-athlete’s movements (even the tiny amount below), an institution should have to invest directly in his or her education. A walk-on should not require any permission to talk to schools or transfer anywhere. An institution maintains the ability to offer a walk-on a scholarship for the next term or year, provided the institution has scholarship money available.

2. Scholarship Athletes Can Trade In the Scholarship

The biggest change would allow student-athletes on scholarship to quit the team and give up their scholarship, at which point they would no longer need permission to contact other schools. This bit is pretty self-explanatory.

3. Permission = Cake and Eating

There would still be a mechanism for requesting permission to contact because permission would be needed for a student-athlete to both keep the scholarship and search for another school at the same time. To prevent a student-athlete from unwittingly giving up their scholarship, this bit of Bylaw 15.3.4.2 would be maintained:

A student-athlete’s request for written permission to contact another four-year collegiate institution regarding a possible transfer does not constitute a voluntary withdrawal.

An institution could also be required, in the event permission to contact another school is denied, to notify the student-athlete that by quitting the team and giving up his or her scholarship, permission will no longer be necessary. All the current appeals that student-athletes have when permission to contact is denied or a student-athlete’s scholarship is cancelled would remain as well.

Fixing Transfer Residence

1. Replace the One-Time Exception with “Eligible Everywhere”

The first step would be to change Bylaw 14.5.5.2.10 from the current one-time exception that requires permission and does not apply to football, basketball, baseball or hockey to something like this.

A student-athlete who transfers is not required to serve an academic year in residence if, based on his or her academic record from the first institution, the student-athlete meets all progress-toward-degree requirements at both institutions.

This is a relatively high bar that might put the brakes on more transfers than permission to contact or the one-time exception does now. To meet this requirement, a student-athlete would need to preserve enough credits in the transfer that they do not fall ineligible, even momentarily. Because progress-towards-degree legislation demands a five-year graduation track, this would encourage student-athletes to avoid ever playing catch-up, including for just a summer.

2. Midyear Transfer Restrictions

In addition to the sports that are excluded from the one-time transfer exception, there are two rules about midyear transfer: one general and one specifically for tennis. Both embody the idea that a student-athlete can only play for one team during a season. First the general rule, Bylaw 14.5.5.3:

A transfer student from a four-year institution, who has received a waiver of or qualifies for an exception to the transfer residence requirement, is not eligible to compete at the certifying institution during the segment that concludes with the NCAA championship if the student-athlete has competed during that segment of the same academic year in that sport at the previous four-year institution.

Student-athletes can still play during the same academic year if they only competed during the non-championship or exhibition season. Because qualifying for the tennis championship is a little more complex (and because tennis had a very high rate of midyear transfers), Bylaw 14.5.5.3.1 is a bit different:

In tennis, a transfer student from a four-year institution who enrolls at the certifying institution as a full-time student after the conclusion of the first term of the academic year and qualifies for an exception to the one-year residence requirement shall not be eligible for competition until the following academic year if he or she has competed during the same academic year or received athletically related financial aid during the same academic year from the previous four-year institution.

Maintaining or even broadening those two rules puts a brake on the rashest of decisions and minimizes the impact of the NLI on the transfer process (which is beyond the scope of this post) by encouraging transfers between academic years rather than during one.

Fixing the APR

Since the 2007–2008 data was collected, the Academic Progress Rate has given institutions relief when a student-athlete who is exceeding academic expectations transfers. To qualify for the exception, a student-athlete must:

  • Attend the institution for one academic year;
  • Be academically eligible when her or she leaves the institution;
  • Enroll in a four-year college for the following regular term; and
  • Leave the institution with at least a 2.6 cumulative GPA.

To account for what will undoubtedly be increased transfer activity, the exception would be changed to require that the student-athlete qualify for the basic transfer exception above. If a student leaves the institution in such good academic shape that they never fall behind on the track to graduate, the institution should not be punished. It gives the APR a targeted tool to promote graduation rather than the blunt instrument of the 2.6 GPA.

What Will Transfers Look Like

Any change to a regulatory scheme as complex as the NCAA Manual is likely to produce some unintended consequences. The goal is to move transfers to the summer, provide some degree of predictability, but also to allow more freedom of movement on the student-athlete’s part, without excessive damage to graduation rates. But we can expect the following consequences to happen:

  • Fewer student-athletes will redshirt – There’s no specific graduation rule, because if a student-athlete graduates, they would be eligible at both their school and any school they enroll in, fulfilling the above exception. But with more graduate transfers and possibly more transfers in general, coaches will be less likely to redshirt an athlete who is more likely to leave.
  • More clustering – If the difference between sitting out and playing right away is the choice of a student-athlete’s major, more student-athletes will end up in majors that are more forgiving with transfer credit. Right now, a student-athlete forced to sit out for a year can play catch-up in his or her major of choice, but the promise of immediate eligibility might push him or her to change.
  • Fewer schools will grant permission to contact – If a student-athlete does not need any permission to transfer and can avoid the requirement by giving up his or her scholarship, expect some schools to rarely or never grant permission to contact. Divorces will be easier, but they might also get messier.

