The NCAA News - News and Features

January 27, 1997

Association agrees to 'make change work'

BY JACK L. COPELAND
MANAGING EDITOR, THE NCAA NEWS

NASHVILLE -- In the aftermath of what is being called the last Convention of its kind, the NCAA found itself taking inventory.

And in the wake of major changes at the 91st annual meeting -- changes embraced (restructuring) and resisted (student-athlete jobs during the school year) -- NCAA President Eugene F. Corrigan summed up what he believes is the prevailing sentiment in the membership:

"Whatever we did today, we can make it work."

By casting votes overwhelmingly in support of implementation of the details of restructuring, the membership indicated January 13 that it is ready to make a more federated Association work.

With adoption of a cabinet/committee structure and agreement on the details of the composition of its governing bodies, Division I bid farewell to a long history of one-institution/one-vote decision-making and moved to what members hope will be a more efficient and responsive system of governance.

Beginning August 1, Division I will be governed by a 15-member Division I Board of Directors consisting of institutional chief executive officers, and day-to-day business will be overseen by a 34-member Division I Management Council.

Divisions II and III will retain their one-institution/one-vote systems, but also will implement governance structures that clearly put CEOs in charge of policymaking.

Corrigan, who now officially is the last in a line of 32 NCAA presidents and who also is retiring this year as Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner, is pleased with the manner in which the membership is embracing the transition.

"You never want to think you have a pat hand coming in...you always have a little contention here and there," he said of this year's restructuring discussions. "But we didn't see that."

He noted excitement about restructuring not only in Division I, where the greatest structural changes are occurring, but also in Divisions II and III, where those schools are gaining unprecedented authority over such matters as the administration of championships (see stories on page 1).

This year's Convention was not without contentious moments. The Division I membership spent more than an hour debating whether student-athletes should be permitted to work during the school year and receive earnings up to the cost of attendance (Proposal No. 62).

Much of the opposition to the student work proposal was based on schools' concerns about the difficulty of monitoring compliance with the legislation's restrictions.

As the Convention ended, Corrigan sympathized with those concerns. He believes most large athletics programs will need to add a staff member to monitor students' employment.

But echoing his earlier comments about the mood of the Association, he also said that those schools can "make it work."

NCAA Executive Director Cedric W. Dempsey also heard that attitude expressed during the Convention.

"I had a lot of people come up to me and say, 'I didn't agree with what we passed, but we're going to make it work.' "