eligibility

Taking Permission Out of Transferring

January 25, 2012 by John Infante

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: eligibility, graduation, transfers

Transfer 101

January 14, 2012 by John Infante

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.

Or earlier. ↩
An academic year is any two consecutive semesters or three consecutive quarters. It does not need to run fall-spring. ↩
In this case, the other schools that are contacting or being contacted by the student-athletes must notify the first school of the contact. ↩
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. ↩
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. ↩
Permission to contact still would have been needed for an athlete to get financial aid. ↩
SLR is a subcommittee of the Legislative Council. ↩

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: eligibility, recruiting, transfers

Reevaluating the Most Important Rule

December 3, 2011 by John Infante

If you ask someone what the most important rule in the NCAA Manual is, you’re likely to get a range of responses. Amateurism, academic eligibility rules, and ethical conduct are likely to be among the most popular. Some might point to rules on scholarship limits or initial eligibility instead.

All of those might be among the most important rules in the NCAA. But in Division I, it is hard to argue with the five-year rule as being the most important. Here is Bylaw 14.2.1 in all its glory:

14.2.1 – Five-Year Rule.
A student-athlete shall complete his or her seasons of participation within five calendar years from the beginning of the semester or quarter in which the student-athlete first registered for a minimum full-time program of studies in a collegiate institution, with time spent in the armed services, on official religious missions or with recognized foreign aid services of the U.S. government being excepted. For international students, service in the armed forces or on an official religious mission of the student’s home country is considered equivalent to such service in the United States.

The basics of the five-year rule state that once you start college, your Division I eligibility is gone after five years. And the only way to stop the march of the five-year rule is to join the military or go on a religious mission. There are some other exceptions for pregnancy and elite international competition. But for the vast majority of student-athletes, once the clock starts, it does not stop until the five years are up.

Combined with other rules like the core-curriculum time limitation and the delayed enrollment rules, the five-year clock establishes Division I eligibility as a privilege that can only be used to its maximum extent by keeping up with the responsibilities that the NCAA imposes on student-athletes. Fail to reach initial eligibility standards, fail to maintain academic eligibility or spend too long chasing professional athletics and your Division I eligibility simply vanishes.

The five-year rule is certainly a harsh rule. Divisions II and III do not have it, opting instead for the more forgiving 10-semester/15-quarter rule. The 10-semester/15-quarter rule can be stopped simply by withdrawing from school or dropping below full time. But even that rule has the same issues as the five-year clock.

Collegiate eligibility is often thought of as being four years of playing and one redshirt year. The reality is that collegiate eligibility is four years of playing that must be completed within five years, leaving one year of cushion for anything that might happen to a student-athlete during their collegiate career. Redshirts, medical hardship waivers, transfer residence, nonqualifier residence, financial difficulties, academic ineligibility and reinstatement conditions all have to share that one year.

If something outside of the control of the student-athlete and the institution takes away two years, the NCAA has a process for fixing that. But if such an event takes away only one year and the student or institution has control of another year (e.g. redshirt, transfer residence, etc.), the student-athlete is normally unable to get the lost year back.

Boil all this down and the fundamental question is whether student-athletes should have a “right to redshirt”. That is, should a student-athlete be able to redshirt at least once for whatever reason, and then receive an extension to their clock if something outside their control occurs?

One option would be for Division I members to adopt this Division II waiver for student-athletes who redshirt during their freshman year. That would cover cases where freshman choose to redshirt or are redshirted by the coaching staff, and solves a recurring issue in clock extension waivers where five year-old medical documentation is need to prove an injury during the first year. It would not allow student-athletes forced to sit out for a year due to transfer the same flexibility though.

It is all a question of costs. The fewer exceptions to the five-year rule there are, the higher the cost to student-athletes when they choose the wrong school or choose to redshirt. A six year is possible, but exceptions would be trickier.

With 400,000 athletes, it would be impossible to have a rule that never creates a single bad result and still have the concept of eligibility that runs out or can be exhausted. The trick is balancing how many athletes run out of time with how many athletes and institutions are manipulating the system or failing to hold up their end of the bargain. The five-year rule gets it mostly right, and just needs tweaks to strike an even better balance.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: eligibility

2011-12 POPL Review: Eligibility

August 29, 2011 by John Infante

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

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

2011-62 – International Eligibility Form

Sponsor: Big East Conference

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

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

2011-63 – Graduate Student After Final Term

Sponsor: Pac-12 Conference

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

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

2011-64 – Five Seasons of Football Eligibility

Sponsor: Colonial Athletic Association

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

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

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

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

2011-65 – Year of Academic Readiness

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

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

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

2011-65 – Softball – Minimum Amount of Competition

Sponsor: Big 12 Conference

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

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

2011-67 – Advanced Placement – International Certification

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

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

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

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

Sponsor: Big East Conference

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

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

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

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

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

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

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

2011-70 – Progress Toward Degree Waivers Committee

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

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

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

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

Sponsor: Big Ten Conference

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

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

2011-72 – Outside Competition – USA Fencing National Championship

Sponsor: The Ivy League

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

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

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: eligibility, legislation

Mike Slive Sets Ambitious Reform Agenda

July 21, 2011 by John Infante

Last year when it seemed like the Pac-10 would expand all the way to the Great Plains and break apart the Big XII, college athletics was at a crossroads. Ultimately college athletics decided not to take the road that would have lead to massive changes in the structure of conferences. Instead, the great conference shake-up never occurred.