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: , ,

Consolidation of Powers

January 16, 2012 by

Back in October, the Board of Directors took unprecedented action when they adopted new initial eligibility standards, a $2,000 miscellaneous expense allowance, multi-year scholarships, and a new men’s basketball recruiting model. It was so unprecedented that the membership pushed back with overrides of both the expense allowance and multi-year scholarships, going so far as to suspend the $2,000 stipend for the time being.

By comparison, the actions of the Board of Directors at the 2012 NCAA Convention were relatively mundane. The Board refused to implement a few of the ideas suggested by the Resource Allocation Working Group, including scholarship cuts to football and women’s basketball and the end of foreign tours. The Board adopted a moratorium on increases in the length of seasons and the number of games and ordered a study on appropriate limits, with a special focus on basketball. And they completed the work of the Leadership Council by adopting a model for on-campus tryouts and summer practice in men’s basketball.

The group missing from all this action is the Legislative Council. Bold new ideas were adopted without passing them through the primary lawmaking body of the NCAA. In addition, at the request of one working group, the Legislative Council tabled 50 of the 82 active proposals. The Legislative Council will spend another year on the sidelines as well, after the Board of Directors agreed to suspend the legislative process to allow the Rules Working Group to complete their work of picking apart and putting back together the NCAA Division I Manual.[1]

Freezing the Legislative Council out is responsible for a significant amount of the backlash against the Presidential Retreat initiatives. The reason is simple. On the Legislative Council, all 31 Division I conferences have a representative.[2] On the Board of Directors, all 11 FBS conferences have a representative, but the other 20 FCS and non-football conferences share 7 representatives. In addition, none of the Presidential Retreat working groups have representation from all conferences and some conferences have no representatives on any of the groups.

Since 2010, there has been a push by FCS and non-football leagues to expand the Board of Directors to include all conferences, lead by the Northeast Conference and Big South Conference. That would create a more representative 31-member board, potentially one which would have the same type of weighted voting as the Legislative Council.[3] But that creates an unwieldy and parallel legislative process where a proposal has to pass through two bodies representing the same group of institutions, one populated by presidents and the other populated by athletic administrators, who are expected to be working at the direction of their presidents.

The solution then is to get rid of the Legislative Council and expand the Board of Directors to include all conferences. Voting could be weighted or not. The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee could be given a representative for a nice, even 32. Individual schools still have a chance to be heard through the override process.

This would be the most visible symbol of the push toward presidential control of college athletics. The primary law-making body would be composed of presidents. The legislative cycle could even be disbanded or tweaked to allow issues to be addressed more quickly. And the override process gives athletic administrators the chance to pitch their individual president (who controls the requests and the vote) on that school’s objections to a proposal.

The other chief benefit would come after the new Division I Manual is introduced to the world about 18 months from now. The challenge is not to make a new manual that is easier to understand and only focuses on serious issues. The hard part is to keep the manual that way. Presidents are more likely to only take up serious issues of national importance. You would expect the Board of Directors to adopt fewer proposals that address purely competitive equity issues brought up by only a few conferences.

The downside is the lack of an expert body to vet legislation, since the Legislative Council is composed mostly of athletic administrators with a compliance background and the occasional faculty athletics representative. But the Leadership Council (composed mostly of athletic directors) would still exist. And the National Association for Athletics Compliance (NAAC) or some new NCAA committee could act in an advisory capacity for the presidents on the board.[4]

The presidential retreat initiatives are asking NCAA members not to just to accept some changes, but to accept a new way of doing business. Since the work of fixing and improving college athletics is an ongoing process, that change should be manifested in changes to way NCAA rules are made. If so, the current appetite for reform has a chance to gather enough momentum to stop being a movement and start being the new business as usual.

  1. Insert Six Million Dollar Man reference here. “We can rebuild it. We have the technology. We can make it better than it was before. Better, thinner, clearer.”  ↩

  2. The Pioneer Football League also has a representative who votes on FCS issues only.  ↩

  3. The conferences with BCS automatic qualification and Conference USA get three votes. The other FBS conferences get 1.5 votes. All other conferences get 1.2 votes.  ↩

  4. The Collegiate Model-Rules Working Group has already stated an intention to work with NAAC in crafting the new manual.  ↩

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: , ,

Transfer 101

January 14, 2012 by

At their best, transfers are a way of life in college athletics. At their worst, transfers are an all too necessary evil. The fact is with 400,000 student-athletes who make a major life decision at 16–18 years old,[1] there is bound to be some amount of transfer activity. All sorts of ideas have been tried to reduce the transfer rate, with varying degrees of success, but it will never be reduced to zero.

Once a student-athlete decides to transfer, a number of rules come into play. It’s a complicated process, and a lot about the process is understood. Much of that is due to the exceptions that arise. If there were no exceptions, transfers would be governed by two simple rules. But as you’ll see in this guide, simpler is rarely better.

Permission to Contact or “Why Compliance Folk Hate the Word ‘Release’”

“So and so was released from his scholarship.” That is the common phrase you hear when it is reported that a student-athlete has decided to transfer. But there are two gigantic problems with that phrase.

The first is that whether an athlete is on scholarship affects surprising little in the transfer process. A walk-on must still get permission to contact and must still sit out in most cases. The second is that a release could mean one of four things, only one of which is formally called a release. But typically what it means is that the student-athlete was granted permission to contact.

