National Collegiate Athletic Association |
CommentAugust 4, 1997
Student-athlete view -- Modify Proposal 62, but don't delay it
BY BRIDGET NILAND The NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) is aware of the problems that have arisen with the adoption of 1997 Convention Proposal No. 62.
However, the SAAC is not convinced that placing a one-year moratorium on the effective date of the legislation -- as the Division I Management Council recommended July 28 -- is the best way to address those problems. Instead, the committee suggests that two amendments be made to the legislation that was adopted in January. First, athletics staff members should be prohibited from arranging academic-year employment for scholarship athletes. One of the major concerns with the current legislation is that overzealous coaches and alumni boosters will use it as a recruiting tool, giving an unfair advantage to those institutions located near major metropolitan areas. Although we think it is unfortunate that a group of dishonest members have distorted the original intent of this legislation, we realize the magnitude of the problems that may arise if the legislation is not amended. Removing athletics department personnel from arranging employment will resolve both the recruiting problems and the issue of counting any employment arranged by athletics departments against team scholarship limits. The intent of this legislation was not to have college athletics departments act as employment agencies for student-athletes. The intent was to give career-minded athletes the ability to seek work in order to contribute to paying for the cost of their education and/or gain the work experience they will need once their athletics careers have ended. Proposal No. 62 was meant to help student-athletes, not college coaches. To that end, we also suggest that any penalty associated with violation of the monetary cap also be sanctioned on the student-athletes and their eligibility status, not the athletics department or the student-athlete's particular team or sport. We realize that this suggestion places the onus on the student-athletes to be educated, honest and mindful of what the legislation allows, and we accept this responsibility. The SAAC understands that the opportunity to work must be accompanied by a certain set of responsibilities. One of those responsibilities would be to contact the rules compliance representative at our institutions and work with that individual in monitoring the income derived from the new job. For example, perhaps the compliance director could provide a standard form letter addressed to an employer's payroll representative informing employer of the stipulations of Proposal No. 62. Specifically, the letter should provide that institution's monetary limit and request that the payroll department notify the compliance director when the amount is exceeded. The SAAC believes that these changes will restore the original purpose of Proposal No. 62: to give Division I athletes, especially nonrevenue sport athletes, the opportunity to gain crucial practical work experience that will prepare them for life after college. It is our opinion that the purpose of the legislation has been lost over the past few months. The SAAC is asking the Division I Board of Directors, which meets August 12-13, to amend the legislation so that athletics departments play no role in arranging employment and that making student-athletes are made responsible for any violations. We believe those changes will eliminate the problems currently associated with this legislation, therefore allowing the NCAA to move forward with well-intentioned legislation without fear and anxiety from the membership. Bridget Niland is the student-athlete chair of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Letters to the Editor -- Quest for equity has become misguidedSince 1992, a quota interpretation of Title IX has led to rampant forced reduction of male squad sizes (a useless phenomenon since eliminating nonscholarship athletes saves very little and does nothing to increase female opportunities, it only levels men to achieve the quota). And, of course, hundreds of schools are also taking the route of eliminating male sports programs. According to the 1997 NCAA Gender-Equity Study, in the last five years, the average number of male athletes at Divisions I, II and III institutions has been reduced by 24, 18 and 26, respectively. That totals up to 20,800 NCAA male opportunities eliminated (more than 10 percent). In the same period, the 1997 report figures indicate that women have gained 5,800 participants in the NCAA. More than 90 percent of that gain was at the Division I level, where the athletics scholarships are. Looking at Division III, where athletes do not receive scholarships and play simply for the love of the game, the 1997 Gender-Equity Study figures indicate more than 9,000 male opportunities eliminated and 178 women's opportunities gained. If we maintain the current rate, we will be looking at 76,000 males eliminated and 22,000 females gained before we reach equal numbers. Who can endorse the elimination (roster caps) of nonscholarship athletes who cost very little and dropping entire programs -- for quotas? We are doing it at a rate that will bring male athletes to 60 percent of the 1991 levels, while gaining only a fraction of that loss in female athletes. According to the NCAA membership office, there are now more NCAA women's sports programs than men's. If we cannot make acceptable progress toward equity under these circumstances, then perhaps we should look long and hard at how we are defining equity.
