The NCAA News - News & Features

Wish you were here? -- New legislation curbs number of trips to the land of paradise

BY GARY T. BROWN
Staff Writer

When Proposal No. 69 passed at the 1996 NCAA Convention, Division I golf coaches had to turn in their leis and wave aloha to what had been accepted as common practice in the sport -- annual trips to the Hawaiian islands for golf tournaments that were exempted from a school's maximum number of playing dates.

The new legislation, initially proposed by the NCAA Special Committee to Review Contest Exemptions, means that golf teams may exempt not more than one trip to Hawaii or Puerto Rico within a four-year period. That's a big change for several Division I schools that were accustomed to making one or more exempted sojourns from the mainland each year.

The restriction is part of comprehensive legislation that, among other things, sets limitations on participation in special events and creates a certification process for those events. The legislation curbs exempted travel in several sports, including basketball, softball and volleyball.

The special committee was created because of concerns about an increasing number of events that were seeking exemptions from the contest limitations of NCAA Bylaw 17, and the lack of criteria that existed for evaluating such exemptions.

Citing missed class time as a primary rationale, the committee proposed legislation intended to prohibit an institution from parlaying exemptions in a single season, to reduce or eliminate competitive inequities, and to restore the integrity of limitations on the playing season.

More than a handful of golf coaches claim that golf was lumped unfairly into a proposal targeted primarily at basketball, and that not only will teams be stripped of an annual benefit, but tournaments themselves might be in jeopardy.

"It's not going to affect our program," said Auburn University golf coach Mike Griffin, "but I'm concerned about the people of Hawaii who have worked so hard to sponsor these events, and now by legislation alone, the NCAA might be killing these tournaments."

Fewer teams available?

According to Griffin, golf teams once were encouraged to participate in these events as a way to help schools in Hawaii gain some inexpensive playing dates against competitive teams. The reward for teams footing the travel bill was an exemption from the maximum number of contest dates.

With the once-in-four-years restriction, Griffin said, there may not be enough teams that can afford to fill the available slots in the three annual Hawaiian events.

Part of the committee's rationale for making the change, however, was to open up some opportunities to schools that hadn't gone before. Event sponsors now would be encouraged to extend invitations to more teams instead of simply relying on an annual field.

The annual field, though, typically was a blockbuster group that included high-profile Division I teams that could afford the trip and bring exposure to the events. Now, coaches are questioning whether tournament sponsors will accept a "lesser" field, and whether schools with smaller travel budgets will seize the opportunity.

"I don't think so," said Mike Holder, coach of perennial power Oklahoma State University. "I think you'll see the same teams going to Hawaii and counting the dates. You'll end up having the same people."

"The marquee schools are certainly great for those tournaments," said University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, coach Dick Spybey, who also is president of the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA). "Number one, they create a lot of exposure and two, they are able to raise a lot of money. But I think that some of the programs the legislation is designed to open up to do not have the budget and are not capable of providing such a trip.

"I think the worry we have as an association is if a tournament over there doesn't have the opportunity to get people every year, they won't get enough good quality teams or enough teams in general to continue the tournament -- and then we might see them folding up their tents. That's the biggest concern I hear from the membership at this point."

'Chicken-or-the-egg'

Some people attest, however, that there may be a little chicken-or-the-egg at work here. Do teams want the annual trip to benefit the tournaments or because it serves as a recruiting chip? And are the schools that don't take the annual trip happy with the legislation because it gives them an opportunity they didn't have before or because it merely takes something away that their competitors had enjoyed?

"That could be the situation," Holder said. "The teams that can't justify the expense or don't have the opportunity are pleased that the exemption is no longer there because they felt they were at a competitive disadvantage. You probably have a total of 40 teams that have participated in those tournaments and they're the ones who are upset with this, and that's still a minority in Division I golf."

Leon Schumaker, director of men's and women's golf programs at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, claims the new legislation may not have the impact some coaches think it will. Schumaker helps organize the John Burns Invitational, one of the more popular annual attractions to the islands.

"I have a waiting list of 40 to 50 teams that want to come and play," he said. "Schools ask me all the time -- we don't even have to solicit. I just don't foresee this (the legislation) as a problem."

Golf wasn't singled out

Pacific-10 Conference Commissioner Thomas C. Hansen, who chaired the Special Committee to Review Contest Exemptions, said the legislation was drafted under specific principles and was not intended to single out any sport unfairly.

"In the broad sense, there were several basic premises the committee worked on," he said. "They included lost class time in all sports, not just golf; cost to institutions to participate in a number of these events; the desire to make this type of competition available to more institutions; and competitive equity.

"In other words, it was apparent in the sports the committee looked at that the 'super' programs were getting far more of these opportunities than other programs were, and those that were exempted were in many cases getting a lot more competition before a conference season started than their sister conference members -- and in some sports in some cases the committee felt that wasn't fair."

Holder and Griffin, however, think the committee may have been off target regarding a couple of its premises -- at least as they relate to golf.

Regarding missed class time, Holder said tournaments have been scheduled so that a team could participate in two events within the span of a week. But teams will have to think twice about participating twice if it means counting playing dates twice.

"Recently, we have played two tournaments because it's such a long trip," Holder said. "You're basically investing the week, and the sponsors of the tournaments over there coordinated their efforts in a manner that allows you to play two events within a week.

"Originally when we started going to Hawaii, there was only one tournament, but we were still gone a week. Now you have the added benefit of playing two competitions in the same amount of time, which helps justify the amount of travel expense. With the new legislation, we will probably continue to go, but it'll be impossible to play two tournaments because of the commitment of playing dates involved."

Griffin agreed, adding that cost is another issue that may not be addressed in a manner the committee intended. For example, Griffin said many teams left the mainland one weekend and returned the next, thus gaining excursion travel rates, which are typically less expensive.

"But if it's a nonexempted event," he said, "you can't leave your campus until 48 hours prior to the start of the event. If the competition begins on Wednesday at 7:30 a.m., you can't leave until Monday morning at 7:30. We can't get excursion rates that way. So the NCAA has created another problem. Also, we'll miss the whole week of classes anyway. This way you can't go out there a day early and give the kids a chance to get their feet under them."

GCAA considering proposal

Spybey said the issue generated so much debate at the annual GCAA convention that the organization will consider developing a counter-proposal that seeks to soften the blow.

"From the GCAA standpoint, it's our job to look into this a little bit more to see how it's truly going to affect our association and our golf programs," he said. "I'd like to see the legislation perhaps applied on a tournament-specific basis. A lot of times maybe in basketball or other sports, there may be only one or two opportunities to go off the mainland, but in golf, there are three or four different tournaments, and some of them overlap or come back-to-back.

"If the legislation was tournament-specific, maybe you could only go play in one of those, but then you could alternate if your budget was sufficient and you could still support those people over there. It's something that's been discussed."

Hansen pointed out, however, that such a proposal would be inconsistent with the way the legislation would be applied in all other sports. The application of the new legislation has been handed over to the NCAA Special Events Committee, which will establish the certification program for these types of events.

"The Special Events Committee is where jurisdiction for this lies," Hansen said. "To get any relief from the legislation itself, they (the GCAA) would have to go back to the NCAA Convention."

Spybey hopes the GCAA will come away from its summer meeting with a firm proposal. Until then, coaches will have to plan to adjust. The legislation will become effective August 1, 1996, though contracts for exempted events through the 1998-99 playing season may be honored, provided they were in effect on or before September 23, 1995.

"I accept everything the NCAA sends our way and try to make the best of it," Holder said. "But this is a piece of legislation you have a hard time understanding."