Permission to contact starts the transfer process. Typically either a school contacts another school seeking permission to talk with one of its student-athletes or the athlete seeks permission to talk to other schools. Requests from one school to another are governed by professional courtesy while requests from student-athletes are governed by the NCAA rules.

Once a student-athlete makes a written request for permission to talk to other schools, the institution has seven business days to respond to the request or it is automatically granted. If permission to contact a school is denied, it must be denied in writing, and the student-athlete offered an appeal. That appeal is decided by individuals outside the athletic department and the student-athlete must be notified of a decision within 15 business days.

If permission to contact a school is denied, the other school may not encourage the transfer. But nothing prevents the student-athlete from enrolling in the school on their own. Once there, however, he or she may not receive an athletic scholarship until after an academic year has elapsed.[2]

There are exceptions though:

  • Once a school has announced a student-athlete’s sport will be dropped, permission is automatically granted to contact any institution.
  • If the Committee on Infractions bans a team from the postseason for the rest of a student-athlete’s eligibility (assuming he or she does not redshirt), permission is automatically granted to contact any institution.[3]

Finally, the permission to contact requirement expires after a student-athlete is gone from the institution for one academic year. The only exception is if the student-athlete is on a religious mission, then it remains intact.[4]

One Exception to Rule Them All

Conventional wisdom says that student-athletes in football and basketball must sit out a year while athletes in other sports do not. In practice, conventional wisdom is mostly correct. According to the rules though, that is not always the case.

The basic rule is that any transfer from any collegiate institution to a Division I school must spend one academic year in residence before he or she is eligible for competition. In order to not sit out a year, the student-athlete must qualify for an exception to the residency requirement.

Transfers get pigeonholed into one of three categories: two-year college transfers, four-year college transfers, or 4–2–4 transfers (student-athletes who start at a four-year school, transfer to a junior college, then transfer to a Division I institution.) All have a different set of exceptions, but four-year college transfers (often called 4–4 transfers) are the focus here.

Most of the exceptions to the transfer requirement are very specific and apply only to a small fraction of student-athletes who transfer. They include:

  • Student-athletes in exchange programs;
  • When a student’s academic program is discontinued;
  • If the student returns from military service;
  • If the student-athlete’s sport was dropped or never sponsored by the first school;
  • The student-athlete has not participated in sports for at least two years; or
  • The student-athlete was not recruited and only tried out.

The bulk of student-athletes who transfer and do not need to sit out do so because they qualify for the one-time transfer exception. To qualify for the one-time transfer exception, a student-athlete must meet all of the following requirements:

  • Play a sport other than baseball, basketball, FBS football, or men’s ice hockey;[5]
  • Have never previously transferred from a four-year institution;
  • Be academically eligible at the first institution, assuming the student-athlete had stayed; and
  • Get written notice from the first school that it does not object to the use of the one-time transfer exception.

The final requirement is the second of the four releases that can occur during a transfer. Permission to use the one-time transfer exception is often granted on a “tracer.” That is a form that compliance officers send each other when a student-athlete transfers which asks for this permission along with other information needed to determine if a student-athlete can use one of the transfer exceptions. If permission to use the one-time transfer exception is not granted, the student-athlete has a right to the same written notice and appeal process used when permission to contact is not granted.

Graduates

When a student-athlete wishes to transfer after graduating, a slightly different set of rules kicks in. But a history lesson is in order.

Prior to 2005, a graduate had to meet one of the transfer exceptions like any other student. In 2006, Division I adopted proposal 2005–54, which stated that any student-athlete who graduated with eligibility remaining could transfer and play immediately at the new school if he or she enrolled in a graduate program. This was a brand new transfer exception, one with relatively few requirements, required no permission[6] and which applied to many student-athletes.

As a result, many student-athletes took advantage of the new exception. So many in such a short amount of time that the rule was overridden and ultimately defeated at the 2007 NCAA Convention.

But the idea behind 2005–54 never fully went away. It lived on as a very standard waiver which was relatively easy to get, provided you qualified for it. To qualify, the student-athlete needed to graduate, enroll in a graduate program not offered by the first institution, and receive permission from the first institution to be granted the waiver (like the one-time transfer exception).

Finally, that waiver was codified by Proposal 2010–52 as Bylaw 14.1.9.1, as a transfer exception rather than a waiver, meaning each case did not need to be processed by the NCAA. There were two big changes. First, Bylaw 14.1.9.1 gives access to the one-time transfer exception for students who played sports that did not qualify for it. Second, the bylaw required that the student-athlete’s aid was not renewed for the following year, although this could occur after a student-athlete decided to transfer.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Waiver

All NCAA rules are subject to waivers from the Subcommittee for Legislative Relief (SLR) and the NCAA staff in that area.[7] The transfer rules have a number of such waivers. The most well-known are the graduate transfer waiver (which still exists) and the hardship transfer waiver. The hardship transfer waiver is for student-athletes who are compelled to transfer because of financial hardship or an injury or illness to the student-athlete or a member of their family.

