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A Healthy Sibling Rivalry

April 1, 2012 by

The NCAA and NBA are finally having it out. After years of “will they or won’t they” and “are they or aren’t they,” the two most important organizations in American basketball are gearing up for a sustained fight. It’s a fight which if not diffused quickly could lead to radical changes in how basketball operates in this country and how players are developed. These changes will make many people unhappy. This post is about why I hope this fight is not diffused quickly.

The fight started with President Mark Emmert’s comments about the NBA’s 19 year-old age limit that requires basketball players to spend a year doing something:

“I happen to dislike the one-and-done rule enormously and wish it didn’t exist. I think it forces young men to go to college that have little or no interest in going to college.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern had a rather pointed response:

“A college could always not have players who are one and done. They could do that. They could actually require the players to go to classes. Or they could get the players to agree that they stay in school, and ask for the scholarship money back if they didn’t fulfill their promise. There’s all kinds of things that, if a bunch of people got together and really wanted to do it, instead of talk about it.”

Let’s quickly get one thing out of the way: both men are correct. There are a group of athletes who, but for the age limit, would be in the NBA. They are in college because they decided that college basketball was the best alternative. And the NCAA, conferences, or schools could adopt any number of policies designed to fight the effects of the one-and-done rule. But neither really addresses the other. You still have athletes who would rather not be in college and it is still not the NBA’s problem.

This fight is unlikely to go away because conventional wisdom says each group needs the other. Operating a U23 developmental league on the scale of Division I would be impossible for the NBA on its own. And if the NBA removed the best players from college basketball, interest would drop some amount. Both of these facts are true, but both are also irrelevant.

The NBA does not need to operate a developmental league at the same level of the NCAA, with full rosters of NBA-age players, additional facilities, and another administrative staff. The NBA simply needs to operate cheaper youth teams (at least two, one for high school freshmen and sophomores and one for juniors and seniors) and expand rosters using development slots at below the current minimum salary to make teams large enough to support a reserve league. Youth and reserve teams would leverage existing infrastructure, drastically cutting development expenses. Broadcast partners and sponsors, especially shoe companies, might pay for the entire project.

There’s also not great evidence that college athletics needs a steady supply of would be pros to be popular. College baseball has reached record levels of revenue and popularity at the same time MLB clubs were throwing so much money at kids to not go to school that it became the central issue in the new collective bargaining agreement. The same goes for college soccer, which continues to grow despite MLS shifting money to its own developmental system.

If this were the end of it, the answer would be simple. One quick meeting between Emmert and Stern and aside from fending off the conspiracy theorists, the issue would be settled. The outcome would be a different type of early entry system, one that used all or parts of the MLB, NHL, and MLS systems. But this needs to be a knockdown, ugly drag out fight because of something the two men agree on. First President Emmert:

“If you want to become a professional athlete, there’s no better place to go generally than to come to one of our schools to develop your skills and abilities.”

And Commissioner Stern:

“For our business purposes, the longer we can get to look at young men playing against first-rate competition, that’s a good thing.”

Both make the assumption that college athletics is the best way to develop and evaluate future professional athletes. I can concede that it is the best system in existence in the United States at the moment. But the best possible? Far from it. At the risk of beating a dead horse, developing future pros is not a high priority of the NCAA. If you look at the NCAA’s rules, it’s much easier to conclude that the rules are designed to prevent athletes from becoming professional athletes rather than to help them. Some examples:

  • Athletes are limited to a maximum of 20 hours per week of training. But during the season, that 20 hours has to include games, each of which cuts into training by 3 hours.
  • During the offseason, athletes are limited to just eight hours of training. Skill instruction is further limited to just two hours of those eight. For long portions of the year, no training can be required at all.
  • Athletes are generally prohibited from even requesting additional skill instruction because of the way the NCAA has defined voluntary activities.
  • Athletes are required to pursue an academic career parallel to their athletic one, which takes away from the time and energy they can devote to improving.
  • Staffing and recruiting limits make evaluation and selection of athletes with the most potential to be pros more difficult.
  • The NCAA operates (or allows to operate) national championships that become the primary focus of a coach’s job, rather than developing future professional athletes.

