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Bounties in the NCAA

March 25, 2012 by

“That’s how you do it” seems to be the general reaction to the NFL’s decision to suspend New Orleans Saints’ head coach Sean Payton for a year and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams indefinitely following the league’s findings that players and coaches had engaged in a scheme to pay bounties for hard hits and injuries to opponents over a three year period. The harsh punishment and swift decisions have been contrasted with a major infractions investigation in the NCAA, which takes longer and has lead to penalties decried as ineffective or merely slaps on the wrist.

Ignore for a second the question of whether it would be better for the NCAA to replace its layers of governance with a single, all-powerful commissioner[1] who hands out penalties which can only be appealed to that same all-powerful commissioner and that the NFL’s investigation started back in 2010. What would happen if a college football team was found to be engaging in a similar bounty scheme? What are the possible violations and what might the penalties be?

For our purposes here, we’ll assume the same facts were found by the Committee on Infractions as the NFL found, which include:

  • Players and coaches pooled money that was paid out as bounties.
  • The head coach knew about and failed to stop the plan.
  • The general manager knew about and failed to stop the plan after being instructed by the owner.
  • Involved individuals lied to investigators.

In college, the general manager would be replaced with the athletic director, and the owner would be roughly equivalent to the university president.

Violations

Gambling (Bylaw 10.3)

The actual bounty program itself could be placed in the catch-all category of unethical conduct, but it is normally better to find a violation of a more specific bylaw. The NCAA defines gambling as risking something of value to win something of value. The athletes in this case risked something (money contributed to the pool) to win something (money awarded from the pool). The way the bounty scheme was set up is really no different than say golfers gambling on practice rounds.

Extra Benefits (Bylaw 16.11.2.1)

In addition to the athletes contributing money to the pool, a coach was putting in funds as well. That portion of the bounty pool would be considered an extra benefit to the athletes. It’s hard to say what the amount of extra benefits would be since we do not know how much each individual contributed. Payouts ranged from $1000 to over $4000, but would likely be less in college, probably between $200 and $500. On the other hand, the share of the bounty pool from coaches would likely be larger in college than in the NFL. Given a similar number of athletes (22–27) over a similar time frame (3 years), a reasonable estimate might be that a few athletes received extra benefits in the thousands of dollars while the majority would be in the hundreds of dollars but less than a grand. The total extra benefits might be in the $10–15,000 range.

Unethical Conduct (Bylaw 10.1)

Aside from the possibility that organizing the bounty pool would be considered an ethical conduct violation, individuals (including athletes and coaches) lied to investigators. In total, the following sections of the unethical conduct bylaw could apply:

  • (a) Refusal to furnish information relevant to an investigation of a possible violation of an NCAA regulation when requested to do so by the NCAA or the individual’s institution.
  • (b) Knowing involvement in offering or providing a prospective or an enrolled student-athlete an improper inducement or extra benefit or improper financial aid.
  • (d) Knowingly furnishing or knowingly influencing others to furnish the NCAA or the individuals’s institution false or misleading information concerning an individual’s involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an NCAA regulation.

Failure to Promote an Atmosphere of Compliance (Bylaw 11.1.2.1)

At the point where the head coach learned about the violation, he would have had an obligation under NCAA rules to stop it from occurring and ensure it was reported at dealt with. But as the NFL found:

 Although [the head coach] was not a direct participant in the funding or administration of the program, he was aware of the allegations, did not make any detailed inquiry or otherwise seek to learn the facts, and failed to stop the bounty program. He never instructed his assistant coaches or players that a bounty program was improper and could not continue.

That would certainly violate both the responsibility to promote an atmosphere of compliance and the responsibility of a head coach to monitor his program and the people who report to him.

Lack of Institutional Control (Constitution 2.1.1)

Not only did the head coach fail to investigate or stop the bounty program but imagine if this appeared in an infractions report:

 When informed earlier this year of the new information, [the university president] advised the [enforcement] staff that he had directed his [athletic director] to ensure that any bounty program be discontinued immediately. The evidence showed that [the athletic director] did not carry out [the president’s] directions. Similarly, when the initial allegations were discussed with [the athletic director] in 2010, he denied any knowledge of a bounty program and pledged that he would ensure that no such program was in place. There is no evidence that [the athletic director] took any effective action to stop these practices.