Effect of the NLI

Only two parts of the National Letter of Intent really apply to transfers once a student-athlete has enrolled at the institution: how the provisions of the NLI are satisfied and the basic penalty of the NLI. The provisions of the letter are satisfied once the student-athlete attends the school for one academic year. After that, the NLI is complete and has no bearing on a transfers.

If a student-athlete wishes to transfer during the first academic year at the school, they would be subject to the basic penalty. If a student-athlete leaves without fulfilling the NLI, he or she must sit one year before competing at the new school and loses a season of competition in all sports.

The basic penalty can be avoided by obtaining a release. Obtaining a release from the NLI is much like obtaining permission to contact or use of the one-time transfer exception, but with two major differences. First, the NLI release is not school-specific, there is only a “complete release.” An institution cannot grant a release from the NLI, but exclude conference schools, for instance.

Second, the NLI has not one but two appeals. Both appeals are to groups outside the institution. If an institution denies the complete release, the student-athlete has 30 days to appeal to the NLI Policy and Review Committee.

  1. Or earlier.  ↩

  2. An academic year is any two consecutive semesters or three consecutive quarters. It does not need to run fall-spring.  ↩

  3. In this case, the other schools that are contacting or being contacted by the student-athletes must notify the first school of the contact.  ↩

  4. This is part of two dueling proposals from the WAC and Mountain West a few years ago. The Mountain West wanted to stop schools from recruiting its athletes while they were on religious missions. The WAC countered by proposing to remove a transfer exception upon completion of a mission. Both were adopted.  ↩

  5. There are a few caveats though. If a student-athlete was not recruited, they can still use the exception even in the sports listed. The sport that counts is the one the athlete will play at the second institution. And to use the exception to transfer from FBS to FCS, the student-athlete must have at least two years of eligibility remaining.  ↩

  6. Permission to contact still would have been needed for an athlete to get financial aid.  ↩

  7. SLR is a subcommittee of the Legislative Council.  ↩

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: , ,

What Pay-For-Play Advocates Get Wrong

January 3, 2012 by

“College athletes should be paid.” It’s a very simple sentence. Most people either agree with it or they do not. A few go for the more subtle responses like “They already get paid with a scholarship” and “They already get paid with a scholarship so all we’re negotiating is the wage.”[1] By and large though, you could draw responses on a continuum and divide them into support or oppose.

Precisely because so many people have such strong opinions about amateurism and pay-for-play, rare is the article that actually tries to lure people to the author’s side. That does not mean those op-ed columns were an illusion. It means that the issue of paying student-athletes is normally presented as a moral one. There is a right and wrong side and it does not matter whether one side is more popular than the other.

But while issues of how public institutions spend their money can be a moral issue, they are more likely to be judgement calls. Should these people pay more taxes to provide services for these other people? Should this program get cut in favor of that program? Should we expand this department or contract that one? History may eventually favor one side or the other, but that does not necessarily mean being on the wrong side of history should not be allowed.

Often the trump card in arguing for professionalizing college athletics[2] is the conclusion that either college athletes should be paid or major college athletics should cease to exist. The problem is that is not a conclusion, it is two options. And one option, closing up shop, is widely supported with more detailed arguments behind it than one would ever need in a debate.

Agree or disagree, pay-for-play advocates do a fine job attacking the status quo. They do a reasonable job of coming up with plans to pay college athletes. But the bit they get wrong is that they never do a good job persuading people to support their plan. Unless “opposing this idea is morally wrong” is considered a good persuasive technique.

What is being argued for is not a general idea, but rather a very specific one. There are very few people at this point who disagree with the general idea that there should be more professional opportunities for athletes, particularly athletes aged 18–22. But this debate is not about a general idea. It is about a very specific one: that public institutions, which all colleges are to some extent, should be providing the opportunities. That fewer students should have other opportunities and fewer schools should be able to offer them. And that revenue generation and entertainment should be embraced as the goals driving decision making.

My advice to pay-for-play advocates is to stop treating this debate as a legal one and start treating it as a political one. Rather than assuming that professional athletics and higher education can and should coexist, explain why. Do the research to show it will be better. Convince people that the things being gained are worth more than the things being lost or put at risk. Above all, make the case rather than acting like it has been won.

  1. Apologies to Winston Churchill.  ↩

  2. Read: Professionalizing college football and men’s basketball.  ↩

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:

Second Annual New Year, New Rules

December 28, 2011 by

Last year, in response to ESPN the Magazine inexplicably publishing an issue about new rules that included not one NCAA regulation, I came up with six tweaks that would have an outsized impact on college athletics, one for each working bylaw in the NCAA Manual. ESPN’s gimmick is gone, but I kept it. This year I expanded it to seven rules, splitting Bylaw 15 (financial aid) and Bylaw 16 (awards and benefits) which were combined last year. So here is the Second Annual List of New Rules for the New Year.

Bylaw 11 (Athletics Personnel) – Dump the Test
The coaches recruiting certification exam is an annual rite of passage at NCAA institutions. The test used to be 40 questions over 80 minutes and was recently cut down to 30 questions over 60 minutes. It is open book (i.e. the NCAA Manual) and it includes mostly recruiting rules but sometimes rules about eligibility or financial aid as well. Coaches have to score an 80% on the exam. Fail to do so, and a coach may not recruit until he or she passes the exam, which they cannot do for another month.