All of which makes it curious that the NBA has chosen to outsource its development when an organization with completely different priorities is the best alternative. In fact, far from simply taking advantage of a free service, the NBA once looked to invest directly in the NCAA as a development system, according to Stern:

“Years ago I said to the NCAA, I’ve got a great idea. We’ll insure a select group of basketball players. And that will make them more likely to stay in school, because they won’t feel the loss of a big contract. We’ll designate a pool and those lucky enough to be drafted and make money will pay us back, and those that don’t, it’s our expense.”

That’s odd immediately preceding a quote where Stern says he is not concerned with the NCAA and that NBA rules are not “social programs.” But even stranger is that the NBA was willing to pour money, maybe millions of dollars depending on the size and success of the program, into something it has no direct control over. The NBA is either happy with the quality of player it receives (which it isn’t because it is looking for more time to evaluate) or it likes the exposure players get by playing college basketball (which is odd given the animosity of NBA fans to college basketball and the fact that the NBA is the world leader in marketing individual athletes).

Neither explanation makes sense, so something else might be at work. My gut is that the NBA has in the NCAA a convenient set of excuses for why some players never pan out and some teams never make good decisions. This role of whipping boy is one the NCAA is increasingly unwilling to play. That especially applies to accusations about policies it has no role in drafting (like the NBA age limit) or that it ignores its own rules to protect income it doesn’t receive (like in the regulation of FBS football).

Thus the coming showdown. The war of words over whose “fault” the one-and-done “crisis” (both terms used loosely) is has already started. Both organizations have their next move in the works. The NBA and the union are studying the age limit with a possible move to 20 years-old and two years out of high school. The NCAA is mulling reductions in the number of basketball games and has already passed new initial eligibility requirements that may sideline for a year many of the players the NBA was looking to get extra time to evaluate.

If the current trend continues, the NCAA will increasingly move toward not being an acceptable alternative for the NBA’s purposes. At some point, the NBA would have to move toward a more active role in identifying potential pros at a younger age and investing directly in their development through youth and/or reserve league teams. Not to mention a mechanism to sign homegrown players that both provides an incentive for teams to take youth development seriously but still provides a degree of competitive balance.

And much to the chagrin of partisans in this debate, both the NBA and the NCAA will be fine. College basketball was fine in the prep-to-pros era and will be fine even with more athletes heading to the NBA directly from or even during high school. And the NBA will find it is better able to develop and market elite talents on its own rather than assuming college basketball will do it for them. The tie that binds the two together, the NBA draft, will still exist but it’s impact will be defined by how many players slip through the cracks in the new NBA system. But it will be of secondary importance rather than the be all, end all for many young basketball players.

One might look at all this and say it’s a lot to extrapolate from two press appearances. It is. One might say I’m blowing this out of proportion. I am. In fact, I’m deliberately trying to pick this fight because it needs to happen. Because until it happens, the sport cannot move forward.

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: ,

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: , ,

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: , ,

How A Ban Can Be Deregulation

December 9, 2011 by

One of the under-the-radar issues still bubbling along in the NCAA is Proposal 2009–100-A. The proposal (2009–100 for simplicity’s sake, the “B” version is long gone) bans Division I institutions from hosting most nonscholastic boys basketball competitions and camps. The proposal, which was adopted last year, is currently receiving comment from each individual member school, after which the schools will vote. A five-eighths majority is required to overturn the new rule.

The rule got more public over the last couple of weeks when more people learned how far the definition of “nonscholastic” actually stretched. A number of events, like this one, had to be moved from Division I arenas. While they were between high school teams, they were sponsored by nonscholastic organizations, like visitors bureaus and event promoters. The reason the ban extends so far is to both prevent third parties (whoever they may be) from turning into event promoters to cash in from a college recruiting their prospects, and so Division I schools are not contributing directly to having even more basketball games during the high school season.

Banning these events, many of which have been around for a long time and are completely on the up-and-up, is seen by many as an example of the type of regulation that the NCAA needs to get rid of. “Deregulation” is a common cry. Why waste time on who holds an event in the school’s arena, the argument goes, when there are more pressing issues.

