7 -- NCAA Executive Director Cedric W. Dempsey tells delegates to the NCAA's 90th annual Convention that the Association's future depends largely on how it deals with three issues: sportsmanship and ethical conduct, student-athlete welfare, and agent activity.

7 -- Former University of California, Los Angeles, men's basketball coach John R. Wooden is presented with the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the NCAA's top honor. During a news conference, Wooden comes down on the side of strict academic eligibility standards. "You will never find me critical of anything the NCAA might do to make entrance standards more difficult (to attain)."

8-9 -- Convention delegates approve the main part of the massive proposed restructuring plan by a vote of 777-79-1. The legislation establishes an NCAA in which division autonomy is much more pronounced than in the past. It also places more power in the hands of chief executive officers. Although the main proposal is approved with more than 90 percent of the vote, a number of delegates express concern over the loss of the one-institution/one-vote principle in Division I and about how various constituent groups will access the new structure.

Division I delegates also reject several modifications to the new initial-eligibility standards, which clears the way for the standards to take effect August 1. Proposal No. 19, which would have modified the definition of a partial qualifier to include student-athletes who previously would have been qualifiers until actions at the 1995 Convention rendered them nonqualifiers, fails by just 163-161. Other proposals that would have permitted partial qualifiers to gain a fourth year of eligibility are defeated.

In Division II, an athletics certification plan is decisively defeated, despite the efforts of some Division II presidents to revise the proposal and consider it at the 1997 Convention.

Attendance at the Convention is 2,663, a record.

12 -- A federal judge rules that Louisiana State University violates Title IX by failing to accommodate the interests and abilities of its woman athletes. However, College Football Association Executive Director Charles M. Neinas says that the opinion of Judge Rebecca Doherty contains language about proportionality that coincides with the CFA position.

16 -- Acting on a request from Congress, the Office for Civil Rights issues a clarification of its Title IX guidelines. Deborah Brake, senior counsel for the National Women's Law LEFT, says the document provides "a very positive reaffirmation of (OCR's) three-part test." Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, says, "We had hoped for more clarification. It is still ambiguous, and it probably is going to take legislation and that is what we will probably pursue."

24 -- The NCAA files an appeal to overturn a federal judge's decision in the case involving the Association's restricted-earnings coach legislation.

29 -- Several changes are made with the national office staff to accommodate the new membership structure. Among other changes, Thomas W. Jernstedt is named deputy executive director and Daniel Boggan Jr. is named chief operating officer.

FEBRUARY

13-15 -- The NCAA Football Rules Committee votes to establish a tiebreaker for all games involving NCAA institutions, beginning with the 1996 season.

29 -- Long-time staff member Shirley Whitacre retires after 32 years with the Association.

MARCH

2 -- Tickets for the 1997 Women's Final Four sell out in less than a day, making it the earliest sellout ever for the event. Tickets for the event, which will be conducted in Cincinnati, went on sale by telephone at 10 a.m. and were sold by 3:30 p.m.

11-12 -- The NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee recommends to the Oversight Committee on the NCAA Membership Structure that a student-athlete representative be included on each of the three membership divisions' management councils.

28 -- Panelists at an NCAA-sponsored symposium warn that a gambling scandal may be imminent. "My concern now is I believe that we are a step away from a gambling scandal," says University of Kentucky athletics director C. M. Newton. "The climate is right."

31 -- The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, defeats the University of Georgia, 83-65, to claim the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship. The championship game, carried for the first time on ESPN, attracts a television rating of 3.7, a record for the network for a women's basketball game. The game is seen in about 2.52 million households.

APRIL

1 -- The University of Kentucky beats Syracuse University, 76-67, for the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. The television rating of 18.3 represents the fourth consecutive year in which viewership has declined. Still, a CBS executive says the event "retains its great value" and that the ratings were influenced by geographic (both teams from the Eastern time zone) and competitive (all Big Ten Conference teams eliminated by the second round) factors. The loss of underclassmen to the National Basketball Association also is cited.

5 -- The NCAA Administrative Review Panel grants an appeal by Northwestern University for a waiver of NCAA rules that will allow running back Darnell Autry to accept a part in a movie. NCAA amateurism rules prevent student-athletes from appearing in commercial films.

8-12 -- The NCAA Wrestling Committee takes action to enhance the safety of the sport by recommending changes in championships weight-loss procedures and regular-season rules. The committee's recommendations subsequently are approved by the NCAA Executive Committee.