The lack of any action at all, even in response to an order from the institutional CEO on a matter as serious as athlete safety would go beyond a failure to monitor. It would be evidence of a lack of any system to control the athletics department, hence a lack of institutional control.

Penalties

Judging penalties is always difficult, but we can get in the ballpark at least. The biggest variable is to what degree the fact that the violations deal with athlete safety is treated as an aggravating factor. The case that comes the closest is the Baylor case, which would make a bounty scheme one of the worst violations with some of the most severe penalties in NCAA history. Even without that consideration, this is still one of the most serious cases ever, involving gambling, the possibility of significant extra benefits, and a lack of institutional control. Let’s look at the penalties for the athletes, the coaches and administrators, and the institution.

Student-Athlete Reinstatement

Sports wagering is one of the few bylaws that has a penalty written into the manual:

A student-athlete who participates in activities designed to influence the outcome of any intercollegiate contest or in an effort to affect win-loss margins (“point shaving”) or who participates in any sports wagering activity involving the student-athlete’s institution shall permanently lose all remaining regular-season and postseason eligibility in all sports. (emphasis added)

Just for being involved in sports wagering at all, student-athletes are subject to a one-year suspension and the loss of one season of competition in all sports. Given that a bounty system goes beyond gambling, it would be hard for the institution to make an argument for mitigating these penalties. Add in the fact that there could be repayment and further suspensions for the extra benefit violations, plus penalties for lying to the NCAA. There would likely be a number of student-athletes who are declared permanently ineligible and the rest would be facing suspensions that may start at a year.

Coaches and Administrators

There would likely be two show-cause orders handed down, with the possibility of a third. As important as the length of a show-cause order is, how the individual’s athletic duties are limited are even more important. Guessing there is even more difficult because the Committee on Infractions has only recently begun spelling these conditions out in the public report. 

The coach(es) who ran the bounty pool would be facing charges of providing extra benefits to student-athletes and unethical conduct. They would receive the most significant and lengthy penalties. Show-cause orders longer than three years are fairly uncommon, occurring in only a few cases in the last decade. In this case though, that might be the floor for coaches directly involved in the bounty scheme. Three to five years sounds about right. The coaches would likely be prohibited from any recruiting activities during that period, but the big question would be if or for how long they would be prohibited from all coaching activities, which would turn the show-cause into an extended suspension.

The head coach would likely also receive a show-cause order for the failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and any unethical conduct violations he was involved with. Former Ohio State University head coach Jim Tressel’s show-cause order seems to offer the best model. It would likely be around 3 years long, and would include a suspension from gameday coaching activities, with six games probably the starting point.

Finally, there might be a show-cause order for the athletic director who failed to take action after being told to by the university president. Show-causes orders for administrators are even rarer. One of the very few in recent history was in Florida State University’s recent major infractions case where a learning specialist received a four year-long show-cause order during which she was prevented from having any contact with student-athletes. A show-cause order for an athletic director might include limiting him or her to no athletic duties or from having direct supervision of sports programs.

The Institution

Penalties for the institution would start with a lengthy probation, on the order of four or five years. This could be increased even more if the institution was found to not have cooperated with the investigation, beyond just the unethical conduct by individuals.

The extra benefits violation would result in the loss of scholarships. How many is the big question. The total dollar amount would be significant, but some of the individual amounts received by student-athletes would be relatively small. But when combined with the fact that the benefits were provided in a gambling ring that threatened student-athlete safety, the Committee on Infractions will not be inclined to offer relief. Once the athletes started receiving extra benefits, they would have been ineligible for competition, so records will be vacated as well.

The combination of gambling, safety, extra benefits, and a lack of institutional control on the institution’s part would mean a postseason ban for multiple years is possible, if not likely. Any money gained from postseason appearances with the ineligible student-athletes would need to be returned, and this might be a case where the NCAA would impose a financial penalty as they did in the recent Georgia Tech case.

In the end, the sanctions on the institution would be similar to those imposed on the University of Southern California. Significant scholarship loses, a multi-year postseason ban, a lengthy probation, and financial penalties. This all assumes that the case is decided under the current major infractions penalty system, not the new penalty matrix where this case would likely fall into the highest category of penalties given the number of aggravating factors.