The reason is that Proposal 2009–100 is trying to save compliance offices time rather than increasing their burden. When the Division I Board of Directors issued its interpretation back in October 2009, the Board touched specifically on boys basketball camps:

It is not permissible for a men’s basketball staff member or a representative of the institution’s athletics interests to be involved in any way in the operation or planning of a men’s basketball nonscholastic event on its campus.

If Proposal 2009–100 survives, monitoring boys basketball events on campus is relatively easy. Who are the teams and who is sponsoring the event? If 2009–100 is ultimately defeated, the monitoring burden goes up significantly since an institution might be called on to prove that their men’s basketball staff was not involved in setting up an AAU tournament on campus. That might mean practices like monitoring phone records and email of coaches to look for communication with event operators, or ensuring that only certain people in the athletic department or university are involved with setting up the event. Pricing and amenities offered to these events may also have to be monitored.

A lot of the deregulation talk recently has focused on removing things from the Division I Manual that are not worth worrying about. But there’s a flip side to “deregulation” that should be seriously considered. Some activities require so much monitoring to be done fairly and ethically that they are not worth the benefit. In that case, it is in the interest of deregulation to ban Division I institutions from wasting their time with the activity so they can focus on more important things.

Do AAU basketball events on campus fall into that category? Enough of Division I thought so at one point to pass the rule, but it remains to be seen if they still feel that way. NIRSA, the National Intramural-Recreation Sport Association certainly feels the extra trouble is worth it, given the significant revenue that recreational sport departments see from AAU events. “Saving people from themselves” is always a tricky proposition. But that does not mean there is only one way to focus athletic departments on what is important.

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 Tagged With: , , ,

Athletic Departments Under Attack

October 11, 2011 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s address these ideas one by one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: , , ,

Fixing the Basketball Draft Process

May 6, 2011 by

In the life of an elite athlete, from the beginning of a youth career until the end of a professional career, there are a number of transitions. There’s the transition from disorganized play to organized sports. There’s the transition from generalization to specialization. And there’s the obvious transition from high school athlete to college athlete.

Regulation of a stable period in an athlete’s career is relatively good. There are many unsettled issues, we don’t agree on everything, but there appears to be general agreement that the regulation is good enough that everyone involved should be expected to follow those rules. We also tend to agree on major trends: financial aid, for example, in the NCAA has experienced much more deregulation than increased regulation over the past few years. Academic eligibility, on the other hand, has seen the opposite.

Regulation of the transitions between periods in an athlete’s career are much more contenious and as a result, much more poorly regulated. NCAA recruiting rules are an example. In 2009, the SEC proposed preventing women’s soccer coaches from even accepting phone calls from juniors. In 2011, women’s soccer coaches will be able to initiate phone calls to juniors once a month.

Regulation of the transition from college athletics to the professional ranks has wandered just as much. After fairly consistently deregulating the professional transition, by allowing draft entry and tryouts financed by a professional team, two recent proposals in men’s basketball have increased regulation of the professional transition by moving the draft withdrawal deadline up to early April.

Another major reasons the transitions in an athlete’s life are so difficult to get a handle on is that one entity rarely has control over all the actors. When it comes to professional drafts, the NCAA can regulate the athletes, but not the teams. The NBA can regulate the teams, but not the players. Regulations can also counter or negate each other. The NBA has a withdrawal deadline of 10 days before the draft, but that is supersceded by the NCAA’s May 8 and upcoming early April deadlines.

The first step in any improvement of the NBA draft process is cooperation between the three entities involved: the NBA, the NCAA, and the NBPA. Cooperation has yielded huge benefits for athletes in MLS. For example, MLS held off intermingling professionals and youth amateurs until the NCAA adopted Proposal 2009-26. Now professionals, newly signed players out of high school, and amateur academy players are all mixing it up in the Reserve League.

