National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

January 19, 1998

NCAA CONVENTION -- Division I charts course on student-athlete employment

BY DAVID PICKLE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE NCAA NEWS

ATLANTA -- After a year of debate, discussion and compromise, Division I finally has a clear path to follow on how to approach the issue of student-athlete employment during the academic year.

At its meeting conducted in conjunction with the 1997 NCAA Convention, the Division I Management Council agreed on legislation that will now be forwarded to the membership for comment. The Management Council will vote on the proposed legislation at its April meeting, and -- assuming no major modifications are required -- the Division I Board of Directors will vote on it at its April meeting.

The compromise was developed primarily by a subcommittee chaired by Ted Leland, athletics director at Stanford University. The Management Council agreed with the subcommittee's proposal that the legislation should be modified in three primary ways:

  • A fixed cap on permissible earnings above the value of a full grant-in-aid is preferable to permitting earnings up to the cost of attendance. A $2,000 cap was agreed upon.

  • Athletics departments or athletics interests should be permitted to intercede on behalf of the student-athlete to secure appropriate employment.

  • The value of the cap ($2,000) should be considered noninstitutional aid and thus not included in the institution's team limitations in the applicable sport.

    In its meeting in advance of the forum, the Management Council agreed that athletics departments could be burdened in several ways if employment for student-athletes with full grants-in-aid is permitted in the athletics department itself. As a practical matter, administrators would be forced to raise the funds to come up with jobs for athletes and then would be responsible for personnel issues (for example, how to deal with athletes who didn't show up for work).

    With that in mind, the Management Council recommended that student-athletes could be hired by an athletics department only if the aid counts against the team financial limits.

    The amendment was put before a Division I forum on Proposal No. 62, which supported the concept almost two to one in a straw vote.

    Proposal No. 62 was approved at the 1997 NCAA Convention. The legislation, which was to have become effective August 1, 1997, would have permitted Division I student-athletes to earn employment income up to the cost of attendance during the academic year.

    After the Division I administrative community expressed concern with administration of the legislation, the Division I Board of Directors voted to suspend its implementation for a year.

    Leland said that although resistance to the concept still exists, the subcommittee based its work on the belief that the legislation will be implemented. He said the subcommittee strived to keep the approach as simple as possible, to make certain that employment opportunities are legitimate, to limit the competitive effects of the legislation, and to meet student-athletes' financial needs without neglecting their academic ones.

    "This was a first step and a best compromise," he said. "There is no vision from above, no epiphany, no one jobs program that will make everybody happy."

    Leland also noted that he doubts the changes now under consideration will be the final changes made. Problems that may arise in the future could mean more examination, he said.

    Bridget Niland, cochair of the Division I Student-Athlete Committee, agreed that the proposal is not a panacea.

    "The model is not perfect and not what everybody wants," she said, "but it's a good model." Niland also praised the leadership of Division I for working hard to achieve the compromise.

    Other business

    The student-athlete work issue was the most significant topic addressed by the Management Council, but the group took on several other important topics as well.

    The Council considered a number of major issues brought forward by the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet. The group discussed at length the proposed plan to modify the recruiting process for Division I basketball. It agreed that although basketball recruiting is in need of attention, the division would be better served by taking time to make certain the matter is addressed properly, even if it means not having legislation in place for the next recruiting period. It returned the matter to the cabinet for further examination, with instructions for the cabinet to use outside experts to help craft a solution, much as it did with its approach on core-course certification (see page 1).

    The cabinet's preliminary proposal consisted of the following elements:

  • Reducing the July evaluation period from 24 days to 14 days. The 10 "gained" days would move to the academic year.

  • Creation of more evaluation periods in October, April and May.

  • During the academic year, coaches could evaluate only events that are sanctioned by the high-school or junior college association if they fall outside the prospect's normal season.

  • A change in the September contact period. Rather than permitting contact during the period from September 9 through 26, the proposal would permit it in 18 days between September 5 and October 5.

  • Prohibiting telephone contact with individuals who are involved with prospects in nonscholastic basketball activities between April 1 and August 1.