  1. At least within the bounds of the collective bargaining agreement.  ↩

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: , ,

You Cannot Stop Signing Day

February 6, 2012 by

In late January or early February every year, there is a new round of consternation about the growth of football’s Signing Day. Once only a day of celebration for recruits and watched by only the most ardent fans and boosters, signing day has gone mainstream, thanks to television, recruiting websites, and social media.

That growth has led to a circus atmosphere and a culture of oneupmanship between prospects and coaches. Recruits are coming up with ever more creative ways to indicate they have picked a school, with small animals and children now part of the act. While coaches are hemmed in to some degree by recruiting rules, they have explored every bit of space given and somehow manage to find something new to try every year.

There have been more and more calls to end signing day and return to the days before the National Letter of Intent when prospects could sign whenever they chose. With less focus on one day at the beginning of February, prospects would commit and sign whenever they feel most comfortable. Recruiting and signing would be a year-round process with less pressure to wrap it up on a specific day.

If the goal is to reduce attention on the recruiting process and make it a more private decision involving the player and the college coach, that horse has left the barn. With no signing day, each top prospect would get their own signing day. As much signing day can be a circus, it is still a communal experience prospects share with the rest of their class, future teammates and friends who play other sports.

There will always be a day that prospects can start signing scholarship offers. The only way to make that day irrelevant is to make it so early that most college coaches will not commit to a prospect at that time. But some will, so you would need to be comfortable with freshmen in high school or eighth graders signing scholarships, even if it would be only a small fraction of recruits.

There’s also the small matter of the NLI. Even the strongest opponent of the NLI should recognize the need for a prospect to be able to shutdown the recruiting process. But even the most ardent supporter of the NLI would probably agree that underclassmen in high school should not be signing anything which locks them into their choice, even temporarily. That means there must be a point where prospects can start to really end the recruiting process and that day is likely to be late enough (junior or senior year) that prospects will be ready to commit, especially if the pressure is focused on that specific day.

Much like democracy, the February signing date is the worst way for prospects to sign with a school, except for all the others. The season is over and coaching changes have mostly been made. It sets the date for committing to a school at roughly the time most high school seniors commit to attending a college. And prospects do not have to sign on signing day, an option more and more are taking, especially during basketball’s early signing period.

By and large signing day is harmless fun. Kids who have worked hard from a very young age get a day to celebrate the culmination of that effort and get to do it with their peers, parents, coaches, and teachers. All of the negatives associated with signing day are so ingrained in the recruiting process that getting rid of signing day will only move those problems rather than combat them.

About John Infante

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

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

Funding Reform

December 15, 2011 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

A funded scholarship increase could potentially solve the following problems:

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

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

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

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

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

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

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: , , ,

Time for Football to Pick a Side

May 19, 2011 by

Since the beginning, major college football has enjoyed a charmed life in the NCAA. It has the freedom to run its championship the way it pleases. It gets to distribute its revenue the way it sees fit. And the FBS membership has the freedom to carve out its own regulatory scheme, ideas that often get translated into the rest of the Division I Manual (e.g.: how football spring practice provided the model for fall softball).

At the same time, bowl subdivision football leans heavily on the NCAA. For starters, football student-athletes are factored into the calculation for distributing revenue like the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund and Special Assistance Fund. Those two funds are based on how many scholarships you provide and how many Pell Grants your student-athletes receive. Because the marginal value of each scholarship goes up (i.e. the 125th scholarship is worth more than the 25th), starting off with 85 scholarships makes it much easier to carve out a large part of that pie.

In addition, football uses the regulatory resources of the NCAA as much as any other sport, if not more. A football prospect who will require extensive academic and amateurism investigation pays the same $65 as a golf prospect who will sail through the Eligibility Center. The enforcement staff may not have a dedicated unit for football like they do for men’s basketball, but Agents, Gambling and Amateurism and the rest of the general enforcement staff spends more time on football than any other sport.

In exchange for all this, football provides a pittance to the NCAA. The revenue the national office made from football amounted to $420,000, the total of the licensing fees paid by the 35 bowl games. That’s not even enough to cover the NCAA’s estimated $500,000 loss that the Association takes putting on the FCS tournament.