If there is cooperation and compromise between the NCAA, NBA, and the players (through the NBPA), the NCAA’s job is relatively light. It would be to simply remove any bylaws that create a barrier to the agreed-upon system. What those rules are depends on the system, although you would expect that Bylaw 12.2.4.2.1.1 would at worst need to be removed and at best be obsolete. When coming up with any potential compromise solution, it’s important to recognize what each side wants out of the deal. College coaches want roster certainty as soon as possible, NBA teams want sufficient time to evaluate the player pool, and players want as much certainty in their draft status as possible.

Many have clamored for the NBA to adopt the “baseball” model, but have focused on MLB’s age limits, where high school graduates can be drafted, but if a prospect enrolls at a four-year college, they aren’t draft eligible for three years. The more critical difference between MLB and the NBA is that no one declares for the MLB draft. Everyone who meets the eligibility requirements is automatically placed into the player pool. This circumvents any NCAA rule prohibiting prospects or student-athletes from “declaring” for the draft. Thus baseball student-athletes are free to be drafted and attempt to negotiate a contract without jeopardizing their eligibility.

Another option is the NHL model. Unlike the MLB’s signing deadline, the NHL’s does not apply to athletes who enroll in college. All 18 year-olds are eligible for the draft. Many college hockey players are playing right now with their rights held by NHL teams. Each year they can attempt to negotiate a contract (up to the NHL’s rookie maximum) and then if they don’t like the offer, stay in school.

Both would have problems when applied to basketball. First, both drafts are big: seven rounds for the NHL and up to 50 rounds for MLB. This is to help support another distinguishing feature of MLB and the NHL: affiliated minor league teams. In addition to larger rosters than NBA teams, NHL teams provide most of the players for the AHL, while MLB teams stock a range of minor league teams at different levels. And while MLB has a slotting system and the NHL has a maximum rookie contract, neither have the strict rookie scale that the NBA employs.

So small rosters and limited draft picks means a draft player returning to college could be devestating to an NBA team. And a rookie scale means there’s no incentive to return to college for a drafted player. The result is that the NBA would have almost free reign to draft whoever they want, rather than who wants to be drafted or who thinks they cannot get a better deal down the road by staying in college.

A better solution is the model employed by MLS. No underclassman or high schooler can declare for the MLS SuperDraft. Anyone who has not exhausted their eligibility is entered into the draft one of two ways: either the league signs them to a Generation adidas contract or a team nominates them for the draft. Obviously an athlete who signs a Generation adidas contract cannot return to school because they’ve signed a professional agreement. MLS then promotes the drafting of the Generation adidas class by exempting the salary from the cap and the roster spot as well.

The NBA could create a similar system as part of a new CBA. After gathering info from teams and scouts, the NBA could offer a guaranteed contract to any underclassman that appears to be solidly in the first round. The contract might be guaranteed at a level equal to the end of the first round (average of $910,000 guaranteed for two years in 2011-2012) and would automatically increase to the draft slot if selected higher than there.

Should the player fall into the second round, the league eats the cost above the player’s draft slot and shoulders the guarantee. Other underclassman could be nominated, and drafted players who refuse to sign after a relatively short signing period would be released, put back into the pool next year, and the team given some sort of compensation (perhaps a salary cap exception to find another player for the roster spot).

How has this worked in MLS? On December 12 last year, Akron defeated Louisville. On December 18, just over two weeks later, Akron knew it was losing five starters from that team. Because of when signing dates fall, Akron coach Caleb Porter had a month and a half to respond before signing day.

The system benefits players by providing objective proof of draft worthy. All the promises in the world mean nothing if they aren’t backed up by an actual contract. The system benefits NBA teams by not requiring an athlete declare, but still signaling to teams who is definitely in or definitely out. It’s hard to feel sorry for a team who took a player who was not fully committed to the league when players who are were available. And if NBA teams moved away from drafting any player who hadn’t signed with the league already, coaches are assisted by being able to point to factual evidence that an athlete is unlikely to get drafted.