Now in 2011, a similar set of forces seem to be gathering. With a presidential retreat upcoming, SEC commissioner Mike Slive has added to the debate with an agenda for reform he hopes will become the blueprint for change in the NCAA over the next year or so. The sweeping agenda focuses on financial aid to athletes, initial eligibility, recruiting, and the enforcement process. And were it all to be implemented, it is no incremental change.

Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

This debate has been bubbling for months now, and Mr. Slive did not introduce a specific plan. He did add one element to the debate, suggesting that money be added to the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, which has previously been used to cover some of these costs. The SAOF could be the mechanism used by the NCAA to maintain some degree of competitive equity and assist as many institutions as possible in meeting the increased costs.

Multi-Year Scholarships

If scholarships were required to be awarded until a student-athlete graduates or exhaust his or her eligibility, it would have a significant impact on recruiting. With standards in place for canceling a student-athlete’s aid, issues like oversigning and running athletes off would be greatly reduced.

But if institutions are simply given the option to award athletics aid for multiple years at a time, recruiting would be revolutionized. Every sport, including football and basketball, would become more like an equivalency sport. Think of a scholarship as four or five total years, with the ability to offer quarters or fifths of that total scholarship. Football coaches will be sitting down with baseball coaches to get a handle on the new environment.

Degree Completion Awards

The ability to award any amount of aid for any amount of time to student-athletes working to finish their degree seems like a big advantage to richer programs. But the competitive impact is likely to be minimal. How many 18 year-olds are thinking about coming back for a sixth or seventh year of school? Many in football and men’s basketball don’t expect to be in school for four years in the first place. An easy piece of deregulation and a big win for student-athlete welfare.

Better Assistance for Future Professional Athletes

Currently the NCAA has a few ways to allow student-athletes with professional ambitions to get advice, but they are tightly regulated, and combine with league regulations on contact with student-athletes to limit the amount of information flowing to student-athletes. Alongside working with the leagues, the NCAA could deregulate Professional Sports Counseling Panels, which currently have limits on how many athletics staff members may be involved. Or go one step further, and require the panel to operate regularly as an element of institutional control.

Raise Minimum GPA for Initial Eligibility to 2.5

This was touted as the most noteworthy of Mr. Slive’s reforms, but it is a tweak compared to the next proposal. Raising the required GPA to 2.5 simply reinforces the NCAA’s position that the core course GPA is the best predictor of college success. But legislating how that GPA is obtained could be revolutionary.

Extend Annual Satisfactory Progress to High Schools

This is, by far, the biggest bombshell in Mr. Slive’s address. The problem, outlined by Mr. Slive, is that too many prospective student-athletes, especially in revenue sports, don’t get serious about academics until their junior or senior year. Requiring prospects to earn some number of core courses every year would hopefully cut back on these “mad dashes” that often include academically unsound or outright fraudulent means.

But the infrastructure to guide a prospect through this new environment simply doesn’t exist. High school guidance counselors struggle with the requirements already. And current recruiting rules prohibit any sort of direct contact until a recruit is finished with their sophomore year. To make annual progress work, the NCAA needs to allow and in fact encourage early recruiting.

Return of Partial Qualifiers

Partial qualifiers never went totally away, with partial waivers available for student-athletes who do not qualify. Mr. Slive’s reform package would bring them back as a part of the bylaws.

The key will be getting buy-in from conferences. Initial eligibility became an admissions standard when many conference adopted non-qualifier rules that prevented non-qualifiers from enrolling, forcing them to junior colleges. If the majority of conferences adopt partial qualifier rules preventing them from enrolling, we’re back to the same position we have now, but with tougher requirements.

Deregulate Communication With Recruits

Luckily for Mr. Slive, this is already happening. Although there was the disappointing defeat of Proposal 2010-30, the Athletics Personnel and Recruiting Cabinet will introduce the first state of Mr. Slive’s reform. Two proposals will go before the membership this year. One would end the ban on text messages and the other would eliminate the limit on how often a coach can call a recruit.

But going back to the annual progress requirement, at some point the membership will need to address the issue that 2010-30 could not overcome: when should we start the recruiting process? If initial eligibility starts with freshmen, the answer has to be to start recruiting with freshmen.

Merging Evaluation and Contact Periods

While this seems like basic common sense, it has enormous competitive impact, especially in football. If the spring evaluation period becomes a spring contact period, it effectively means that football coaches will be recruiting two classes at a time.

It also doesn’t eliminate the “bump” violation. Mr. Slive stated the prohibition on contact with a prospect at the site of competition would still exist. Where do most bump violations occur? At the site of competition.

Limiting Third Party Influence

My thoughts on the battle between scholastic and nonscholastic sports are well documented. To recap: nonscholastic sports are going to win. The NCAA membership can either accept that fact and encourage nonscholastic sports to develop with the proper structure and controls, or it can hope that high schools can make up ground already lost.

The NCAA should look beyond AAU and 7-on-7 to the day when elite high school football and men’s basketball student-athletes are no longer even considering their high school team. It’s happened in other sports, and it will spread to the revenue sports whether we like it or not.

More Classes of Violations

Mr. Slive is correct that the current distinction between major and secondary infractions causes the enforcement staff to pigeonhole violations into one or the other. But rather than creating more categories, the categories should be eliminated. At some point, different in each case, the enforcement staff should engage the Committee on Infractions for guidance and a potential hearing.

