BOSTON -- Despite an agenda absent of the usual amount of proposed legislation, the Division I Management Council nonetheless addressed a full slate of both business and philosophical matters during its July 24-25 meeting.

The meeting was the first nonlegislative meeting of the Council since the new legislative calendar was adopted in 1999 that calls for the Council to consider and act on proposed legislation only at its October and April meetings.

The only legislation the Council was permitted to address at this meeting was emergency, noncontroversial legislation that would become effective immediately after adoption by the Board of Directors and would not be subject to the comment period.

"The Council's nonlegislative meetings are designed to allow members time to speak their minds on contemporary issues in athletics rather than concentrating solely on voting on legislation," said Management Council Chair Ted Leland, director of athletics at Stanford University. "It also allows the chairs of the two cabinets and the president of the Association to give annual reports to help the Council gauge where the Association has been, what the major issues are and where we're headed."

One of the issues to which Leland referred is amateurism, a topic that generated a healthy amount of discussion at this meeting and likely will reappear before the Council as a legislative package in October.

The Council heard a presentation from David Knight, chair of the Academics/ Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet, and Agents and Amateurism Subcommittee Chair Christine Grant regarding a package of amateurism deregulation that has been nearly three years in the making. The concepts originated with the subcommittee almost three years ago and have been debated in various forums, both at the conference level and at the Association's annual Convention in January.

The deregulation proposals are designed to allow prospects to:

Accept prize money based on place finish;

Enter the draft and be drafted;

Sign a contract for athletics participation;

Accept compensation for athletics participation;

Compete with professionals; and

Accept educational expenses in specific situations.

(In a related matter, the Council approved an interpretation to allow prospective student-athletes to receive normal and reasonable living expenses from specific individuals with whom the prospect has an established relationship.)

The proposals would address competitive equity through an organized-competition rule, which would require a prospect to forfeit a season of eligibility for every year he or she participated in organized competition after high-school graduation. Those prospects also would be required to fulfill an academic year in residence upon initial, full-time enrollment.

The package also includes two proposals regarding postenrollment issues that would allow student-athletes to engage in fee-for-lesson employment arrangements and accept Operation Gold money for place finish in events such as Olympic competition.

FONT SIZE=4>"The proposals represent substantial change," said Knight, who is the faculty athletics representative at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "And we know there can be resistance to that type of change. But as we educate more and more groups on the benefits of deregulation, we perhaps can alleviate some of that anxiety."

Grant called the proposals "logical and liberating." She said the subcommittee's support of the package is based on a number of factors, including a belief that the current amateurism rules are difficult at best to enforce. "The current rules also are set up to be harsher on domestic students," she said.

Much of the presentation focused on concerns the subcommittee has fielded from the membership on each proposal and the subcommittee's response to those concerns. For example, the proposal to allow prospects to accept compensation for athletics participation has generated a concern that such a "pay-for-play" environment clouds the perception of collegiate athletics and compromises the philosophy of "amateur" athletics.

But the subcommittee believes the package clearly delineates between a more liberal application of amateurism rules for prospects while maintaining the current restrictions for postenrolled student-athletes. Further, the package preserves the uniqueness of intercollegiate athletics and reaffirms the student-athlete as an individual pursuing academics while participating in intercollegiate athletics.

The Council expressed some concern regarding the proposals as they relate to international prospects, a group that at the elite level is relatively large in Division I sports like swimming and track. Specifically, the Council cited international athletes who spend one or more years in a club environment abroad and gain a competitive advantage while retaining amateur status upon enrolling in a U.S. college or university. But Grant said the organized-competition rule would apply to those prospects and thus put them on equal footing with domestic prospects who compete in organized competition after high school.

"It's an example of where our current rules are harsher on domestic prospects than others," she said. "We're not trying to penalize international athletes with these changes, but to treat all prospects equitably."

The Council did ask the subcommittee to gauge the level of acceptance to the proposals at the high-school level before the package returns as proposed legislation in October. The Council also asked the group to further define its position on agents, an area Grant said the subcommittee has struggled with most. The subcommittee, in fact, has not issued any proposals dealing with agent activities.

The Council also addressed a timeline for the proposals, deciding to handle the package much like the basketball issues package was handled last year. The Council recommended that the subcommittee's finalized package be reviewed by the Council in October and sent out for membership comment without theCouncil taking a substantive position on the package as a whole or on any individual proposal. Conferences and other groups would then have an opportunity to submit alternative proposals, and the Council would look at those and the rest of the package again in January 2001. Whatever package is approved then would be distributed for comment before final action from the Council and the Board of Directors could be taken in April 2001.

"One of the advantages of the new governance structure and the revised legislative cycle," Leland said, "is for the Council to have this type of educational opportunity on an important issue like amateurism, and for members to take the information back to their conferences in order for them to make as informed a decision as possible when the legislative proposals come before them in October.

"As we saw with basketball, a topic with such far-reaching implications might not have been processed as efficiently under the old structure."

The 'trust gap'

Another philosophical issue the Council took on was initiated by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which has raised concerns recently about a perceived "trust gap" between student-athletes and coaches and athletics administrators.