But the most important function of the test is what surrounds it. Coaches gather for a rules review with the Compliance Office where they go over new legislation, get a refresher in the trickier recruiting rules, and have an opportunity to ask questions. It is that rules review which is more helpful than the actual test itself. The test just provides a convenient reason to get everyone in a room together.

If you read the certification requirement, the recruiting exam is just one required part of being certified to recruited off-campus. Instead, the education session (say four hours for coaches new to college athletics and two hours as continuing education) should be the greater emphasis. And if conferences or institutions wish to continue developing an exam, they can assume the expense to do so.

Bylaw 12 (Amateurism) – Competition with Professionals
Most people at this point are familiar with Proposal 2009–22, which permitted a prospect to compete on professional teams prior to his or her initial enrollment in college. But 2009–22 is just an exception to the more basic rule, that competition on a professional team ends an athlete’s collegiate eligibility. And the definition of a professional team remains very broad, covering any team where even one individual receives compensation above he or her expenses.

Competing with a professional team, at least during vacation periods outside of the traditional season, does not pass the litmus test for an amateurism rule. It does necessarily mean an athlete has received pay. And it is not strong enough evidence that a student-athlete has decided to leave college (unlike hiring an agent or skipping out on class to play on a pro team). Allowing competition with professional teams during the time when outside competition is currently allowed also allows better opportunities to be developed for current athletes (like an NBA college summer league for example).

Bylaw 13 (Recruiting) – Only Kids Get in Free
Much of the talk in recruiting regulation has been about relationships. Coaches need fewer recruiting regulations to build relationships with athletes that combat the influences of the dreaded “third party”. But Bylaw 13.8.1 promotes coaches developing relationships with these third parties by allowing high school coaches, AAU or 7-on–7 coaches, and junior college coaches to receive two free tickets to a regular season home game.

If relationships with prospects are the key to combating third party influence and cutting down on transfer rates, no one connected to a prospect should get a free ticket to a game without bringing the prospect. The regulations on official and/or unofficial visits could be loosened to give a prospect an extra ticket to bring a coach. But the recruiting regulations should allow the entertaining of people who have influence over a prospect if the prospect is nowhere to be found.

Bylaw 14 (Eligibility) – Degree Progress Get Out of Jail Free Card
Fulfilling progress towards degree rules requires a student-athlete keep up with three different regulations:

The first and third requirements are typically duplicative. The six and 18 credits an athlete must earn each semester or academic year keeps them on track to meet the 40/60/80% degree requirements. Except when the percentage of degree gets out of line with the credit hour requirements, which happens when an athlete gets ahead. Then they might be unable to complete the credit hour requirements because they ran out of credits to take, requiring a waiver. Or the credit hour requirements keep them from exploring electives.

Completing a percentage of your degree is the more important rule, so it should trump the credit hour requirements. If an athlete is ahead by a certain percentage and meeting (or beating by some amount) the GPA requirement, they should be exempt from the credit hour requirement. This way student-athletes who went above and beyond early in their academic careers gain more freedom to take what they want later on.

Bylaw 15 (Financial Aid) – End the Recruited/Not Recruited Distinction
Recruiting is a funny word. It has a formal definition that sounds exactly like what you expect a definition to sound like in a legal code:

Recruiting is any solicitation of a prospective student-athlete or a prospective student-athlete’s relatives (or legal guardians) by an institutional staff member or by a representative of the institution’s athletics interests for the purpose of securing the prospective student-athlete’s enrollment and ultimate participation in the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program.

But for practical purposes, that definition is trumped by three other, more technical requirements. There is the definition of a recruited prospect in Bylaw 13. There is the definition of a recruited prospect for men’s basketball camp purposes. And there is the definition a recruited prospect in Bylaw 15. That status attaches when ever a school:

  • Provides an official visit to a prospect;
  • Has in-person, off-campus contact with a prospect; or
  • Makes a written offer of financial aid to a prospect.

Once a prospect becomes recruited, how they count in financial aid limits changes. For example, if they are a football or basketball player, they may not receive any institutional financial aid without counting against the team’s limits. However, a coach can evaluate a prospect numerous times, call them as much as the rules allow, and offer them free tickets to any home event on an unlimited number of unofficial visits. Those activities would definitely meet the NCAA’s more fundamental definition.

If the distinction is meaningful, the technical definitions of a recruited student-athlete need to match the NCAA’s core definition. That would mean a definition that looks like the men’s basketball camp definition, which means an athlete would need to show up on campus with essentially no prior contact with the athletics department. And if the distinction is not meaningful anymore, it should be removed in favor of a rule which more precisely addresses using the financial aid office to get around scholarship limits.

Bylaw 16 (Awards and Benefits) – Let Student-Athletes Catch a Game
When athletes are on the road or required to stay over a break, schools are allowed to keep them occupied. Entertainment is allowed during both road trips and vacation breaks during the season. There is one meaningful difference though: during a vacation break, that entertainment cannot be tickets to a professional sports contest. That means no NBA games for athletes during winter break, or no baseball games for baseball players after school gets out in the summer.