At some point, all the parties involved need to come to some sort of compromise rather than pretending that the actions of one don’t affect the others. There’s a significant amount of outcry against the NCAA’s latest move in this ongoing drama. There would be equal outcry at what would develop if the NBA were to trump the NCAA’s regulations by unilaterally changing its draft process. If you think the oversigning debate in football is vicious, it would be much worse in basketball. And as the NCAA will take the brunt of the criticism either way, it’s in the NCAA’s interest to start the dialog.

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: , ,

Basketball Recruiting Model Discussion Gaining Steam

April 28, 2011 by

Everyone remembers way back in October when the Conference Commissioners Association voted to recommend that July basketball recruiting, the last bastion of in-person recruiting at AAU events by Division I men’s basketball coaches, be eliminated? And how the National Association of Basketball Coaches disagreed? And how the NCAA Division I Board of Directors declined to enact or sponsor legislation at that time, but instead ordered the Leadership Council to begin a study of the men’s basketball recruiting model?

Well that study is beginning to bear fruit. Head to the Pac-10 Compliance Corner website and you’ll find the agenda of the NCAA Board of Directors meeting on April 28, 2011. Within that agenda is the report of the Division I Leadership Council. And within that report are two possible alternatives to the NCAA’s current recruiting model. One is primarily championed and developed by the Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10, ACC, and Big East. The other is an alternate proposal offered by the SEC.

The two plans are more similar than they are different. For starters, both would dramatically deregulate recruiting correspondence. Any form of communication (fax, text, email, phone calls, IM, etc.) would be permissible starting August 1 prior to a prospect’s junior year in high school. And there would be no limits on the frequency of such contact. This would combat the unlimited access to prospects that “third parties” presently enjoy.

Both models would also permit actual tryouts during official visits. Tryouts would be closed to the public, last up to two hours, and include a medical exam before any physical activity. Competition against the current team would be permitted as well. These regulations close track current Division II legislation, which permits tryouts.

Both groups propose a new critical date in the recruiting process: April 15 of a prospect’s junior year in high school. Starting on that date, off-campus contact and official visits would be permitted, currently prohibited prior to July 1 after a prospect’s junior year and the start of a prospect’s senior year respectively. April 15 might strike you as familar: it’s the opening of the football spring evaluation period.

The two plans diverge when it comes to evaluations. As an aside, it’s important to note what is **not** altered, specifically the fundamentals of the basketball recruiting calendar. It’s still 130 recruiting person-days during the academic year, and unless otherwise stated, nonscholastic (a.k.a. AAU) evaluations are prohibited.

Both plans would begin by replacing the two 10-day July evaluation periods with evaluations during the last three weekends in July. The move to weekends is to facilitate Proposal 2010-58-C, which would allow basketball coaches to work student-athletes out during the summer.

The model offered by the Group of Five would return coaches to the stands of AAU events in the spring, specifically during two weekends in late April. As is currently the rule in women’s basketball, if an SAT or ACT testing date fell on one of those weekends, the calendar should shift to accomodate.

The SEC’s model would not provide for April evaluations at all, scholastic or not. The spring evaluation period would be converted into strictly a contact period. One contact would be allowed at a prospect’s school, with another permitted at some other location. This mirrors football’s two permitted evaluations during the spring evaluation period.

While most of this seems major, aside from the SEC’s April contact-only period, much of it has been floated before. The revolutionary concept is the development of evaluation camps. The camps would be operated by USA Basketball and funded (including all participant expenses) by the NCAA and member conferences. Division I coaches would even work the camps, rotating to ensure fairness.

The SEC is bullish on these camps, with the model making them the only permissible nonscholastic evaluation events after a three-year period, eliminating AAU evaluations entirely. The other conferences see them as a pilot program, with no concrete plans to use them as a replacement for the AAU circuit. The NCAA, through iHoops, is already in this business with the Unsigned Prospects Program, but Division I coaches are currently prohibited from attending.

One of my pet peeves is when an NCAA initiative or idea is rejected for not being perfect. Either plan would be a major step forward, especially the deregulation of contacts and allowing official visits during the summer. Increasing the NCAA’s presence in nonscholastic basketball is a plus as well, especially by giving the NCAA and its coaches another role (event funder and camp employee).