That’s not to say that football doesn’t support college athletics period. A profitable football program does much of the heavy lifting to support the rest of the athletic department. So does men’s basketball, especially outside of the FBS. And there are plenty of sports that take a lot from the NCAA but do not give back. Baseball for instance has sport-specific legislation and uses disproportionate Eligibility Center resources, but it’s championship doesn’t fund the NCAA.

The major difference between football and men’s basketball though is that football does not fund the system as a whole. Only a tiny sliver of revenue from a BCS bowl game leaks out of the FBS, and none of it to the organization tasked with regulating the sport. That same organization shares criticism with the BCS for the faults in college football’s postseason, as evidenced by the Department of Justice’s letter to the NCAA.

Football has had their cake and eaten it too for a long time. Now comes the news that the Big Ten may be leading the charge for bigger cakes, regardless of whether anyone elses bakery can keep up:

“The reality is, if there’s cost of attendance and you can’t afford it, don’t do  it,” [Ohio State AD Gene Smith] told reporters at the meetings. “The teams you’re  trying to beat can’t do it either. Don’t do it because Ohio State’s doing it.  That’s one of the things schools at that level get trapped into thinking.”

Arms races aren’t all the same. Some are just perception. You don’t need a fancy new weight room to field a successful Division I football team. As long as your weight machines aren’t breaking down and there’s enough room for athletes to work out as much as they want, you have what you need. But you need a fancy new weight room to recruit a successful team because everyone else has one.

An arms race for scholarships is different through. If one school is offering you a full ride that ends up costing you, on average, $12,000 over four years and another school is offering to pay every single penny, the choice is pretty clear. Unless there’s a very compelling reason to choose the first school, it is at a distinct disadvantage.

Mr. Smith’s comment though doesn’t apply to football or men’s basketball. Schools can afford to increase their scholarships to full cost of attendance for those sports. Or more accurately, they have to afford to increase their scholarships. But it’s a tough road to limit increased scholarships to just those two sports.

If the NCAA were to legislate that male athletes are permitted to receive larger scholarships and no female athletes are, a Title IX challenge would be filed the following day. It would be difficult even for the NCAA to limit full cost of attendance scholarships to headcount sports, since despite having more headcount sports, women only have a maximum of 47 headcounts vs. 98 for just men’s basketball and football. So equivalency sports almost certainly have to be included, drastically raising the cost. The cost increase is even more drastic for schools without football.

What Mr. Smith has done is reveal the reason behind those massive TV contacts. They are not simply to fill the pockets of administrators or coffers of universities. The point is to win. And not just to win at football and men’s basketball but to win at everything. An extensive and expensive move to cost of attendance scholarships allows schools with major football and basketball revenue to press home that advantage in sports where it’s still possible for smaller schools to focus their energies and compete at a national level. A great example is Portland, who has created national powerhouses in cross country and women’s soccer without big TV contracts or football revenue.

There will never be total competitive equity unless the NCAA passed a rule limiting the total spending of athletic departments. But there are ways to stop it from getting worse or at least stem the tide. And one way is to get football off the fence, one way or another.

One option is for FBS football to agree to a playoff, but not just any playoff. An actual NCAA Championship, run by the NCAA, with revenue distributed by the NCAA according to traditional standards of NCAA revenue distribution. Lots of black, the same field at every site, with blue circles as far as the eye can see. Assuming a college football playoff earned revenue equal to the Division I men’s basketball tournament, it would pay for the jump to full cost of attendance scholarships for all sports, a substantially increased enforcement staff, all while allowing for significantly higher revenue distributed based on success in the championship.

The other option is for FBS football to be kicked out. That is, to remove FBS football from the list of NCAA sports, stop regulating the sport, and stop using football to determine how revenue is distributed. In effect, if football does not want to have actual skin in the game of its own regulation, the NCAA shouldn’t either.

Could it happen? That largely depends on who would vote on a proposal to remove FBS football. But remember that if you pit the BCS AQ conferences vs. the rest of Division I, the “have nots” control a sizeable 33-18 majority on the Legislative Council. So if the rest of Division I, including some FBS conferences, decide that removing football (at least temporarily) from the NCAA is in their best interests, they have more than enough votes to do it.

