The NCAA News - Comment

June 10, 1996

• Student-athlete view -- Proceed carefully with learning-disabled issue ...By Chris Wilson, Nebraska Wesleyan University
• Letters to the Editor -- Haka Bowl not the first on foreign soil
• Opinions -- Controversy continues about metal bats' performance

Student-athlete view -- Proceed carefully with learning-disabled issue

BY CHRIS WILSON
Nebraska Wesleyan University

After sitting through many hours of NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee meetings discussing NCAA regulations and proposals, I have become very aware of how the vast body of student-athletes can be affected by a change intended for a limited number of the population. In fact, this is a factor we often force ourselves to take into consideration.

When developing or proposing changes with a specific goal in mind, it is crucial that all possible ramifications are understood.

I emphatically support any legislation that is going to benefit any student-athlete. For that reason, I believe that the NCAA should develop ways that will allow learning-disabled individuals the same opportunity as other athletes to compete at the college level, assuming that their academic records meet the established standards.

As it happens, the NCAA's rules appear to need some adjustment to accommodate learning-disabled student-athletes. But this is an issue with a number of complicated questions. Who decides whether the student is learning-disabled? Is it a medical diagnosis determined at a certain age? Is it feasible to have a different set of academic guidelines for the learning-disabled? Is it even possible for the courses in which learning-disabled students are placed to be qualitatively and quantitatively comparable to those of the rest of the student body when determining athletics eligibility?

These questions need to be answered, but I believe the NCAA has taken at least a few steps toward finding the right solutions. The NCAA Council has supported legislation to issue a blanket waiver to take early official visits, which benefits all student-athletes. And by supporting legislation that would allow learning-disabled student-athletes to count summer courses taken after they graduate toward their core-course requirements, the Council has shown concern for their accommodation.

What needs to be kept in mind is the ramifications that this type of legislation has for all NCAA academic standards.

When proposing or stating opinions on legislation, student-athletes do not always concern themselves with how the legislation will be enforced. Nevertheless, in this particular area, the potential for abuse appears to be great.

Ultimately, however, as with any piece of legislation, we can only trust each other to follow the rules.

Chris Wilson is a recent graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University, where she participated in basketball. She is a member of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

Letters to the Editor -- Haka Bowl not the first on foreign soil

Letters to the editor

The May 20 issue of The NCAA News said that the Haka Bowl in New Zealand will be the first college football bowl game ever played on foreign soil.

How about the ill-fated Bacardi Bowl, played in Havana, Cuba, on January 1, 1937, with Auburn University and Villanova University playing to a 7-7 tie?

By all accounts, the Cuban organizers may have qualified as a comedy group rather than football planners, but the game itself was normal.

Auburn coach Jack Meagher once said that this was the strangest trip he had ever taken. The planners went bankrupt, and the event vanished after that one game.

Dick Kishpaugh
Parchment, Michigan

Evaluate selection process

After two weekends of regional and national tournament play, the 1996 NCAA Division II Women's Softball Championship has concluded. While 24 teams were selected to the tournament and had the opportunity to determine their fate on the playing field, some teams did everything they had to do on the field, but had their fate decided on the telephone by a selection committee.

One such team is Coker College, which finished 48-3 for a .941 winning percentage, the highest in Division II history....

As long as there are tournaments and selection committees, there will always be teams left out who feel they belong. Steps need to be taken to ensure that teams' performances on the field carry more weight than committee members' performances on the telephone. Perhaps expanding the tournament field, allowing automatic qualifying for conference champions or providing a play-in process for nonautomatic-qualifying conferences can help teams determine their own fate on the playing field, not only in softball but in all NCAA sports.

The Division II championship served as further proof why championships are decided on the field and not on the telephone. The Nos. 1- and 3-ranked teams were eliminated in two games, while the No. 2 team was eliminated in three games. The final four consisted of No. 4 University of Nebraska, Omaha; No. 5 University of California, Davis; No. 6 Kennesaw State College; and No. 15 University of Nebraska at Kearney, with Kennesaw State winning the championship.