Not everything is perfect — I’m not sold on tryouts, for instance — but I would hope the membership does not continue the “buffet” approach when a group offers a cohesive model. Weigh the good, weigh the bad, and take it or leave it. Either model, I would take.

But I disagree with the SEC that we would transition to an evaluation camp model. In fact, I believe either evaluation model should be the transition to something further from the current model. To do that, we need a legitimate competitor to grassroots AAU.

The AAU circuit currently allows a prospect to play year-round basketball. There are events virtually every weekend and during the week when AAU reaches its peak in July. I have trouble seeing how evaluation camps would be more than an addition or supplement to a prospect’s current options rather than a bona fide alternative.

Prospects want to get better. They want to earn a scholarship, make it to the league. That’s one of the reasons the ban on evaluating at AAU tournaments in April has been ineffective. Prospects are getting games in, getting experience. They’re getting better.

There’s a significant amount of debate over how much prospects have to play to get better. Some say any game is better than practice, other philosophies limit competition in favor of training and skill development. Quality vs. quantity of competition will be a never ending debate.

The evaluation camps outlined in the two models include plenty of scrimmages. But scrimmages between teams thrown together in short order, plus the pressure to impress with individual talent heightened by the camp atmosphere is a suspect example of elite competition.

Prospects clearly want year-round competition. To achieve the drastic change necessary in the recruiting environment, an alternative to the current bottom-up, grassroots AAU structure needs to be developed. Simply offering camps or expecting prospects to limit themselves to high school basketball will not be enough.

Building a viable alternative to AAU basketball will be an ambitious effort. It will likely require the input and support of USA Basketball, the NBA, and the NCAA. It will almost certainly be financed by Nike and adidas. And it will require thinking about not just where prospects will play basketball from April to September, but the entire way a prospect progresses, if lucky enough, from middle school basketball to the NBA.

This means what appears to be just a recruiting problem is also something of an amateurism problem. Right now, the NCAA is seen as at best a rest stop and at worst a roadblock on the way to the NBA. Create a path where youth basketball and the NCAA are more landmarks that speed bumps (to keep the road metaphor going) and it will attract prospects.

That doesn’t mean paying players. It means thinking about withdrawal dates. It means encouraging a professional league to invest in the development of its own prospects. And it means figuring out a better way to leverage the NCAA’s greatest strength for professional leagues: the only 18-23 year-old developmental league in the world, provided free of charge. And do it all with as little damage to the NCAA as possible.

The ultimate goal is not to figure out what set of complicated regulations should exist forever in order to keep a rein on a sport. Rather, the end goal is to help move toward a structure where all those rules aren’t needed and basketball could live under the same rules as all the other sports.

The proposals offered by the big conferences are an excellent first step. And something fairly close to one of those models should be implemented with some haste, presented to the membership next year if possible. That would put a new model in place as soon the 2012-2013 academic year.

Because it’s only one step and the clock is ticking. Not so much on basketball. There’s really nowhere to go but up in basketball. But there’s a world of possibilities in football. Someone is going to figure out nonscholastic football. Not 7-on-7. Real football, with pads and helmets, linemen and tackling. The faster the NCAA figures out nonscholastic basketball, the better chance that someone will be the NCAA.

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: , ,

UConn’s Title Is A Step Forward

April 6, 2011 by

A lot of people are focusing on the negative from last night: that a school on probation won the national title. I’d like to focus on the positive from last night: that a school on probation won the national title. If that’s a bit confusing, it’s because nothing is as simple as it seems or we would like it to be in college athletics.

We have short memories. So short that it appears people have forgotten what almost happened in 2008. If a buzzer-beating three didn’t go in for Mario Chalmers and Kansas, Memphis would have vacated not just a trip to the Final Four, but a national title. It’s one thing when the NCAA vacates a team’s season. It’s another when the national championship is vacated, which happens more often across the NCAA’s 88 championships than you might expect. Then it’s as is the whole season never happened since the final prize was never awarded to anyone.