Leo Kocher
Title IX and amateurismThe hallmark of the modern collegiate sports industry, as V. Lane Rawlins' July 7 editorial "Don't Make Title IX a Zero Sum Game" clearly illustrates, is its chameleon-like ability to cast itself as a revenue-producing business at one moment and as an academically oriented sports organization the next. For instance, when universities want to shield their athletics programs from unrelated business income taxes, antitrust scrutiny and a variety of labor laws, they take the position that college sport is first and foremost an educational enterprise whose raison d'etre is to meet the needs of amateur student-athletes. Yet, when women demand equal access to this valuable educational resource, these very same universities insist that sport is a business whose ability to produce revenue must be protected from the ravages of Title IX. One of the ironies of the Title IX controversy is that women have been able to trap men's revenue-producing sport in its own amateur rhetoric. Instead of trying to justify the excellence of women's sport by criteria primarily relevant to the corporate model, women have refocused the debate on the NCAA's claim that college sport, as an amateur activity, is an important element of the total educational experience. As a result, the courts have interpreted gender equity in educational terms, rather than in the language of the marketplace. One lesson of the Title IX controversy is that the courts, urged on by vocal and well-organized interest groups, may be capable of forcing the college sports establishment to live up to its lofty amateur and educational principles. As college sport approaches the 21st century, it seems on the verge of cutting itself totally free from its amateur moorings. Immediate and aggressive enforcement of Title IX would help to restore public confidence that, contrary to what President Rawlins implies, there is still a line of demarcation between college sport and a professional sport franchise.
Allen L. Sack Opinions -- NCAA academic requirements not the answer after all
Marc Hansen, columnist "Test fraud isn't a new phenomenon. Until recently, though, it wasn't a cottage industry. "Now, as chronicled in the July 7 Sports Illustrated, there are dozens of entrepreneurs who will arrange to have a prospective student-athlete receive an acceptable board score. " 'Business is big and getting bigger,' one test-fraud pioneer told SI. 'If you're a blue-chipper, it's like Whitney Houston sang in The Preacher's Wife, "Help is on the way." "Which is why I'm giving up on higher NCAA requirements. They aren't the answer. The answer, I have come to understand, is no NCAA requirements at all. "Tear up the rule book. Torch the Clearinghouse. Leave all admissions decisions to the individual schools. "If a school wants to be known as an institution with no standards, fine. "If a school will take any functional illiterate who can do a 360-degree slam, that's up to the school. "Only let the rest of us know about it. That's the catch. With freedom comes accountability. Show us the numbers. Not just the averages, which can mislead. I'm talking about the individual test scores and transcripts. "Simply have each school disclose the high-school grades and board scores of each incoming student-athlete. After the signees enroll, their college grades and courses must be made public, too. "Ill-advised privacy laws prevent us from placing names next to the numbers, but we'll work to get the Buckley Amendment changed, too. "Schools with no shame will continue to enroll the academically ill-prepared. But at least we'll know -- really know -- about it. "Eventually, the shameless will be outnumbered by the honorable, especially the honorable who fear embarrassment and disgrace. With the media keeping accurate score, schools will be less inclined to embrace the functionally illiterate. "When Northwestern plays Michigan in football or basketball, we'll finally see who has the higher standards. As fans, we can pledge our allegiance from there. "The money saved on legislation and enforcement will be funneled toward actual education. "Of course, there's still the worry that some schools will fudge their disclosure statements. But at least the renegades will be where they belong. On campus."
Basketball camps
John Thompson, men's basketball coach "I'm getting a little sick of hearing everyone talking about the competitive disadvantages of these camps and the exploitation of the players. What are the other options? One is to be home fooling around in the street with a lot of things we shouldn't be fooling around with. "I think everything in society, including the church, has to be monitored. But, in the same token, it's great for the kids who come through (basketball camps) to get to be exposed to guys like George Raveling and Nolan Richardson."
Bob Gibbons, editor "The question I have is: How much is too much? I know this is an opportunity to get kids exposure, but is there such a thing as overexposure? I think there is. "Some kids aren't playing as well now as they did in the early summer, just because they've played so much."
Life-skills programs
Jody Conradt, women's athletics director Discussing the effect of changes in intercollegiate athletics on women: "They haven't grown up quite as self-centered as men, but now we will start to see some of the same issues.It's just that I don't think the money women earn in professional team sports is going to be equal for quite some time."
Lem Burnham, director "The M.D. will hire someone who manages his money for him, but the doctor will have knowledge about it in the first place.The athlete, on the other hand, does not..... "The biggest reason for that is culture. The doctor would come from a family where they're more likely to sit around and talk about money. Their life skills are developed. If an athlete hires someone to manage his finances, the majority of the time, he won't understand his portfolio."
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