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: , , ,

NCAA Rules That Could Have Been

April 18, 2011 by

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.

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: , , , , , , , ,

The Glaring Omission in the Local Sports Club Rule

February 12, 2011 by

When everyone flipped out about Isiah Thomas working for the New York Knicks as a consultant while coaching Florida International, most in the compliance industry yawned. College coaches work with professional teams all the time. Semi-pro leagues like the PDL couldn’t exist with college coaches working in the summer.

The problem, everyone said, was “conflict of interest” and “competitive advantage”. How can FIU know whether Thomas is looking out for the interests of the Golden Panthers or the Knicks when a student-athlete is deciding whether to stay or go pro? And won’t Thomas clean up on the recruiting trail by pitching prospective student-athletes on Florida International as a virtual farm team for the NBA club?

The teeth gnashing over Thomas working with a professional team was a giant overreaction considering that those two concerns, conflict of interest and competitive advantage, are much greater when you go down the chain from college, not up. And that’s allowed by one of the more curious NCAA bylaws, the local sports club rule:

Bylaw 13.11.2.3 – Local Sports Clubs.
In sports other than basketball, an institution’s coach may be involved in any capacity (e.g., as a participant, administrator or in instructional or coaching activities) in the same sport for a local sports club or organization located in the institution’s home community, provided all prospective student-athletes participating in said activities are legal residents of the area (within a 50-mile radius of the institution). In all sports, an institution’s coach may be involved in any capacity (e.g., as a participant, administrator or in instructional or coaching activities) in a sport other than the coach’s sport for a local sports club or organization located in the institution’s home community, provided all prospective student-athletes participating in said activities are legal residents of the area (within a 50-mile radius of the institution). Further, in club teams involving multiple teams or multiple sports, the 50-mile radius is applicable only to the team with which the institution’s coach is involved; however, it is not permissible for the coach to assign a prospective student-athlete who lives outside the 50-mile area to another coach of the club. A coach also may be involved in activities with individuals who are not of a prospective student-athlete age, regardless of where such individuals reside. (In women’s volleyball, see Bylaw 13.1.7.12 for regulations relating to a coach’s involvement with a local sports club and the permissible number of evaluation days.) (Revised: 1/10/90, 1/16/93, 9/6/00, 4/25/02 effective 8/1/02, 5/11/05)

So before getting worked up about a coach potentially having the interests of a professional team on their mind, realize that in many sports, coaches have the interests of their college in mind while acting as club coaches for prospects.

Once you read the first four words of Bylaw 13.11.2.3, you could probably guess the next three. But two of those are missing: “football and”. Why is this a big deal? Because while high school coaches have held the reins of power in football for quite some time, that sport is joining all the others where club coaches are at worst equals when it comes to influence over a prospect:

It’s no longer a question of if youth football will mirror youth basketball. It’s a question of when. At some point in the next few years, the experience of an elite skill position player will be almost identical to the experience of an elite point guard or power forward.

That experience could be different in one critical way under current NCAA rules. Right now, it is legal for a college coach to operate a 7-on-7 travel team as long as all the players live within 50 miles of the campus.

The implications for this are huge. Programs like the University of Southern California or the University of Miami could build virtual minor leagues of local skill players, farming the large and talent rich populations right in their backyards. And while programs in rural areas might not get the same benefit in terms of local talent, it can extend your recruiting ranks. Your graduate assistant and director of operations can’t recruit. But they can go coach prospects.

There’s a legitimate argument that the local sports club rule is outdated, harkening back to a time when high schools ruled recruiting and there weren’t enough qualified coaches in most sports. Perhaps the rule should be abolished entirely. But to prevent this exception from turning the rules on their head, football needs to join basketball as off limits.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

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

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

A Better Oversigning Rule

January 26, 2011 by

Often times when you see an article title like “Oversigning offenders won’t be curbed by NCAA’s toothless rule” you can safely assume there’s a bit of hyperbole at play. But in the case of Andy Staples excellent evaluation of the issues involved with oversigning in football, his assessment of Proposal 2009-48 and the twin bylaws of 13.9.2.3 and 15.5.1.10.1 is, if anything, generous.