I agree with Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com to a point. Connecticut is a fitting champion for this era. And I also agree with Tony Barnhart, also of CBSSports.com, also to a point. A tipping point, line in the sand, or whatever “no turning back now” imagery you prefer has been reached. Where I disagree with Mr. Parrish is what era that is. And likewise where I disagree with Mr. Barnhart is what reaching this point means.

When most people call UConn a fitting champion for this era, the implication is that everyone is cheating now, so it’s not crazy that a school punished for violations would win the championship. Also implied in that argument is that this is somehow different, either in degree or in kind, from what went on in the past in major college athletics. But again, we need to go back no further than 2008 to find a case where eligibility questions and extra benefits wiped out a Final Four participant and almost wiped out the national champion. You can laugh or cry at what it means, but a school winning the national title having recently been through a major infractions case is a step forward, not a step back.

The tipping point that has been reached is not the point at which college football or basketball is out of control. That point was passed long ago and one needed to bury their head in the sand not to recognize it. The point that has been reached is that the combined efforts efforts of the NCAA and the media have made it impossible for anything to stay hidden for long. You can no longer push your head far enough into the ground to ignore the seedier side of college athletics.

We would all prefer that teams who are on probation aren’t winning all the spoils. And the stories of just how dogged and creative NCAA rule breakers can be will likely get a lot worse before it gets better. But where we are now is an improvement on where we were years ago, when teams who should have been on probation won, confident they would never be punished. UConn’s title is not the new low point. It’s one step in the long climb out of this hole.

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: , ,

What Kanter Case Means Going Forward

January 15, 2011 by

At the NCAA Convention in San Antonio yesterday, President Mark Emmert discussed specifics about two issues he expects the NCAA Membership to take up in the near future. First, how to strength the bylaws in response to the Cam Newton case:

“It’s wrong for parents to sell the athletic services of their student athletes to a university, and we need to make sure that we have rules to stop that problem,” Emmert said. “And today we don’t. We have to fix that. Student athletes trading on their standing as star student athletes for money or benefits is not acceptable, and we need to address it and make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Second, President Emmert addressed a need for greater transparency in the reinstatement process, specifically as it relates to football and bowl games.

Emmert said the NCAA needs to review and make public who gets to play in bowl games when violations occur.

Another recent case, Enes Kanter’s permanent ineligibility, raises three issues that the membership should look at as well: penalties for some amateurism violations, the responsibility toward international prospects, and the nature of case precedent.

Considering that the NCAA now permits participation with professional teams, violations where compensation exceeds expenses are likely to be more common. In addition, the violations are likely to be the only violation, not layered on top of professional participation and delayed enrollment violations like many of the current cases. So its reasonable to ask if minimal expenses should result in permanently ineligibility or even significant penalties.

Any penalty structure the Division I membership is going to come up with would not help Enes Kanter. It would say “$X and above: eligibility not reinstated” and $X will be well below $33,000. But avoiding the potential nightmare “pocket money” scenario is not only a good idea but also can be done without allowing ex-professionals a path back to Division I eligibility.

Just as it’s important to not blame the NCAA for things that it isn’t responsible for, it’s important to not give credit to the NCAA for things it didn’t intend to do. Proposal 2009-22 never intended to help international student-athletes get eligible. Proposal 2009-22 recognized that you could no longer be sure that participation on a professional team was voluntary.

The NCAA membership has zero responsibility to accommodate international youth development systems. The responsibility is to not close our eyes to international youth sports and use it as evidence of whether the assumptions the NCAA regulations are based on are valid. Nothing has shown yet that receiving money is an involuntary act and thus should not be an amateurism violation.

Finally the University of Kentucky has raised significant concerns about how case precedent is handled. Specifically, the case has raised questions about how broadly high-profile and/or difficult cases can be interpreted as controlling on future cases. The current system right now requires a sort of critical mass. One case might not good as precedent, but multiple cases with roughly the same facts eventually start controlling cases more closely.

It’s something the membership should review, but I’m not sure there’s a better solution. If all cases gain value as precedent, expect slower and more complicated rulings that punish student-athletes more harshly. The Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement will be wary about opening a bunch of Pandora’s boxes. On the other hand, no precedent means the Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement would have to republish the guidelines constantly. There would be no natural evolution of the reinstatement process, only a step-by-step process when the membership is absolutely certain it wants to take the next step.