Some secondary violations should be public. Some major violations should not carry the same stigma as others. As the COI reiterates so often, every violation is different. Those differences should be recognized by eliminating categories and the need to place violations in those categories.

These reforms will be discussed at the presidential retreat. Hopefully we’ll see legislation moving some agenda, either this one or another, next year. Mr. Slive has presented a comprehensive agenda where financial aid, recruiting, and academics are all tied together. To reform a rule book as large and interconnected as the Division I Manual, this is the type of comprehensive thinking that is needed.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: eligibility, financial aid, recruiting, reform, sec

NCAA Rules That Could Have Been

April 18, 2011 by John Infante

The NCAA Division I Manual takes a lot of criticism for being a large and unwieldy beast full of esoteric and confusing rules. The size is a bit overstated, and much more complicated legal codes can be found. But the best way to defend what’s in the Manual is to point out what isn’t in the Manual.

Every year, about a hundred or so proposals are offered. Many tend to be adopted. And most are approved without much debate or controversy. But between the tendency of NCAA committees to go wherever the data points them and 31 conferences with their own ideas, sometimes proposals can go off the reservation. So here’s the 10 craziest NCAA rules of the last decade that never made it over the hump into the Manual.

#10: 2008-27

In women’s lacrosse, to specify that an institution’s athletics department staff member shall not arrange lodging for a prospective student-athlete on an unofficial visit in an enrolled student-athlete’s residence (e.g., dormitory room, apartment) until August 1 following the prospective student-athlete’s junior year in high school.

2008 began a series of innovative recruiting proposals that lead to a through review of the entire recruiting model that started in 2009 and continues to this day. Part of the impetus for that review was a series of proposals by the Ivy League in women’s lacrosse designed to test different recruiting reforms. The proposal even expressly stated that the concepts could be a pilot program in women’s lacrosse, then expanded to other sports.

The most specific among them was 2008-27, which sought to eliminate the unofficial official visit, where a junior prospect stays overnight, gets free tickets to games, but pays for her own food, transportation, and entertainment. All of the sport-specific legislation was defeated, although many of the concepts were combined in another proposal on the list the following year.

#9: 2010-76

In women’s basketball, to reduce the annual limit on the number of counters at each institution from 15 to 13.

The most recent proposal on the list, offered by the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, sought to reduce women’s basketball’s scholarships to the same level as men’s basketball.

The proposal is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is the only reduction in financial aid for a sport that has been proposed since 2000. Even men’s sports have gotten proposals seeking to increasing scholarship limits. And secondly was the MAAC’s “use it or lose it” rationale, pointing out that the average number of women’s basketball scholarships used was 13.08.

#8: 2007-23-A

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

Division I has always struggled with regulating the amateur activities of prospective student-athletes, who often don’t know the rules but who are equally likely to be attempting to manipulate them. No where is that no prevalent or more highly regulated than tennis. But in 2007, tennis almost went off the deep end of deregulation.

2007-23-A would have allowed for a tennis prospect to pocket $10,000 per year in prize money and then continue to accept prize money, provided it was only for actual and necessary expenses in each event. The rationale was that tennis is exceedingly expensive to play at the elite level, and the $10,000 per year often just covers unitemized expenses. Sponsored by the Ivy League, both 2007-23-A and an alternative allowing $10,000 total were both defeated.

#7: 2003-69

To eliminate the requirement that each Division I member institution, at least once every 10 years, complete an institutional self-study, verified and evaluated through external peer review.

Certification is built into the fabric of Division I athletics at this point. Every 10 years a school studies itself, submits itself to a peer review, evaluates its progress over the last decade, and offers a plan for growing over the next 10 years.

Following the first cycle of certification and as the second cycle ramped up, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference decided the exercise had reached its conclusion. Claiming second cycle certification had produced “few tangible benefits,” the MAAC proposed to do away with continued certification of athletic departments, and proposed ongoing review of topical areas conducted by conferences. After drawing a sharp rebuke from the Committee on Athletic Certification, the MAAC withdrew the proposal.

#6: 2005-162

To specify that an individual who officially registers, enrolls and attends classes at one of the three national service academy official preparatory schools (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force) prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment shall not be subject to the contact limitations in Bylaw 13 and shall be considered a student-athlete for purposes of contact by athletics staff members at other Division I institutions.

Proposed by the Patriot League, home of Navy and Army, 2005-162 would have essentially turned into student-athletes anyone who enrolled at one of the official military prep schools. That means recruiting restrictions would not have applied, and anyone from another school seeking to recruit this prospects would have had to get permission to contact these high schoolers.

The rationale was that the United States Military was already investing substantial resources in these prospects, and thus they should be treated like student-athletes. While our service academies get a number of breaks in the NCAA legislation, a de facto farm system went too far and was seen as too much of a competitive advantage. Thus it was defeated.

#5: 2009-28-A

In women’s soccer, to revise or establish restrictions related to contacts, telephone calls official and unofficial visits, offers of financial aid and involvement in nonscholastic-based soccer programs, as specified.

There has been a lot of talk of recruiting models and comprehensive recruiting reform. But no single proposal capture an entire recruiting model quite like 2009-28-A. “As specified” meant no contact prior to August 1 before a prospect’s senior year in high school. That meant no unofficial visits, no phone calls made or received, no off-campus contacts, and no club coaching by college coaches, although official visits were moved up to August 1, allowing them to be taken before school started for prospects.