The main problem with 2009-48 and how it affects oversigning is that two documents have been merged in the popular vernacular into a single package. When a prospect is reported to sign a National Letter of Intent (NLI), he or she actually signs two documents: the National Letter of Intent, and a grant-in-aid agreement (GIA), which is the actual athletic scholarship.

The NLI is often said to guarantee an athletic scholarship. In fact, the scholarship guarantees itself. During the period of award (a period that starts as soon as a prospect or student-athlete signs a scholarship agreement), Bylaw 15.3.4.2 allows the scholarship to be cancelled or reduced only if the student-athlete:

  • Renders himself or herself ineligible for competition;
  • Fradulently misrepresents any information on an application, letter of intent, or financial aid agreement;
  • Engages in serious misconduct; or
  • Voluntarily quits the team.

The NLI does not include any additional protections for student-athletes above and beyond the GIA. The NLI simply provides a bigger carrot for not canceling a prospect’s scholarship, namely that the NLI is declared null and void and the prospect is free to be recruited and attend another university. Fact is, the NLI does not obligate the institution to do anything it wouldn’t otherwise be obligated to do if the prospect signed just the scholarship itself and tossed the NLI.

The NCAA membership has, rightfully in my opinion, recognized that signing an NLI is not the only way for a prospect to end their recruitment. As a result, different proposals have provided many of the benefits of signing an NLI to any prospect who signs a GIA or even a walk-on who sends a deposit. At this point, the two main benefits of signing the NLI instead of just the scholarship agreement are the NLI recruiting ban and allowing the school to announce a prospect’s signing.

While this isn’t an anti-NLI post, the NCAA members and the Conference Commissioners Association should take a serious look at the NLI. The fundamentals are good in theory: in exchange for a scholarship, the prospect agrees to give the school a fair shake before transferring. In practice neither is the case and unless the bargain for the prospect is improved, the NLI risks a long, slow, but inevitable fade from relevancy.

The point of all this NLI talk is to show 2009-48 is not just a toothless rule, it really doesn’t limit oversigning at all. Bylaws 13.9.2.3 and 15.5.1.10.1 only limit NLIs to 28. The number of scholarship that can be doled out is still unlimited. Programs are still permitted to commit as many scholarships as they want, so long as the NLI is not attached. The twins don’t limit oversigning, they just require some of the oversigned prospects to be free to walk, since the GIA commits the school to the prospect but not the prospect to the school. And by a quirk of NCAA rules, institutions are prohibited from mentioning that they have signed these additional prospects.

For a true oversigning limit, scholarship agreements rather than NLIs need to be regulated. A real oversigning limit puts into force the following math problem:

GIAs to current SAs + GIAs to new SAs ≤ NCAA Limit

The question then is at what point is a scholarship committed to a prospect and student-athlete? Much has been made on websites like oversigning.com of verbal commitments and the Oversigning twitter feed (unaffiliated with oversigning.com) treats decommitments as possible attrition. Considering how fluid verbal commitments are in football, that’s not appropriate. Neither is the written offer referenced in the recently defeated Proposal 2010-74. Here the commitment is easy to see: signed scholarship agreements.

It’s much tricker on the student-athlete side. Proposal 2010-74, which addressed an issue specific to baseball uses “executed financial aid agreements” which doesn’t help limit scholarship offers in February since most student-athletes have signed agreements for next year. But the NCAA rules offer us a natural ending point for a scholarship. It may be only a one-year guarantee, but according to Bylaw 15.3.5.1, you must affirmatively take away the scholarship until the student-athlete exhausts his or her eligibility. The agreement can only naturally expire at that point.

So a true oversigning limit captures this slightly more complicated math:

GIAs to Current SAs with Eligibility Remaining Next Year + Signed Scholarships by Prospects ≤ NCAA Limit

Does that rule eliminate abuse? No, but it requires it to be managed much differently. At no point could a school be over the limit for next year. So in football, a program would need to nonrenew student-athletes right now. At the very least, it means a football student-athlete knows he needs to find a new school before the vast majority of the scholarships are given away.