11-12 -- Speaking to the first of two NCAA-sponsored Title IX seminars, former NCAA President Judith M. Sweet of the University of California, San Diego, says that colleges and universities should comply with all parts of Title IX, not just the three-part compliance test administered by the Office for Civil Rights. She says that items such as equipment and supplies, recruitment, tutors, coaching, travel, and per diem are being overlooked as institutions concentrate on meeting only the requirements of the compliance test.

15-17 -- The NCAA Council agrees to sponsor legislation that will accommodate learning-disabled students in their efforts to meet the Association's academic standards.

29 -- The Association assumes a presence on the Internet with the creation of NCAA Online.

30-May 2 -- The NCAA Executive Committee approves changes in the NCAA special assistance fund that will enable more student-athletes to have greater access to the fund.

MAY

29 -- U. S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil orders each Division I institution to respond to a set of plaintiff interrogatories relating to the litigation involving the NCAA's restricted-earnings coach legislation. Packets are mailed to each Division I member two days later.

31 -- The College Football Association votes to disband, effective June 30, 1997.

JUNE

8 -- The Division III Task Force to Review the NCAA Membership Structure recommends that Division III championships should be enhanced through bracket expansion but that the division should continue to explore the possibilities of subdividing or subgrouping.

25 -- The Division I transition Management Council agrees to move forward with the cabinet structure that was developed by the Division I Task Force to Review the NCAA Membership Structure. The transition Management Council will propose a Division I substructure based on four cabinets: Academics/Eligibility/Compliance, Championships/Competition, Strategic Planning and Business/Finance.

28 -- Division I student-athletes who receive athletically related financial aid continue to graduate at a rate higher than the overall student body, according to the annual Division I Graduation-Rates Report. The number of student-athletes who graduated in the class that entered in 1989 was 14 percent higher than in 1986, which was the first year that the Proposition 48 standards became effective.

JULY

17-18 -- The NCAA Special Committee on Agents and Amateurism proposes an initiative featuring education of student-athletes, flexibility in meeting the financial needs of those athletes, and regulation and enforcement.

23 -- Conference commissioners and ABC Television announce a new "super alliance" that will assure a football championship game between the top Division I-A teams. The agreement would be effective at the end of the 1998 season.

AUGUST

1 -- New Division I initial-eligibility standards become effective. Controversy subsequently develops over the 13-core-course requirement.

1-2 -- Ten communities are invited to submit proposals for the Association's headquarters facility. They are Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Orlando, Phoenix and San Antonio.

7-8 -- The NCAA Executive Committee approves a $239 million budget for the 1996-97 fiscal year. Of that amount, $135.7 million will be distributed directly to the membership, an increase of 9.2 percent over the previous year. The Executive Committee also approves a more aggressive marketing and licensing program.

12-14 -- The NCAA Council agrees to sponsor several major legislative recommendations from the NCAA Special Committee on Agents and Amateurism, including a proposal that would allow Division I student-athletes who are on full grants to work in the off-season during the school year, earning up to the cost of attendance at the institution at which they are enrolled.

SEPTEMBER

1 -- Total Association membership hits an all-time high of 1,203.

17 -- The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that U. S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil erred in requiring NCAA Division I public institutions to provide salary and budget information as part of the damages phase of a lawsuit involving the Association's restricted-earnings coach legislation.

OCTOBER

6 -- Billie Winsett-Fletcher, a volleyball player for the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is announced as NCAA Woman of the Year.

7-9 -- The NCAA Council focuses on the Division I initial-eligibility process during its fall meeting and asks the NCAA Academic Requirements Committee and the Presidents Commission to review the current core-course distribution requirements for eligibility.

NOVEMBER

19 -- A federal judge denies learning-disabled swimmer Chad Ganden a preliminary injunction that would have allowed him to compete this season for Michigan State University. He has filed a lawsuit that claims the NCAA violates the Americans with Disabilities Act in the application of its initial-eligibility standards.

21 -- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upholds a district court ruling that held Brown University in violation of Title IX. Supporters of the prevailing side say the decision should serve as a wake-up call to colleges and universities that are not complying with the law. Brown officials consider the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court.

DECEMBER

3 -- The NCAA Transition Oversight Committee recommends extending the Association's membership moratorium until at least the conclusion of the NCAA Convention in January 1998.

5-6 -- The NCAA Executive Committee approves a supplemental distribution of $15 million to the Division I membership. The money comes from excess revenues generated in the 1995-96 fiscal year.

11-12 -- A working group of university presidents and athletics administrators narrows the field of possible future locations for the NCAA headquarters facility to the metropolitan areas of Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Indianapolis and Kansas City.

31 -- Fannie B. Vaughan, with more than 33 years of service on the NCAA staff, retires.