Proposed by the SEC, the fear amongst the membership was that August 1 would be a feeding frenzy of coaches who would pressure student-athletes to make a decision quickly to fill a recruiting class they were used to being finished with up to two years prior. Both this proposal and a companion offered by the Ivy League proposing many of the same restrictions for all sports were both defeated.

#4: 2004-121

In men’s basketball, to specify that the head men’s coach must annually develop an individual personal growth plan with each student-athlete using community and institutional resources; further, to require the coach to periodically meet with each student-athlete to ensure that appropriate progress is being made toward the objectives set forth in the student-athlete’s personal growth plan.

Offered as part of a package developed by the NABC, this proposal would have required the creation of a mentioning plan between head coaches and student-athletes in men’s basketball. It’s a far cry from the NABC’s recent stance of deregulating most men’s basketball activities outside of money funneling.

The unanswered question is how this would ever be monitored. Sure, plans could be created and filed. And meetings could be scheduled and tracked. But how would you ever know if a student-athlete was progressing along his personal growth plan? Sadly we’ll never know. The proposal was defeated, resoundingly so, by a vote of 41-4.

#3: 2001-69

To specify that there shall be no simultaneous telecasting or cablecasting of regular season intercollegiate football games on Friday nights.

There’s college football televised on almost every night. But back in 2001, the Atlantic Coast Conference proposed leaving Friday Night Lights for high school only. There was one catch though: a Friday game could be broadcast live if it finished by 7:00 PM everywhere it was broadcast. So had the ACC not withdrawn the proposal after it was introduced, perhaps college might have seen the Friday Night Dusk.

#2: 2002-97, 2006-86

To establish an NCAA Division I Nonscholarship Football Championship.

Twice since 2000, the Football Championship Subdivision teams that do not provide scholarships have asked for the NCAA’s assistance in creating their own national championship. Conference of nonscholarship FCS schools are not eligible for automatic bids and the individual schools are rarely, if ever, selected as at-large participants. On two separate occasions, the schools have tried to carve out their own unique niche.

2002-97 was to create an official NCAA championship for Division I FCS (I-AA at the time) nonscholaship football. 2006-96 asked to allow schools to exempt the games in a non-NCAA championship event for nonscholarship football programs. As the calls for a major college playoff get louder and louder, we almost had two Division I playoffs without including the big boys.

#1: 2000-103

To permit a student-athlete to obtain a loan (not to exceed $20,000) based on future earnings potential from a centralized lending institution, as specified.

First the particulars: it wasn’t all student-athletes. Only student-athletes that had qualified for the NCAA’s disability insurance for elite student-athletes. Currently, that would apply to student-athletes who are projected to be drafted in the first round of the NBA, MLB, or WNBA Draft or first three rounds of the NFL or NHL Draft. And it wasn’t a loan from just anyone but from a real bank.

The Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet sponsored the proposal through the Management Council, the predecessor to the Legislative Council. The Board of Directors did not yet have authority to sponsor legislation, so 2000-103 came from as close to the top as it could back then.

And the proposal was never actually defeated in an up and down vote. It was tabled and forgotten until 2008 when the shift to the current governance structure finally killed the proposal. It may not be paying athletes exactly, but it’s the most surprising rule that could have been from the last 10 years.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: amateurism, deregulation, eligibility, financial aid, Football, legislation, men's basketball, pay for play, recruiting

Closing the Cam Newton Loophole

December 7, 2010 by John Infante

The decision of the NCAA Student-Athlete Reinstatement Staff to reinstate Cam Newton’s eligibility with no penalty produced a response that was loud and clear. Not one, not two, but four commissioners of major conferences have spoken out. All disagreed with the decision itself and/or expressed worry about the potential impact of the decision going forward. That has prompted a response from NCAA President Mark Emmert stating that the NCAA membership will review the recruiting rules.

I don’t share some of the doom and gloom regarding the impact of the decision going forward. Case precedent, NCAA or otherwise, extends only as far as its facts. And here, the facts are that no money changed hands, the student-athlete did not know about the activity, and the student-athlete did not enroll at the institution where the solicitation occurred. Case precedent can always be extended to logically similar cases, but that takes additional decisions, each of which is a chance to stop a trip down the slippery slope.

There appears to be an unstoppable momentum behind some change though. That change could take one of three forms.

New Reinstatement Guidelines
It’s important to note that a violation was committed and it did impact Newton’s eligibility. It just did not impact his eligibility as much as some wanted. The Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement (which oversees the NCAA staff that made the decision) could establish stricter penalties, which would likely include a requirement that the student-athlete be withheld from at least some competition.

Slight Legislative Change
Legislation could be proposed that would address the exact situation in the case. Specifically, Bylaw 12.3.3, the bylaw cited by the SAR staff, could be editted to read something like this:

12.3.3 – Athletics Scholarship Agent.
Any individual, agency or organization that represents a prospective student-athlete or his or her parent(s), guardian(s), or immediate family for compensation in placing the prospective student-athlete in a collegiate institution as a recipient of institutional financial aid shall be considered an agent or organization marketing the individual’s athletics ability or reputation. (additions in bold)

Major Legislative Change
An alternate new version of Bylaw 12.3.3 may read very similarly, but would have a much greater impact:

12.3.3 – Athletics Scholarship Agent.
Any individual, agency or organization that represents a prospective student-athlete or an individual associated with a prospective student-athlete for compensation in placing the prospective student-athlete in a collegiate institution as a recipient of institutional financial aid shall be considered an agent or organization marketing the individual’s athletics ability or reputation.(additions in bold)

The phrase “individual associated with a prospective student-athlete” has a defined meaning, in men’s basketball at least, from the interpretations issued by the Division I Board of Directors in November 2009. It includes parents, guardians, family members, coaches and anyone who is associated with the prospect as a result of their athletics ability or reputation, or participation in men’s basketball.