  • Permitting basketball coaches to make one telephone call to a prospect during his or her junior year in high school from April 24 to May 15.

    The Council also supported the cabinet's recommendation to absorb the duties of the Professional Sports Liaison Committee from the previous structure. David Knight, faculty athletics representative at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and chair of the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet, said the cabinet concluded that the issues handled by that committee are fundamentally related to amateurism and agent matters, which are under the purview of the A/E/C Cabinet. The cabinet is seeking the involvement of individuals with agent and amateurism expertise to work with or on the subcommittee, although procedural questions still must be addressed on how they would be incorporated into the system.

    The Council also accepted the report of the Championships/Competition Cabinet. The Council previously had asked the cabinet for a clarification on how proposed modifications of the exempted-contest policy would affect the University of Hawaii, Manoa. After a review of the matter, it determined that Hawaii would not be adversely affected by the proposed changes.

    Legislation

    The Management Council gave second approval to the following legislative proposals. All were subsequently approved by the Board of Directors:

  • No. 97-13, which specifies when institutions would be required to file an interim report in the athletics certification process.

  • No. 97-14, which revises the operating principles in the four basic areas (governance and commitment to rules compliance, academic intergrity, fiscal integrity, and commitment to equity).

  • No. 97-37, which would give the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet's Subcommittee on Continuing-Eligibility Issues the authority to grant a partial qualifier a waiver for a fourth season of competition when the student-athlete completes the requirements for his or her degree after the start of his or her fifth season of enrollment. The waiver would grant relief in cases where student-athletes were left just short of meeting degree requirements for reasons beyond their control (for example, advisement problems or the illness of a professor that precluded completion of the course in question).

  • No. 97-38, which would permit Division
    I-AA institutions to exempt competition in a conference-sponsored, season-ending postseason football tournament from the maximum contest limitations.

  • No. 97-39, which would change the number of contact days in Division I spring football.

  • No. 97-40, which would permit an institution that has been placed in the "restricted membership" category by the Division I Committee on Athletics Certification to seek an immediate removal of such status through a waiver to the Division I Board of Directors.

    Initial approval

    The Management Council voted initial approval for the following proposals that were sent forward by Division I cabinets:

  • No. 97-20, which specifies that the provisions of Bylaw 10.3 would apply to staff members of member conferences.

  • No. 97-21, which would permit two coaches in men's volleyball to contact and evaluate prospects off campus at any one time.

  • No. 97-23, which specifies that violations of Bylaw 13.1.9 shall not render a prospect ineligible while retaining that fact that such a violation shall be considered an institutional violation.

  • No. 97-24, which specifies that National Girls and Women in Sports Day activities held on an institution's campus would be exempt from the limitations on providing entertainment to a prospect.

  • No. 97-26, which relates to official transcripts that may be used for the purpose of certifying initial-eligibility core-curriculum requirements in cases in which a student has attended multiple high schools.

  • No. 97-27, which would permit student-athletes in field hockey to compete on an outside team during spring term outside the institution's playing and practice season under specified conditions.

  • No. 97-28, which relates to the receipt of educational financial awards.

  • No. 97-29, which relates to permissible times for diving practice sessions beyond the swimming and diving playing and practice season.

  • No. 97-30, which would permit a National Collegiate championship or a division championship to be established through the 2003-04 academic year for those emerging sports in which the Association does not already conduct a championship if at least 40 institutions sponsor the sport.

    The Management Council amended No. 97-22, which would have permitted institutions in men's and women's basketball to make one telephone call to a prospect (or his or her legal guardians) after June 15 of the prospect's junior year in high school. The effective date was to be August 1. The Management Council amended the date so that phone calls would be made after June 20; it also made the effective date immediate. The amended proposal will be circulated to the membership for comment. The legislation could be effective in June if the Management Council and the Board of Directors at their April meetings give it the three-quarters majority approval that is necessary for an immediate effective date.

    No. 97-25, which relates to foreign tours, was referred back to the Championships/Competition Cabinet.

    No. 97-19 was defeated. The proposal would have required faculty athletics representatives to approve a process outside the athletics department for certifying continuing eligibility of student-athletes, rather than necessarily certifying it themselves.