Contributing to the perception, according to the SAAC, is the challenge that arises from what student-athletes believe often is an expectation from coaches to participate in off-season "voluntary" workouts.

The legislation in question, Proposal No. 99-74 (as amended by proposal No. 99-74-1), which was adopted last year by the Board of Directors, permits strength and conditioning coaches to conduct voluntary workout programs for student-athletes only during vacation periods (for example, summer) without the workouts being considered as a countable athletically related activity. The SAAC contends that many institutions are not complying with the intent of the legislation, specifically as it relates to voluntary participation. The SAAC believes that a better definition of voluntary participation would provide more guidance for coaches and better carry out the intent of the legislation.

Toward that end, the SAAC recommended that the Council issue an interpretation that defines "voluntary" as follows:

Student-athletes and other athletics personnel may not be required to report back any information relating to the workouts to the coach;

Workouts only may be initiated and requested by student-athletes;

No attendance may be recorded;

No penalties may be rendered for missed workouts;

An institution may not assign specific times for student-athletes to work out; and

An institution may not provide awards or incentives for attendance or performance.

While the Council supported the concept of defining voluntary participation, it established an ad hoc committee to further review the language used in the definition, as well as to further review the "trust gap" perception.

The Council did, however, support a SAAC recommendation to direct the NCAA enforcement staff to focus more resources on voluntary workout issues and possible violations. The Council also supported a SAAC recommendation to ask the Division I Committee on Athletics Certification to include some measure of compliance with voluntary workout legislation in the Division I athletics certification process.

In a related matter, the Council referred a SAAC concern regarding student-athlete transportation safety to the ad hoc committee for further review.

Basketball issues

The Council addressed one item left over from the basketball issues package that the Council dealt with in April. Though the Board of Directors adopted the package of proposals the Council approved and forwarded at that time, the Board did ask the Council to reconsider a concept the Council had defeated that would tie scholarships to schools' four-year adjusted graduation rates in men's basketball. The Board believed the concept was an important part of the package designed to strengthen academic expectations for men's basketball, which typically has been the lowest or among the lowest in graduation rates over the past several years.

The Board instructed the Council to address what constitutes "good academic standing" as it relates to graduation rates. At issue is that currently, a student-athlete who leaves for any reason counts against a school's graduation rate even if he would have been academically eligible at that school had he remained. The new proposal would count that student-athlete toward the first school's graduation rate, provided that the parameters of "good academic standing" are defined.

The Council asked its Administrative Committee to determine the appropriate groups to recommend definitions of "good academic standing" that the Council could consider in October.

Exempted, certified events

In addition to basketball, the Council also tackled a significant football issue, revisiting Proposal No. 98-90, which was adopted two years ago and eliminated all preseason exempted football contests after the 2002 football season. The Council in 1999 modified the wording of the proposal to clarify that a school could not participate in both a preseason game and a 12th regular-season contest during the 2002 season. The sponsors of the preseason games, however, documented that the Council's clarification restricts their ability to meet pre-existing contractual obligations for the 2002 season. In light of that, the Council recommended hat the Board approve a waiver to allow schools to participate in a preseason game in 2002 without compromising their ability to participate in a 12th regular-season game.

In addition, the Council discussed proposed legislation that is expected to be submitted to the Council in October that calls for the elimination of exempted contests in all sports other than football. Because of that, the Council determined that July 25, 2000 (the date of the public release of the Council's action), will be considered the date of public notice and the deadline date for entering into binding contracts to participate in exempted events, and that no exceptions or waivers will be granted for contracts entered into after July 25, 2000, to participate in exempted contests.

In other issues, the Council heard from its Governance Subcommittee, which recommended a protocol for restructuring the composition of the Council when there are changes in conference alignment. Two conference-alignment changes are expected to occur when the Sun Belt and Big West Conferences change their subdivision status to Division I-A and I-AAA, respectively. Due to those changes, the subcommittee recommended that the Council consider legislation in October to exchange the subdivision representation for the two conferences.

In the interim, the staff will analyze the impact, consequences and potential precedent established by such a change, and the governance and membership subcommittees will meet before October to discuss the ramifications and precedent established.

The subcommittee also addressed the ongoing concern of ensuring a diverse representation within the governance structure, specifically the concern that representation of women and ethnic minorities on Division I governance groups is maintained at above minimum levels. Toward that end, the Council endorsed a subcommittee plan to aggressively encourage conferences to submit additional women and ethnic minority candidates for Division I governance vacancies, and to possibly develop a grant program that conferences could access to help them develop candidates for leadership positions within the structure. The Council endorsed the concept without developing specific recommendations as to what such a model might look like, but instead charged the staff, working in conjunction with the subcommittee, the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, the Committee on Women's Athletics and the Executive Committee Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity to recommend a potential plan.

Other highlights

Division I Management Council
July 24-25/Boston

Approved the following exceptions to the membership moratorium established by the Executive Committee in April: University of Findlay (men's and women's ice hockey); Gardner-Webb University (all sports from Division II to Division I, Division I-AA football); and University of North Florida (women's swimming and diving). The Council denied a request a request from Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, for an exception to the moratorium.

Agreed to move Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, into year three of the four-year provisional membership period, and Birmingham Southern College and Lipscomb University into year two of the four-year period.