BY SALLY HUGGINS
Staff Writer

Presentations by agents, institutional representatives and sports attorneys provided valuable information for the NCAA Special Committee on Agents and Amateurism May 10 as it continued its efforts to find a solution to the increasing problem of unscrupulous agents and their dealings with student-athletes.

Meeting in Baltimore, the special committee heard presentations representing various perspectives on the agent issue and possible resolutions. The NCAA Council has charged the special committee with evaluating the issue and making recommendations in time for legislation to be considered at the 1997 NCAA Convention.

"It was an extremely valuable meeting," said William E. Kirwan, president of the University of Maryland, College Park, and chair of the special committee. "All of the committee learned a lot from the individuals who made presentations.

"It was a very engaged and intense discussion after each case was presented."

Talbot D'Alemberte, president of Florida State University, offered the perspective of a university president who has dealt with the agent problem on his campus. D'Alemberte provided insight into dealing with agent problems on a campus and discussed the potential for state legislation to help resolve the issue, noting that Florida has strong laws regarding sports agents.

Ed Garvey, president of the Institute of Sports Attorneys, advocated not using agents at all. He proposed that a trained group of attorneys provide counsel, prepare contracts and negotiate for student-athletes on a traditional attorney fee-for-service basis.

The perspective of the agent was presented by Len Elmore, president of Precept Sports and Entertainment and a former all-American basketball player at Maryland. Elmore is an attorney and an agent.

A method for securing uniform state laws regarding sports agents throughout the country was suggested by Mark Rodgers, an agent and sports attorney with Stephens Sports Management, Inc.

Regulatory models

The special committee also looked at two models it had asked the NCAA staff to develop for discussion purposes. A "restrictive" model would make agent oversight more stringent and would tighten regulation of agent activities. A "relaxed" model would ease regulations so that a student-athlete could work with agents unimpeded.

The special committee is seeking a middle ground between those approaches.

John Calipari, a member of the special committee and head men's basketball coach at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, presented a proposal he has developed to provide loans to a defined group of highly skilled student-athletes.

The loans would be based on the potential for professional earnings and would be available to student-athletes identified as having the potential to be drafted by professional teams.

Next step

The special committee's next step is to meet July 17-18 in Kansas City, Missouri, to discuss the various means of addressing the sports-agent issue.

"Our objective is to walk away from that meeting with a clear direction as to where the committee wants to go," Kirwan said. "It is an extended meeting. I am hopeful that at the end of the two days we will have a pretty good sense of what our recommendations will be."

The special committee anticipates additional conferences may be needed to flesh out legislative proposals for the Council to consider when it meets in August.

Action on amateurism issues that have been placed before the committee will have to wait until progress is made on the agent issue, Kirwan said.

"We all recognize that it is very hard to separate these issues," he said. "Our focus at the moment is a rational system to deal with the concerns about agents.

"Then we can go back and think about where we're headed in light of the whole concept of amateurism."