There are already enough controls on entertainment generally (within a certain distance) and controls on professional sports tickets during road games (must come from the institution) to prevent it from being abused during these relatively short times when athletes are stuck on an empty campus. And while it is an advantage to schools near professional teams, the fact that tickets cannot be used in the recruiting process or given during the academic year limits that advantage.

Bylaw 17 (Playing and Practice Seasons) – Basketball Alumni Games
In sports other than football and basketball, alumni contests are a common occurrence. They typically occur during the exhibition season (like during fall baseball) or as a preseason meet before the championship season starts. They are exempt from the limit on the total number of games, and the NCAA recently began allowing athletes to participate in an alumni game and still redshirt that year.

Basketball’s preseason is a bit of a mess right now. One problem was well known: the strict limits on which athletes could play in exhibition games and still redshirt. Another did not pop up until this year as a result of the NBA lockout. NBA players wanted to workout with their old college teams and even play against them, but the NCAA does not exempt alumni games in basketball from the maximum number of competitions or first permissible start date like exhibitions against lower division opponents or closed-door scrimmages.

A framework is there though. Basketball teams get two games that do not count between the first day of practice and the first real game. What those two games can be should expand and whether they count as using a season of competition should be simplified. But an excellent start would be to allow schools that have alumni willing to suit up to use an alumni game as one of their two exhibitions.

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: , ,

Just A Little Bit Longer

December 20, 2011 by

Back in the summer and early fall, there was a great deal of consternation about why it seemed so many men’s basketball prospects were being declared nonqualifiers. The biggest reason is that nontraditional courses had to meet a much higher bar that before. That left fewer “quick fixes” available to athletes who were just short of being qualifiers.

Now a new trend has started, one foreshadowed back in the fall. Instead of reclassifying to the following academic year, some men’s basketball prospects are completing the initial eligibility requirements during the fall semester and enrolling in the spring. This makes them eligible to start playing and practicing once the fall semester or quarter ends.

This is allowed because while men’s basketball has rules against midyear transfers competing right away, there is no such rule for incoming freshmen. As an example, here is Bylaw 14.5.4.2.3, which covers a midyear transfer from a junior college by a student-athlete who was not a qualifier:

Bylaw 14.5.4.2.3 – Baseball and Basketball – Midyear Enrollee.
In baseball and basketball, a student who was not a qualifier (per Bylaw 14.3.1.1) who satisfies the provisions of Bylaw 14.5.4.2, but initially enrolls at a certifying institution as a full-time student after the conclusion of the institution’s first term of the academic year, shall not be eligible for competition until the ensuing academic year.

There are similar rules for a junior college transfer who was a qualifier, a 4–2–4 transfer, and a transfer from a four-year college who qualifies for an exception to the one-year residence requirement. The only missing situation is an incoming freshman.

A prospect who fails to qualify is, according to the NCAA’s definition, not yet ready to handle the rigors of both college academics and Division I competition. Even though these prospects eventually completed the requirements, they required extra time and in some cases a different environment (i.e. prep school). It is a population that definitely needs extra attention and resources.

But by coming in as midyear enrollees, these prospects seem to have increased the degree of difficulty. Instead of acclimating to college before the basketball season tips off, they jump straight into midseason basketball activities, then are expected to add a full academic load on top of that. Midyear enrollees also have a tougher adjustment to college without many of the same orientation activities that happen in the fall. Not to mention that professors generally assume that most freshmen have a semester of college under their belt in the spring.

A similar issue is being debated in football surrounding spring enrollees. To enroll in the spring, prospects must complete the initial eligibility requirements in seven rather than eight semesters. But some spring enrollees are not on track to be qualifers after eight semesters when they start their senior year. That raises the question of whether it is academically sound to go from behind to ahead in a shortened time frame.

Luckily, the NCAA members do not need to rely on what seems right. If the trend continues, there will eventually be a large enough set of data to determine if nonqualifiers who are get eligible and enroll in the spring graduate, stay eligible, and are retained at a significantly lower rate. At that point, it is just a question of what type of rule might fix it. Something like this perhaps:

Bylaw 14.3.1.1.3 – Men’s Basketball – Midyear Enrollee (DRAFT).
In men’s basketball, a student-athlete is not eligible for competition until the following academic year if:

  1. The student-athlete was not a qualifier based on his academic record as of the first day of classes for the certifying institution’s first term of the academic year; and
  2. The student-athlete enrolls at the certifying institution following the completion of the first term.

(Note: This rule does not exist and is not being discussed anywhere but in this post.)

Obviously there are many possible tweaks. Including more sports, including qualifiers, fiddling with dates, etc. A rule like that would create a strong incentive to go to prep school for a whole year, while not preventing an athlete from enrolling if that is ultimately his choice and a scholarship is available (although new conference nonqualifier rules could do just that).

That is all down the road though. There is never a problem until there is a problem, and right now there is only a potential problem. Something to keep an eye on, and maybe down the road something that requires a response.

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: , ,

Funding Reform

December 15, 2011 by

Unfunded mandates are always controversial. When one government requires another government to spend money it may not have, there is bound to be tension. Proposal 2011–96, which allows schools to provide up to $2,000 beyond the current grant-in-aid limits, is not an unfunded mandate. The key word is allows. The proposal requires schools to do nothing, just permits them to.

