| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: | CONTACT: |
| Friday, August 08, 2003 |
Wallace I. Renfro Senior Advisor to the President for Communications 317/917-6222 |
STATEMENT BY NCAA PRESIDENT MYLES BRAND REGARDING DIVISION III REFORM EFFORTS
INDIANAPOLIS - The Division III Presidents Council at its August 7 meeting took a dramatic step to strengthen its commitment to academic reform and principled conduct of intercollegiate athletics. The Council voted to recommend a package of related initiatives to the membership of Division III and place these initiatives on the agenda at the next NCAA Convention in January 2004.
I applaud and strongly support this approach by the Division III Presidents Council. While the vast majority of media attention is focused on Division I, especially on football and men's basketball, there is hard and important work to be done throughout intercollegiate athletics. President John McCardell, Middlebury College, who serves as chair of the Division III Presidents Council, and his colleagues have taken a strong and positive stance.
Some of the initiatives recommended by the Council are controversial, most especially the one that phases out the exception to the Division III prohibition on athletics scholarships. The institutions affected by these proposed changes will have an opportunity to respond and offer alternatives prior to and during the Convention. Their comments will be important to the discussion.
The key point is that academic reform is moving forward on all fronts. The effort to integrate intercollegiate athletics with the goals of higher education is gaining momentum. Not everyone will be happy that steps are being taken to subsume intercollegiate athletics to institutions' academic mission. But without question, it is the right thing to do!
WR:mel
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