Along with the amendment to the bylaw, that portion of the interpretation could be removed and placed in a separate interpretation (or incorporated into an actual bylaw) applicable to all sports. It would not however expand the new men’s basketball recruiting regulations to all sports, since they still mention men’s basketball in the interpretation and the relevant legislation.

None of these are mutually exclusive, and all three exist on a continuum with many other options in between. I have no idea what the Legislative Council, Board of Directors, or Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement will do. What I do know is that it would be foolish to act hastily.

The Board of Directors is empowered to propose and adopt legislation that is of an “emergency” or “noncontroversial” nature. An emergency exists when:

Significant values or harm are at stake; and
The use of the regular legislative cycle is likely to cause undue hardship to the Association or the Division I membership because of the delay in its effective date.

While preventing pay-for-play is a significant value in the NCAA rules, it’s hard to see the undue hardship that is suffered between now and January 2012, the next opportunity to pass brand new legislation if it travels through the regular legislative cycle. Especially if we’re talking only about the limited issue of not suspending student-athletes who didn’t know that an institution they didn’t go to did not give their parents any money.

Legislation is noncontroversial if it meets the following criteria:

Broader consultation and debate are unlikely to improve the proposal in any substantial way.
Significant disagreement or alternative points of view will not be generated.
Such proposals do not have a significant impact (unanticipated consequences, undesirable precedent) on existing legislation or proposed legislation.

Considering the options for dealing with this issue, there’s strong evidence that more debate will lead to a better decision and there are more alternatives than even the ones above. And considering the proposal is designed to strength penalties in cases where a prospect or student-athlete might not even know a violation is occurring, it seems unlikely that all consequences will be anticipated in such a short time.

For instance, imagine if a high school coach could harm a student-athlete’s eligibility at every institution just by discussing a pay-for-pay plan with a booster at one school, regardless of whether the prospect knows about it. Third parties gain a valuable tool to dictate where prospects enroll, and gain allies in boosters who have control of a stick, in addition to the existing carrots, to entice prospects to enroll at their favorite institution.

The idea of a student-athlete being shopped to colleges by parents, coaches, or anyone else is certainly outrageous, to use President Emmert’s words. And the notion of significant punishment for even attempted violations of the recruiting and amateurism legislation has merit. But just like the July recruiting period in men’s basketball, there are too many moving parts in this area to use a blunt object. Another year-long study with legislation to be voted on over a year from now won’t please many commentators. But it’s the best way to close a loophole without opening another.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: eligibility, legislation, recruiting, violations

Abusing the unabusable

November 23, 2010 by John Infante

A few months back, Eamonn Brennan looked at the proposed men’s basketball summer school rule. The rule, as embodied in Proposal 2010-58, has a couple of major components:

An assessment of every incoming or continuing men’s basketball student-athlete to decide if they need summer school;
The opportunity for coaches to have eight hours per week of required athletic activity, with no more than two of those hours devoted to skill instruction for an eight week period in the summer;
A requirement that any student-athlete involved in those activities enroll in six credits during the summer and pass six credits (three for incoming freshmen); and
A requirement that schools offer summer school aid to walk-ons who fail the assessment.

After looking at the rule, Brennan could find nothing wrong with it and issued a challenge:

Please, college coaches: Abuse this system. I’m having a hard time finding anything wrong with it.

Brennan’s point was that even if a coach attempts to abuse this rule by prioritizing athletics over academics, academics still wins. It doesn’t matter if you’re bringing freshman in early or keeping returners over the summer for basketball or books, books still get a fair share of attention.

And it is tough to poke holes in the rule. Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt objected to the potential for a prospective student-athlete to become eligible then fall ineligible:

“I am somewhat concerned about the double jeopardy you’re putting a kid in,” said Hewitt, a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches board. “If a young man goes to summer school and for whatever reason—maybe a family emergency—if he did not pass his hours, you could be putting him in jeopardy of being ineligible.

Hewitt’s example is flawed because in the case of a family emergency, the student-athlete would have an excellent chance of being granted a progress-toward-degree waiver to take the court in the fall. But Brennan is incorrect that the rule cannot be abused. Because once you get past the freshman year, there doesn’t need to be any double jeopardy.

Bylaw 14, covering eligibility, along with Bylaw 12 (amateurism) form the heart of the NCAA Manual. Those two sections dictate who can and cannot take the practice field or compete for an NCAA institution. Boiled down to its essence, Bylaw 14 establishes the following requirements for a continuing student-athlete to be academically eligible:

Enroll as a full-time student (usually 12 credits);
Pass six credits every term;
Pass 18 credits (27 at quarter schools) during each academic year (no summer school);
Pass 24 credits (36 at quarter schools) before the start of the sophomore year;
Declare a major by the start of the junior year;
Have completed 40% of your degree by the start of the junior year followed by 60% at the start of the senior year and 80% before the fifth year; and
Stay at or near the required GPA for graduation at the school (usually 2.0).

