National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

August 17, 1998

Division I SAAC solidifies plan

Committee establishes group to review proposed legislation

The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee focused on its strategic plan for 1998-99 and reviewed proposed changes to initial-eligibility standards during its August 1-2 meeting in Boston.

One of the goals within the strategic plan that the committee accomplished was the establishment of a team to review proposed Division I legislation. The six-member group will review proposals as they are submitted and report its recommendations to the full committee.

A second goal to establish student-athlete advisory committees at the conference level gained support with the Division I Management Council's initial approval of proposed legislation that would require each conference represented in the gover-nance structure to have a conference student-athlete advisory committee.

Other ongoing goals within the plan include increasing representation on various Division I committees, particularly those that deal with student-athlete welfare issues; and improving internal communication, both within the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee as well as between that group and student-athlete advisory committees at the conference and campus levels.

Regarding initial-eligibility issues, the committee reviewed four models relating to initial-eligibility standards that have been distributed to the Division I membership as part of a survey conducted by the Division I Academic/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet Subcommittee on Initial-Eligibility Issues.

The four models include various proposed changes to the current initial-eligibility standards ranging from the inclusion of partial qualifiers as full qualifiers to a full sliding scale that would base eligibility on a test-grades combination score. In addition, one of the models would retain the current initial-eligibility standards.

Though the committee did not voice its support for any of the models at this time, it will continue to review the proposals and forward its recommendations to the Management Council.

In other actions, the committee:

  • Reviewed legislation related to the recruiting calendar in Division I basketball and appointed a member of the committee to serve as the student-athlete representative to a task force that will be appointed to conduct a broad-based study of basketball issues.

  • Reviewed legislative proposals submitted by conferences and cabinets, including Proposal No. 98-59, which would prohibit dietary supplements as permissible medical benefits that may be financed by an institution. The committee asked for additional information regarding the proposal and noted that the Division I Management Council had referred the proposal to the Championships/Competition Cabinet and the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports for further study.