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: , , , ,

Philosophy Change Slows Down Reform Even More

January 5, 2011 by

Everyone in compliance has bad days. There are the run of the mill bad days, when a waiver falls through or you deal with a difficult coach or student-athlete. Then there are the real bad days, the ones that make you question how long you want to stay in this business.

So far I’ve had few soul-crushing days. But one in particular sticks out. Really more of a depressing hour and a half. It was during the 2010 NAAC Convention at a session titled “Assessing the Climate and Hot Topics within Men’s Basketball.” Gene Marsh might have given the keynote, but this was highlight of the two days. A superstar panel that included Julie Cromer, then Director of Academic and Membership Affairs; LuAnn Humphrey, head of the Basketball Focus Group; Pitt Head Coach Jamie Dixon; Long Beach State Head Coach Dan Monson; and Pitt Athletics Director Steve Pederson.

The panel was a frank and honest how the NCAA had come to think about basketball regulation and what basketball coaches thought about the NCAA. And like all frank and honest discussions, it wasn’t pretty. I left the session with a couple of lasting impressions. Most important was the impact of the following points:

  • The vast majority of men’s basketball prospects select a school based on the head coach;
  • Head coaching turnover in Division I is roughly 20% per year.
  • 40% of men’s basketball student-athletes transfer before their junior year;
  • The urge to quickly prepare for professional basketball influences even the smallest decisions prospects make; and
  • The carrot, rather than the stick, is most effective in regulating men’s basketball

Those five bullets were laid out as the boundaries of what can be done to solve the recruiting and academic problems in men’s basketball. It was discouraging to see it accepted as gospel since the implications for programs like the APR and Basketball Focus Group reforms were omnious.

But I got over it. I didn’t agree entirely with the NCAA’s strategy, but I understood it. It was based on a lot of research and careful thought out. It also defined a clear direction and made a lot of the tactical choices more palatable, chief among them Proposal 2010-58, the basketball summer school legislation.

All that hard work is now in jeopardy with a new, sweeping review of the recruiting legislation by the Leadership Council. And instead of seeing some of the above issues as constraints, the Leadership Council sees them as targets:

“We’re not here for the grooming of athletes. We’re here for the grooming of students,” [Missouri AD Mike] Alden said. “Our hope would be at the end of this to come up with a process that aligns more with the values we hold true in higher education.”

Rolling back the clock on the rise of AAU basketball for talent development and identification and the attitude of taking the next step as quickly as possible are now back on the table when previously it seemed like they weren’t. The greatest danger is not that the NCAA members might be attempting an impossible task though.

It’s that developing a whole new strategy is going to take time, and time is not on the NCAA’s side. Every year that passes without a consistent direction in men’s basketball recruiting reform is a year that the NCAA loses ground to the people they are combating. As the NCAA reviews the landscape, nefarious third-parties think up new ways to control the college decisions of prospects and profit from that control.

Without spending enough time, perhaps years getting the membership on board, the legislation that comes out of this review as early as next August will suffer the same fate as the legislation proposed by the Board of Directors last year. A cohesive plan is picked apart by the membership who adopts the proposals it likes and discards the rest.

There’s precedent for a better way though. The “agent” part of the Agents, Gambling and Amateurism staff made headlines this summer in part because the membership has never seriously considered an alternative. While it’s easy to disagree with the NCAA’s unmoving stance, it gave the AGA staff the freedom to catch up with the agents by never changing their goal. Taking the gap literally, the AGA staff was only six months behind the agents, and closing.

The model for the regulation of basketball recruiting that was presented at NAAC wasn’t perfect. It was unsatisfying and made some tough compromises. But it was also practical and realistic. In short, it was good enough. The Leadership Council has lofty goals for this review. Most of it could be achieved even if you accepted the constraints above. The recruiting model needs be rethought, but practically, not philosophically. Then hand it to the Basketball Focus Group so they can build the knowledge and connections needed to bear fruit.

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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