If a student-athlete is at a semester school in a 120 unit degree program (one of the most common situations), those degree progress percentages translate to 24 credits every year, just like freshmen. It’s at the intersection of the 18-unit rule (sticking with the semester rules from here on out), the degree progress requirements, and the new summer school requirement that the rule can be abused.

Simply put, the new summer school requirement does not require a men’s basketball student-athlete to earn any additional credits. Assuming that a freshman men’s basketball student-athlete passes 18 units during the academic year and six units during the spring, they can be eligible by passing six units over the summer. If they participate in summer practice, they can be eligible in the fall by passing the same six units.

This has the effect of reducing the incentive for a coach to promote sufficient academic progress during the academic year. Say a coach intends to have every returning student-athlete participate in practice over the summer. Every player on the team will need to pass six units in the summer to be eligible. What incentive does the coach have to promote passing all 24 units (on average) that a student-athlete needs to stay eligible during the academic year if they’re just going to have to pass six more in the summer?

The difference between 24 units and 30 is a big deal, because it’s the difference between a four- and five-year graduation track. Throw in the summer bridge program for freshman and a couple of extra classes here and there and we can get to the ideal: a 3.5 year graduation track that means student-athletes who drop out of school after their senior season to prepare for the draft have already graduated (still hurts the APR though).

The solution would be to allow only student-athletes who have achieved eligibility for the following fall at the conclusion of the academic year to participate in summer practice. That would provide a real competitive advantage to programs that promote greater academic achievement in the fall and spring. Plus it would make all the credits earned in the summer “new credits,” not previously required. The trade-off is that some coaches may dissuade student-athletes from taking summer school if they feel the risk of losing eligibility for the fall is too great.

Every rule can be abused. Every rule is going to be picked over by people looking to gain an advantage, or in this case get something (summer practice) for nothing (extra academic achievement). The challenge is not to make rules that have no loopholes. The challenge is to make rules with loopholes that we can live with.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: basketball, eligibility, legislation

A Campus Perspective on Initial Eligibility

November 16, 2010 by John Infante

The initial eligibility certification process is still a mystery to most people. The idea of initial eligibility started in 1983, when university president adopted Prop 48, which became effective in 1986. The original requirements were a 2.0 GPA in 11 core courses and at least a 700 SAT or 18 ACT. Over the ensuing years, the core ideas have remained, but the methods tweaked and the numbers raised. A single minimum GPA and test score gave way to a sliding scale. The ACT composite score was changed to the sum of the individual sections. And the 11 core courses slowly but inevitably rose to the 16 required today.

The process has changed as well. A decade after Prop 48 was enacted, the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse was established. Run by the same company that administers the ACT, it was designed to ensure that everyone was working off the same information. That gave way in 2007 to the NCAA Eligibility Center, now a part of the NCAA itself. And along the way the process picked up new characteristics. Instead of simply saying “This is what the list of courses are and this is which ones are on the transcript,” the Eligibility Center asks whether the courses are really core courses, whether the work was properly done to put them on the transcript, and whether the high school itself is academically sound for student-athletes. On top of that, a review of the student-athlete’s amateur status was added in 2007 as well.

The NCAA is correct when they say this process goes smoothly in the overwhelming majority of cases. So to say the system doesn’t work is incorrect. If the idea of centralized initial eligibility certification doesn’t work, it fails or is flawed in a tiny minority of cases. Cases like Enes Kanter’s tend to highlight the flaws in the system, but also point out how outside influences can bog down the system.

Providing Information

It should go without saying that an initial eligibility case cannot start until the prospect registers with the Eligibility Center and answers the amateurism questions. After that, the amateurism certification staff may request additional information and documentation. Gathering all that takes time.

The solution to this problem has been to tie elements of the recruiting process to the initial eligibility process. An institution can’t provide a prospect with a National Letter of Intent unless they register with the Eligibility Center and complete the amateurism questionnaire. They can’t be provided an official visit unless they register and send the school a transcript and test score.

On a side note, this has the unintended consequence of allowing anyone who controls a prospect’s registration with the Eligibility Center and/or a prospect’s academic record to control their recruitment. Don’t want a prospect to sign in the early signing period? Keep them from registering with the Eligibility Center. Don’t want a kid to take an official visit to a certain school? Refuse to send them a copy of the prospect’s transcript.

Who Steps Up

It should come as no surprise that the Eligibility Center likes dealing with member institutions rather than prospective student-athletes directly. If you work with prospects, you’re signing up to deal with hundreds of thousands of individuals who come to the process with little or no prior knowledge and go through the process once. On Division I campuses, there might be fewer than 2,000 individuals who would ever have any reason to contact the Eligibility Center. Realistically, you’re looking at maybe a few hundred to a thousand people who contact the Eligibility Center on a regular basis from member institutions in each division (I and II only).

Add in the fact that Bylaw 12.1.1 places the responsibility on member institutions to ensure their athletes are amateurs. The result is that an initial eligibility case really doesn’t get moving until either the Eligibility Center knows for certain where the prospect will enroll, or a member institution steps up and agrees to shepherd the prospect through the system. Because the onus is on the member institution, you don’t want universities trying to jump in midstream and getting up to speed, especially if other universities might have critical information sitting on their campus that they are unwilling or unable to share.