But many schools are struggling to see a choice. 2011–96 (and 2011–97, the multi-year grant proposal) allow, in the views of many administrators and coaches in Division I, something so powerful that it must be provided. The fear with competitive equity is not that winning is easier for some schools than others because of money. The fear is that winning will become impossible for some schools based on money. Increased money to student-athletes is expected to be one of the things with that sort of competitive impact. That fear has been turned into enough override requests to suspend 2011–96 at least until the Board of Directors takes another look at the proposal.

The simplest way to address the issues with an unfunded mandate is often to fund it. However, that is often impossible since funding the program (i.e. raising taxes) is often as unpopular as the program might be necessary. But in this case, the Board of Directors could kill not just two but six birds with one stone. Because the mechanism for funding a large grant-in-aid increase is the creation of an FBS football playoff.

Not just any playoff. This would be an NCAA Division I FBS Football Tournament. That means a selection committee. It probably means an RPI of some kind. It could mean a large bracket, although it does not have to. But most importantly, it means the revenue from such a tournament would be distributed by the NCAA.

Only about 40% of the revenue the NCAA distributes to Division I schools is distributed based on competitive success (i.e. winning games in the men’s basketball tournament). The rest is distributed equally (sometimes with strings attached) or based on the number of scholarships a school offers or how many student-athletes receive Pell Grants. Not to mention that the Division I revenue distribution takes up only 60% of the NCAA’s total operating revenue, with the rest spent on the NCAA’s championships, membership services, distributions to Divisions II and III and administrative expenses.

If an FBS tournament generated similar revenue to the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, there would be to match or even exceed existing Bowl Championship Series payouts while leaving plenty left over to fund the additional scholarship costs. In fact, it would be able to fund the most expensive version of that proposal, where the expense allowance is equal to the full cost-of-attendance and student-athletes on partial scholarships receive an equivalent portion of the stipend.

A funded scholarship increase could potentially solve the following problems:

  • Criticism that the increased aid is not to the full cost-of-attendance. The allowance could more easily be increased to that number without imposing additional costs on cash-strapped universities. Plus mandated reporting through the NCAA’s revenue distribution system allays concerns that the cost-of-attendance calculation might be manipulated.
  • Title IX concerns. If the proposal is broadened to include partial scholarship athletes, then the proportion of aid available to men and women does not change, and football’s 85 full scholarship no longer create a significant Title IX hurdle.
  • Creation of a football playoff. No need for explanation here.
  • Competitive equity impact. In the short term, there is no competitive equity impact, since the scholarship increase is funded for everyone.
  • A new model of competitive equity. In the long term, the existence of an NCAA tournament in football and greater targeted funding of specific costs makes the Board of Directors’ new approach to competitive equity more palatable. In all sports schools would compete against their conference peers to get into a national tournament where they get their shot against the rest of the country.

It also makes a football playoff significantly more likely. Instead of the weighted voting of the Legislative Council, FBS schools would receive one vote each. FBS specific legislation requires 25 requests to start the override process, 50 to suspend legislation, and 75 votes against a proposal if it ultimately comes to that. At that point, the only way an FBS football playoff would not occur would be if a significant majority of schools did not want one.

If this sounds too good to be true, it is admittedly a little oversimplified. It would be hard to tie the existing financial aid proposal to an FBS-only playoff proposal, so you would have two separate proposals. Everything would go back to another override process where the success of one proposal hinges on the success of the other and with only a subset of schools voting on one of the proposals. But the idea solves too many problems to not get at least a “what if” when the Board of Directors meets in January to continue the path to reform.

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: , , , ,

A billion here, a billion there

December 13, 2011 by

Note to The Chronicle of Higher Education: If you’re going to go with a sensational headline, please get it right.

In a Dec. 11 story, the nation’s leading chronicler of higher education assembled eight writers to address this topic: “What in the hell has happened to college sports? And what should we do about it?”

The subhead says “No wonder they call it big-time sports/College athletics programs pull in about $106-billion in revenue annually. But the challenges facing college sports may outweigh any dollar amount.”

To challenge the Chronicle is to appear defensive, especially when they are in red-meat mode, as shown by the “what in the hell” language. So it is with considerable trepidation that I offer the actual figure for college athletics revenue: It is somewhere between $11 and $12 billion, or about $95 billion less than the figure cited. If you count only generated revenues (ticket sales, TV contracts, etc.), the number is quite a bit less.

Putting that doozy aside, here is the guidance from the panel of experts:

Frank Deford: “Bust the Amateur Myth”

William C. Friday: “Get Out of Show Business”

Harry Edwards: “Share the Wealth”

Tom McMillen: “Eliminate the Profit Motive”

Nancy Hogshead Makar: “Tie Money to Values”

Oscar Robertson: “Don’t Treat Players Like Gladiators”

Len Elmore: “Exempt the NCAA from Antitrust”

Astute readers will immediately see two things. First, most of the writers have written the same stuff in various places many times before; there’s not much new here. Second, the collection is so conflicted as to be useless. Some want to get rid of the excess money; some want the money to go to those who are thought to generate it. Some want to get rid of show business; others want to get rid of academic pretense.