Andy Staples’ recommendations are good, but are focused on protecting the prospects, potentially at the expense of current student-athletes. Even the most ardent defender of the one-year scholarship limit must agree though that every student-athlete deserves a fair shake to earn that scholarship for the next year and we should work to limit victims of an accounting requirement or the “bright and shiny” problem.

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 Would Paying Student-Athletes Look Like?

January 19, 2011 by

One of the troubles with the debate over whether college athletes should be paid is that both sides have a moving target. Proponents of NCAA amateurism have many arguments to throw at the idea of paid college athletes, from the dynamic between coach and athlete to the impact on education to the unique appeal college athletics has as elite amateur competition (the old “I hate the pros, bunch of overpaid divas!” complaint). Proponents of professional college athletics have any number of different ideas, from monthly stipends to allowing outside compensation to bona fide professional contracts.

As a result, you’ve rarely seen a debate between the status quo and one definitive alternative. That makes it too easy for proponents of pay-for-play to change the alternative to fit the argument and for proponents of amateurism to change the argument to attack the alternative. The result is that the debate never serves its core function: to force a continual reassessment of the fundamental fairness of the grant-in-aid.

Let’s assume major college football has broken away from the NCAA to form their own league. Football is the example here for a number of reasons. No developmental league exists here or abroad. Removing football from the NCAA has little immediate impact on how college sports are administered, and if anything would improve the situation. The NCAA membership, as a whole, has less at stake in FBS football because of the lack of an NCAA championship.

Let’s also assume that this league keeps the rest of the NCAA rulebook largely intact. Meaning no booster payments, no agreements with agents, all academic eligibility requirements, practice limits, etc.

Payment would not be small monthly stipends. The idea that pocket money solves all the problems is disproven by last summer’s agent cases. $1,000 watches, trips to South Beach, and expensive personal training on the other side of the country are all things elite student-athletes want. They’re also all things that cannot be funded on a couple hundred dollars a month.

It would also not be major league contracts. By that I mean player compensation would likely not vary widely, and would not be tied to a percentage of revenue. This is for a couple reasons. First, a college football league is going to fight hard to keep the parity that exists due to the NCAA’s standard grant-in-aid amount. Second, this would be very a much a minor league and minor leagues tend to have much more standardized player contracts than major leagues.

So what would it look like? Inspiration comes from two sources: the minor league baseball contract and Generation adidas.

The minor league baseball contract is a standard contract that has one major part that changes: the size of the signing bonus. For the first contract season, the salary is capped at $1,100 in the most recent CBA. The slotting system and negotiation is based around the signing bonus.

In Major League Soccer’s Generation adidas program, early entry candidates (high school or college athletes who have not exhausted their eligibility) sign a contract that includes money held in escrow for educational expenses that they have 10 years to use.

So what are the elements of a contract that this league might use?

  • A base salary that covers basic room and board expenses. Let’s use $1,250 per month, which works out to a nice round $15,000 per year and represents a little above the highest room and board allowances.
  • Payment of all tuition, fees, and book costs associated with attending the university during the athlete’s collegiate career, since these would still be student-athletes. Call it an average of $20,000 per year. This money would be guaranteed upon the signing of the contract though at least six years.
  • A signing bonus up to $100,000 or $25,000 annually for a four-year career

That creates a system where the lowest paid players are getting essentially the same deal they are now: a full grant-in-aid that covers tuition, fees, room, board, and books. The highest paid players are getting total compensation of roughly $60,000 per year, but a third of their compensation is earmarked for education. $40,000 a year represents a decent living wage, and much of that money comes up front, which can provide assistance to needy athletes. Stay smart about how you spend your money, and it could provide for a few of the finer things as well.

So to proponents of paying college athletes, focus on this proposal. It’s a sensible proposal for paying college athletes that is based on professional developmental contracts. If you run the league right, it may even be a wash in costs for many football programs (although that’s beyond the score of this post).

And to the proponents of NCAA amateurism, this is the proposal that should be argued against. Stipends and major league contracts are too easy to argue against. It represents both the biggest challenge to NCAA amateurism, as well as the best yardstick for judging the fairness of the grant-in-aid and working toward improving financial assistance for student-athletes while still adhering to NCAA principles.

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: , , , ,
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