It’s tempting to look at the Kanter case and say “Everyone knew this was going to be a problem, someone should have started this sooner.” But every fan should take a second before getting up in arms. As passionately as fans follow recruiting, and as angry as some get when a coach cannot secure a commitment from a certain prospect, imagine how livid they would be if that institution helped the prospect get eligible and watched as the prospect enrolled somewhere else.

No He Said, She Said

One of the most important and time-consuming phases of a difficult amateurism case is the fact-finding stage. That comes from two key features of amateurism certification. First, the fact-finding stage is not concluded until everyone (prospect, institution, and Eligibility Center staff) agree to the facts. Second, the opportunity to introduce additional facts after the fact-finding stage is severely limited. The goal is to produce an environment where everyone is motivated to offer as much information as possible.

The same goes for the interpretive stage, which does not commence until the fact-finding stage is over. Here, all the parties involved agree to a certain set of rules that are going to control the case. Then the case is forwarded to the student-athlete reinstatement staff for a decision. After conflicting reports of the facts arose in the Kanter case, Kentucky fans feared that the Eligibility Center would side with the professional team in a he said, she said debate. That can’t happen in an amateurism certification case because the case doesn’t move forward until everyone says the same thing.

At each point, there is a group of NCAA staff the institution works with. There is also a committee made up of NCAA member institution staff to hear appeals and offer guidance at each stage (specifically the Amateurism Fact-Finding Committee, the Legislative Review and Interpretations Committee, and the Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee). In contrast to the American court system, the NCAA allows, promotes and in fact requires interlocutory appeals, that is appeals before the case is concluded.

As long as the process takes, the alternative is worse. Each step would still take some time, but you’d see cases move through the process multiple times as institutions respond to adverse decisions by raising new facts they had known all along and asking for reconsideration of interpretations. It might not seem it, but the process is as cooperative as it can be right now, which helps competitive equity on top of faster decisions. Make it adversarial between the Eligibility Center and the institution/prospect and the compliance arms race, currently bubbling beneath the surface, would begin in earnest.

Solutions

I struggle with solutions because I’m not sure the process is broken. Even as far as tweaks to the system, there are big costs involved. A more proactive approach by the Eligibility Center to reach out and deal directly with prospects sounds like utopia. But I’m sure I’m not alone amongst compliance professionals who have nightmares about receiving a call regarding a prospect that begins “Hello, I’m the attorney representing Johnny Bluechip in his case against the NCAA Eligibility Center.”

The key reform necessary is to not make the certification process harder for a while. I’m of the belief that what appears to be more vigorous NCAA enforcement over the last six months or so is actually more experienced NCAA enforcement staff members maintaining the same commitment they always had. The same goes for the Eligibility Center. Every case teaches the staff something, and that knowledge will go toward faster and more accurate decisions in the future.

It’s tempting on campus to see the Eligibility Center as “one stop shopping,” especially because it sees itself that way. Want more information on prospect’s recruitment? Let’s do a recruiting certification! Want to deregulate recruiting contact put it the hands of the prospects? Hey, the Eligibility Center can run a “do not call” list! As the ones who decide what the Eligibility Center’s job is, let’s not make it harder until we’re sure that the certification of academic and amateur eligibility is as effective and efficient as it can get.

But one change in the rules that could make this worse is a proposal currently making its way through the governance structure. Proposal 2010-42 would ban all offers of athletic scholarships prior to July 1 before a prospect’s senior year. The intended effect is to eliminate verbal commitments prior to that date. Which means coaches and administrators would be extremely reluctant to saddle up for difficult eligibility cases until then. Plus the proposal requires a five-semester transcript to be submitted before a verbal offer is made, offering another opportunity for someone with control of a prospect’s transcripts to control the recruiting process.

The best course is to continue the current one. As someone who works with this process every day, it works much better than it seems, even when the results don’t come out the way you expect. Everyone involved, especially the NCAA staff and compliance professionals on campus just needs a chance to get better at it. Above all, that means keeping the NCAA members from shooting ourselves in the foot with new initiatives and rules that will start the process even later for the hardest cases.

About John Infante

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: eligibility, initial eligibility

Week in review: Nov. 8-12

November 13, 2010 by Dave Pickle

National media feasted on comfort food for the week of Nov. 8, with familiar fare of media deals, eligibility and potential infractions dominating newspapers, blogs and websites. Commentators also revisted the familiar territory of pay-for-play:

Horns o’ plenty?: A website that exclusively follows the University of Texas athletics program reported Monday that Texas will receive $12 million per year in a deal with ESPN for distribution rights to a Longhorn Network starting in fall 2011.

Orangebloods.com reported that the agreement would include an up-front $10 million payment. USA Today said that with the addition of an anticipated $20 million from the Big 12, Texas would become the nation’s top revenue-producer for television rights, earning close to $30 million next year and more than $32 million beginning in 2012-13.

It’s a big deal, in every sense of the expression. As they say on the Texas promos, “What starts here changes the world.”

Pay-for-play brigade: The Cam Newton episode at Auburn this week set off an outburst of commentary to pay student-athletes in revenue-producing sports (the thinking apparently being that the Newton story, with an as-of-now uncertain set of facts, demonstrates the hopelessness and hypocrisy of the current system). The PPP proponents ranged from Ben Watanabe at LehighValley.com to National Public Radio’s Frank Deford, a perennial NCAA basher. Unrelated to Newton, a fresh round of opinion from Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams about athlete compensation showed up Wednesday on a basketball blog on About.com.

