The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- December 7, 1998

Sliding scales?

Clinician warns of possible communication erosion with high-school prospects

BY GARY T. BROWN
STAFF WRITER

Jay Rosner has had a lot of experience in raising awareness about NCAA initial-eligibility standards.

Recently, however, Rosner has been raising only his eyebrows as he attends more and more locales where fewer and fewer prospective student-athletes appear up to speed on the rules.

Rosner heads the Princeton Review Foundation, a small, nonprofit organization that runs national programs to provide college entrance test preparatory resources to under-represented minority and low-income students.

The one-day academic clinics, some of which are conducted in conjunction with the NCAA's National Youth Sports Program, attract 50 to 100 high-school juniors and seniors who are intent on playing intercollegiate athletics but who are not always sure about how to qualify academically.

"At most of these clinics, I ask who's heard of the various propositions, mainly Prop 48 because that's the one that most people talk about," Rosner said. "I started asking these questions three years ago and half or two-thirds of these kids would raise their hands. But that number has been reducing."

Rosner said he became particularly alarmed during a recent camp at the University of California, Santa Barbara, when no hands were raised.

"Granted these are small samples," Rosner said, "But they've been in different cities over time and that indicates to me that today, high-school seniors seem to have almost no awareness of these standards.

"Most of them think there's some general standard that you have to meet somewhere if you want to play athletics, but they can't tell you much about it."

In fact, Rosner appears to run counter to the conventional wisdom on how effectively initial-eligibility standards are being communicated. Others associated with the process believe that prospective student-athletes understand what is required as well as or better than ever before. But regardless of who is right, Rosner provides a wake-up call that communication of the standards must be an ongoing process.

Media attention fading

Rosner believes that failure to meet the standards is not the headline news that it was when the rules were first implemented. He said when Proposition 48, and subsequently Proposition 16, went into effect, the media blitz penetrated even the most isolated areas.

Now, he said a case like the recent one involving a prominent Los Angeles area basketball prospect who failed to meet the test-score requirement was a blip on the media screen instead of front-page news.

"Two years ago that would have been a major article in the sports section," he said. "Now it's two lines in a corner."

The fallout, Rosner said, is that attracting attendance at academic camps like those offered through NYSP has become more difficult because the need to go isn't hyped. The problem isn't in educating the kids once they are there but in getting them to realize they should go.

And it's not just the under-represented population that is not getting the message either, Rosner said, though with fewer resources available, that sector stands to lose the most if not informed.

"If kids don't have any awareness that this is important, they're obviously not going to be motivated to come," he said. "And that lack of awareness in a negative way reinforces everything else negative that's going on related to the entrance tests in the minority community.

"Three years ago there were a lot of kids who knew that a Prop 48 kid was one who didn't make it past the standards and that the standards had something to do with a test score and a grade-point average. A lot of kids could explain that. Now, it seems that very few can explain any of that."

Wealth of information

If Rosner's fears are accurate, administrators responsible for spreading the word say it is not for lack of trying.

Robert F. Kanaby, executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, said that his organization has stressed knowledge of the standards through training sessions and publications. He also said that the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse has opened lines of communication with the high-school counselors association, which has helped in outreach efforts.

"But regardless of whatever the perspective is at this particular point," Kanaby said, "I believe that you can't overemphasize the educational aspect of this in terms of helping people to understand -- both from the standpoint of the transition of young people new to the process each time but also to the number of staff who are new to this across the country."

The NCAA also is steeped in the promotion of eligibility standards. Clinics conducted through NYSP and the Youth Education through Sports program are just a few of the initiatives that put rules compliance at center stage.

Kevin C. Lennon, NCAA vice-president for membership services, said the Association receives far fewer requests for waivers now from prospects who say they have failed to meet the standards because they were unaware of the rules.

"It's our assessment that more people know the rules now than did before," he said. "Any student who wants to play athletics is going to have to interface with the clearinghouse and that also is a significant way of getting information. But also, member institutions during the recruiting process bear a significant responsibility to spread the word. We really do rely on our coaches to communicate that on a regular basis."

That is common at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, according to Chris Schoemann, the school's compliance coordinator, who oversees a staff member whose primary duty is to track initial eligibility and make sure coaches are in the loop early and often during the recruiting process.

"We still have the occasional problem case," Schoemann said. "But it's our feeling that folks are more educated now about initial eligibility than they have been."

Some still left out

Rosner, however, says the results are lacking.

"Whatever outreach efforts the NCAA is trying do not appear to me to be reaching a number of inner-city kids," Rosner contends. "The NCAA has to figure out an effective way to reach minority kids and rural kids at places where there may not be a high level of college awareness and awareness of factors that relate to admission and participation in college athletics."

Rosner said that in areas where a high percentage of students go on to college, enough awareness of college requirements exists to ensure that NCAA eligibility requirements fit within the broader picture. But he said at high schools where there is a low percentage of students going to four-year colleges, an environment does not exist into which NCAA eligibility standards would naturally fit.

"That's more or less a free-standing piece of information that somehow is the NCAA's obligation to make extra efforts to get to these kids," Rosner said. "Clearly, there should be a rigorous effort for the NCAA to make presentations at state and regional meetings of high-school coaches and athletics directors with some clear methods as to how to effectively filter the word down to kids."

"It's an ongoing problem," Kanaby said of trying to reach the under-represented population. "The only thing we can do is to follow the same processes but redouble our efforts to reach out to that segment of representation state by state."

Kanaby pointed to an initiative in a newly adopted higher education appropriations bill that earmarks $120 million toward a national program called "Gear-Up," which would expand mentoring efforts by states to provide intensive early intervention services to help prepare students at high-poverty middle schools for college.

Other initiatives include the NYSP's seniors program, which has targeted "empowerment zones" in metropolitan areas to provide an avenue for institutions, coaches and student-athletes to assist under-represented prospects with academic preparation, including the communication of initial-eligibility requirements.

Those camps, which have been held in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Detroit and Philadelphia, have reached hundreds of kids who may not otherwise have access to that type of information.

Still, those are the same places where Rosner claims that awareness has declined.

It may be a catch-22, Rosner said. The camps provide the tools, but participants need to know they need those tools in the first place. In the end, Rosner said the NCAA bears the primary responsibility in making sure all prospects who want to participate in college athletics know the rules.

"It's everybody's responsibility because everybody at least pretends the interest at having kids being well informed," he said. "But ultimately, it's the NCAA's responsibility because it's the NCAA's requirement."