The most common suggestion from the group of eight may be to give college sports an antitrust exemption. That’s fine, but it’s also beyond the NCAA’s control. I’m not aware of a groundswell in Congress to create an antitrust exemption, and I can only imagine the histrionics that would accompany any such effort.

But back to the $106 billion. The number isn’t treated anywhere in the Chronicle package, so it’s not clear where they came up with it. The NCAA has researched the topic of overall revenue, and here’s the relevant question and answer on NCAA.org:

“Is NCAA revenue different from money generated by member conferences and institutions?

“Yes. The most recent estimate from the NCAA research staff is that college athletics programs annually generate about $6.1 billion from ticket sales, radio and television receipts, alumni contributions, guarantees, royalties and NCAA distributions. Another $5.3 billion is considered allocated revenue, which comes from student fees allocated to athletics, direct and indirect institutional support, and direct government support.”

The $106 billion figure would seem to be prima facie wrong since it would require about $100 million in annual athletics revenue for every NCAA Division I, II and III member (more than 1,000 colleges and universities). If only it were so. The most recent NCAA study identified only 11 programs exceeding $100 million in revenue.

One hopes that this error doesn’t take on a life of its own as it’s perpetuated by other media.

The Chronicle of Higher Education subsequently changed the headline to $10.6 billion.

About Dave Pickle

Filed Under: Feature, NCAA Insider

MLB Agreement Big News For College Baseball

November 23, 2011 by

When the NCAA legislative process is wound into high gear, it’s natural for compliance offices to take notice. Obviously if something changes in the book we use everyday, we need to know that and be ready for it.

Major league collective bargaining negotiations would seem to have a lot less impact on college sports. But the changes made in them can have a big impact. Normally those changes are small in the grand scheme of things. A two-year age limit in the NBA is considered a footnote to a negotiation that centers on revenue splits and free agency mechanics, despite the impact is has on the NBA’s talent pipeline.

By contrast, Major League Baseball’s quick and quiet negotiations made spending on new players who are or might be in college a major issue. After recommended signing bonuses for players failed to curb spending on incoming talent, the union and the owners have agreed to significant penalties for teams who do not follow MLB’s slotting system.

A luxury tax threshold will be set based on a team’s recommended bonuses for the first 10 rounds of the draft. Exceeding the recommended bonuses by even 5% requires payment of a 75% tax. Penalties escalate quickly; teams exceeding the tax threshold by 15% pay a 100% fine and lose two first round draft picks.

In addition, the signing deadline was moved up a full month. Instead of being in mid-August, right before school started, it will be in mid-July, moving around based on the All Star Game.

All of this is a gigantic win for compliance professionals and the NCAA Eligibility Center. With less wiggle room allowed (and small commissions available), agents acting as advisors to players have less incentive to take a hands-on approach to negotiations, meaning fewer violations of Bylaws 12.3.2 and 12.3.2.1. The shorter negotiating window also means amateur status can be settled sooner, reducing the number of Eligibility Center investigations which stretch into the school year.

In the medium-to-long term, it should improve other aspects of the recruiting and initial eligibility process. Baseball should settle into a pattern, like the NBA did, where draft position largely dictates whether a prospect will attend college. This means prospects who are not projected high enough will need to take academics more seriously. A worldwide draft, rumored to be a possibility as soon as 2014 would push even more prospects toward college.

Whether it turns out to be a win for college baseball as a whole remains to be seen. Baseball has struggled to attract athletes, and now large amounts of money available early in an athlete’s career will no longer be available. How much? In 2011, just three teams (Pirates, Royals, and Nationals) spent more than $25 million over slot on draft picks covered by the new regulations. The top three picks received bonuses that were roughly double MLB’s recommendation. Those bonuses alone would have trigged the steepest penalties in the new draft luxury tax system.

The fear is that while more of the best baseball players will likely end up in college, fewer of the best athletes(subscription req’d) will still be playing baseball when it comes time to make the choice.

This is the part where MLB tells talented young amateur athletes – who, by the way, aren’t union members and had zero voice in these negotiations – that baseball is a lousy avenue for them to take, at least financially, and they should probably check out other sports.

Getting more of the best players does not help the game if the talent level of the entire player pool is significantly lower.

The uncertainty also comes from the NCAA’s side of the equation, since no sport is as greatly impacted by the Presidential Retreat reforms as much as baseball. The $2,000 miscellaneous expense allowance may change how coaches distribute their 11.7 scholarships. Length of scholarships will be a key concern, especially for parents of top pitchers. And the new academic requirements will have a noticeable effect in baseball, which has many junior college transfers and has struggled with below average APR scores.

College baseball is just starting to hit its stride as a potential revenue sport. As a spring sport with lots of games, it fills a huge programming need for conference or institutional TV networks. The Division I Baseball Tournament is reported to turn a profit for the NCAA. Attendance is up as well. Despite the struggles, most notably the geographic divide of Southern and Western haves vs. Northern have-nots, the sport is as healthy as any in college athletics. Whether these new changes, the second round to hit baseball in four years fuel more growth or hit the brakes remains to be seen.

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: , ,
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