Just as Nebraska-Omaha, UC Davis, Kennesaw State and Nebraska-Kearney were given the opportunity to prove their merit on the field and defeat higher-ranked teams, Coker should have had the opportunity to determine its fate on the field. Instead, a committee on a telephone call decided the best record in NCAA Division II softball history was not good enough to qualify for a regional tournament.

Congratulations to Kennesaw State on winning its second consecutive national championship. However, nobody will ever know if the tournament outcome would have been the same if Coker had been given a chance to finish its season on the field instead of on the telephone.

David Shulimson
Sports Information Director
Coker College

Opinions -- Controversy continues about metal bats' performance

William E. Thurston, baseball coach
Amherst College
Secretary-rules editor, NCAA Baseball Rules Committee

"It's to the point of being ridiculous. We have to convince the bat manufacturers to stop their performance race to make these bats hotter.

"There have to be more standards. It's not just all the offense ruining the game. There's a safety factor. I don't want to wait until someone has been killed before we do something."

Jim Darby, director of promotions and public relations
Easton Sports, Inc.

"It's a perceived problem by the NCAA rules committee. But they do not define what the problem is. If they're claiming too much offense, where do they want it to be? What does that mean? Are they concerned about safety? Well, tell us if there are more injuries today that can be attributed to batted balls than 30 years ago. There are no statistics, because they haven't done studies to prove whether that's true or whether it isn't.

"If we have to meet new standards, it's going to limit our ability to be competitive. We don't want to become a commodity. We want the opportunity to build a better mousetrap than our competitors."

Gio Cafero, baseball player
University of South Florida

"They (metal bats) seem lighter this year than they've ever been. There's more pop than they've ever had. They can't get much lighter than they are right now, because somebody will get killed."

Joey Anderson, baseball player
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

"They make them too thin. I like the older ones better, but as far as any of them being dangerous, I don't buy it. It would be the same with wood bats."

Rick Jones, baseball coach
Tulane University

"The bat manufacturers have done a lot for college baseball. There are other factors that go into increased offensive production. Nobody talks about the ball -- maybe it's juiced. There's definitely a lack of great pitching, because most of the really good pitchers turn pro out of high school.

"Even with more offense, I think it's something the fans want to see."

Len Bias anniversary

Gary Williams, men's basketball coach
University of Maryland, College Park

Discussing the 10th anniversary of the death of Len Bias:

"I don't think we should feel Maryland did something wrong for (a drug-relate death) to happen here. It could have happened at quite a few schools. You do things to try and prevent something like that from ever happening again.

"We like to think we have total control of our players. No coach has total control of their players. Kids today are more on their own at an earlier age, and that age (18-22) is an age where a lot of kids are finding their way. So it's not a perfect business by any stretch of the imagination....We're not perfect, but overall, I think we have done a pretty good job."

Foreign athletes

Alberto Salazar, former distance runner
University of Oregon

"There are too many foreign athletes in U.S. colleges. I have nothing against a couple of foreigners being on each team, but not this many. It really does take away scholarships from American kids. And it definitely hurts our overall Olympic program....

"Coaching to me is the identification of promising athletes and developing them. Not hiring a mercenary. They can defend it any way they want. There's a lot of choices in life. You can do the right thing or you can take a short cut, and that's what they're doing and they're stepping on American kids to do it. I don't know how they can live with themselves."

John Cook, track and field coach
George Mason University

"It's not my job to educate American kids. It's my job to coach student-athletes. I don't think intercollegiate athletics is very synonymous with nationalism. It's an open world."

Grover Hinsdale, track and field coach
Georgia Institute of Technology

"I have a real problem with it. Our big show in track is the Olympic Games, that's our pinnacle. Now we're going to take full scholarships and give them to foreign athletes, put them in the best training system in the world, the best facilities, the best education, the best coaching, give them all this and then at the end of the school year send them home to wear the jersey of a country that hasn't put a dime into their development so they can go to the Olympics and give the U.S. its hands full. Yeah, it's a joke."

African-American athletes

Rudy Washington, executive director
Black Coaches Association

"Young African-Americans are making more money in basketball alone than a lot of small countries in the world. They can change the world with the earning potential they have. They need guidance."