The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- October 11, 1999

Newly expanded Council to tackle heavy legislative agenda

A legislative agenda with more than 90 proposals from Division I cabinets, conferences and other groups awaits the Division I Management Council for its October 18-19 meeting in Atlanta.

The meeting, the first of a newly created legislative calendar in which the Management Council will consider and act on legislation only twice per year, also will be the first to include an expanded Council roster of 49 members. The new roster, which was approved in August by the Board of Directors, provides representation for all Division I-AA and Division I-AAA conferences and a two-tiered structure in Division I-A (seven conferences with three representatives and one vote each, and four conferences with one representative and one and one-half votes each).

The new legislative calendar, also approved by the Board in July, calls for the Council to consider legislative proposals only in October and April.

The legislative docket for the October meeting includes 19 proposals that the Council initially approved in July. Those proposals have been distributed to the membership for comment. Among them is Proposal No. 99-33, which specifies that a new championship may be established in a women's sport if the minimum number of sponsoring institutions exists for one academic year (rather than for two consecutive academic years). Also up for second approval is Proposal No. 99-51, which would create a protected status to continue a National Collegiate Championship or division championships in men's and women's lacrosse.

Most of the legislative proposals the Council will review for the first time come from either the two Division I cabinets or the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues. Many of those proposals were submitted by conferences before the August 15 deadline.

The Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet during its September meeting supported a package of six proposals regarding amateurism rules for pre-enrolled prospective student-athletes. The proposed changes, which include allowing under various circumstances participation in organized competition for one year before initial collegiate enrollment (that is, expansion of the "tennis rule"), were recommended by the cabinet's subcommittee on agents and amateurism and were developed after a two-year study of amateurism legislation affecting pre-enrolled prospective student-athletes.

The package, Proposal Nos. 99-106 through 111, also addresses deregulation of legislation restricting contractual agreements with professional sports teams, and pay and compensation or prize money for athletics participation before college.

Sunday competition

The Championships/Competition Cabinet is forwarding a proposal that would eliminate waiver opportunities available to sports committees for Sunday championships competition. The recommendation, submitted by a conference and supported at the cabinet's September meeting, would preclude a sports committee from obtaining a waiver of the Sunday competition rule if it thought that moving the dates of competition to accommodate the institution with a restrictive religious policy would unduly disrupt the championship. Such waivers already had been granted to the Division I Women's Soccer and Women's Basketball Committees, but the cabinet has withdrawn those waivers.

The cabinet also is forwarding recommendations regarding specific championships, including a request from the Division I Baseball Committee to move the Division I Baseball Championship back one week later beginning in 2002. The Council defeated a similar request last year to move the championship back two weeks, but the baseball committee cites support from a majority of coaches who feel the date change is a key issue in college baseball.

The cabinet also reaffirmed its support for an automatic-qualification system in men's lacrosse that would direct the Men's Lacrosse Committee to award four automatic berths for the 2000 and 2001 championships, and then award automatic qualification to all eligible conferences beginning in 2002. That proposal was submitted to the Council in July, but the Council referred the issue back to the cabinet to study the impact of automatic qualification on the quality of the championship.

Basketball legislation

The Council will review several recommendations in draft legislative form from the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues. The working group, formulated last October, submitted its final report to the Council and to the Board of Directors this summer. The Board approved the substance of the report, but referred the development and review of proposed legislation to the Council and other entities within the Division I governance structure.

The package before the Council includes 14 draft proposals that address issues ranging from summer financial aid and initial eligibility to recruiting and ethical conduct. One of the more significant proposals would limit to four the number of initial grants-in-aid to be awarded annually in men's basketball, which the working group believes would alleviate the pressure to award a high number of scholarships to incoming freshmen and two-year college transfers each year. The proposal is modeled after the current initial-scholarship rule in Division I football.

Another proposal would establish an incentive-based financial aid model that would tie the number of grants-in-aid awarded in men's basketball to each institution's four-year graduation rate.

The group also is proposing that an Association-wide marketing, licensing, promotions and public affairs committee be created to assist the NCAA president in establishing policies for the review of all marketing, licensing and promotional initiatives, especially those related to basketball.

Other issues

The Council also is expected to address several nonlegislative items, including:

* Review of a preliminary report from the Council's Subcommittee to Review Automatic-Qualification Requirements.

* Review of appointments to the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance and Championships/Competition Cabinets.

* Review of expanding permissible uses for the Student-Athlete Special Assistance Fund.