A personal observation: Writers should be more careful about what they mean when they say they want to “pay” student-athletes (Wantanbe deserves credit for making this distinction, even if we disagree about his conclusion). Do they mean market-based pay, as we do with the traditional notion of compensation, or do they mean provision of a stipend? They are entirely different concepts, and yet they too frequently are used interchangeably.

It’s worth noting that NCAA President Mark Emmert has raised the possibility of changing Division I financial aid packages so that they reflect the full cost-of-attendance. If the cost of attendance were covered, would that satisfy the provide-a-stipend crowd?

Kanter decision: The NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff Thursday ruled that Kentucky basketball student-athlete Enes Kanter is permanently ineligible, based on payments above actual and necessary expenses when he played professional basketball in Turkey.

Whether people agree or disagree with the Kanter decision, they should remember that amateurism regulations have been shaped over the years through votes of NCAA member colleges and universities. The membership also has shaped the eligibility-review process, including the appeal to which Kanter remains entitled.

For those who are interested, NCAA.org’s Michelle Brutlag Hosick provides an overview of eligibility certification.

Conference realignment: The aftershocks: The official slogan of Fort Worth, Texas, is “Where the West Begins,” so it is more than a little ironic that the latest conference realignment chatter has hometown school TCU possibly considering membership in the Big East Conference.

North Dakota State and the Big Sky Conference also appear to be discussing a relationship.

There was actual action Thursday when the Western Athletic Conference, which was been repeatedly affected by Division I conference realignment, invited Texas State and UTSA as new members in all sports and Denver as a member in all sports but football. That action created buzz in the Northwest, where Seattle University had hoped to hook up with the WAC. Montana also had been reported to be in the WAC mix, but the Grizzlies remained with the Football Championship Subdivision’s Big Sky Conference.

Plus or minus $79 million: You’ll have to pay ESPN Insider to see Shaun Assael’s five lawsuits that could change the NCAA. However, the teaser to the story contains some serious misinformation when it states that the NCAA paid $84 million in legal fees last year. The most recent set of NCAA tax documents shows the Association paid about $5.1 million in legal fees in 2008-09. The same $84 million figure showed up two weeks ago on the SportsBizBlog.

Emmert faces the faculty: NCAA President Mark Emmert used the Faculty Athletics Representatives Association Fall Forum as the platform Thursday to deliver one of his first public speeches. The Chronicle of Higher Education captured several of his thoughts.

Call ’em as they are: Charleston (S.C.) Daily Mail columnist Jack Bogaczyk produced a good column Thursday on efforts to make basketball officiating more consistent nationwide.

“The idea,” prominent official Curtis Shaw told Bogaczyk, “is to referee the game the way the rules are written … call the game according to the rulebook. If a shooter’s elbow is hit, no matter the clock, it’s a foul. If you get into this ‘allow the players to decide the game’ stuff, the guy who committed the foul is deciding it.

“It’s not the job of the referees to choreograph the game. It’s their job to officiate the game. We’re going to hold officials accountable. The ones that are will be rewarded with big games and postseason tournaments. The ones that don’t, won’t.”

Recommended reading: The Nov. 8 issue of Sporting News contains an excellent interview with Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo. An excerpt (discussing guard Kalin Lucas): “You have to continue to be a better teammate, be a better leader, because he’s quiet. Some people will say, ‘That’s just his personality.’ I get a kick out of those people. When a parent sends a kid to college, they want you to make him a better person, make him a better student. If he’s not a very good dribbler, make him a better dribbler. If he’s not strong enough, change his body. If his jump shot is broke, fix his jump shot. But if his personality is broke, leave it alone? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

NCAA Insider is an occasional take on college sports issues, as viewed by NCAA communications staff member David Pickle. Opinions are his alone.

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Filed Under: NCAA Insider Tagged With: Auburn University, Distribution Rights, eligibility, ESPN, Michigan State, Tom Izzo, University of Kentucky, University of Texas, Week in Review

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Fixing Permission to Contact

Fixing Transfer Residence

Fixing the APR

What Will Transfers Look Like

About John Infante

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

One Exception to Rule Them All

Graduates

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

Effect of the NLI

About John Infante

About John Infante

2011-62 – International Eligibility Form

2011-63 – Graduate Student After Final Term

2011-64 – Five Seasons of Football Eligibility

2011-65 – Year of Academic Readiness

2011-65 – Softball – Minimum Amount of Competition

2011-67 – Advanced Placement – International Certification

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

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

2011-70 – Progress Toward Degree Waivers Committee

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

2011-72 – Outside Competition – USA Fencing National Championship

About John Infante

Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

Multi-Year Scholarships

Degree Completion Awards

Better Assistance for Future Professional Athletes

Raise Minimum GPA for Initial Eligibility to 2.5

Extend Annual Satisfactory Progress to High Schools

Return of Partial Qualifiers

Deregulate Communication With Recruits

Merging Evaluation and Contact Periods

Limiting Third Party Influence

More Classes of Violations

About John Infante

#10: 2008-27

#9: 2010-76

#8: 2007-23-A

#7: 2003-69

#6: 2005-162

#5: 2009-28-A

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#3: 2001-69

#2: 2002-97, 2006-86

#1: 2000-103

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