SAN DIEGO -- Challenging the Division I membership to step to the line and change the sport of basketball for the better, Syracuse University Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw presented a basketball legislation package that could change the culture of the sport.

Shaw was one of several members who spoke on behalf of the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues at the Division I forum January 10. He urged the membership to carefully consider all the working group's proposals, as well as alternative pro-

posals from conferences, in order to "ensure basketball's continual health."

The basketball issues package was one of two topics that triggered lively discussion from an overflow crowd of more than 350 Division I representatives. The other, an amateurism deregulation package, was presented by the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet's Subcommittee on Agents and Amateurism.

The basketball issues debate was initiated by the Division I Management Council, which during its October meeting approved for distribution (without taking a position) to the Division I membership the basketball working group's original proposals and several alternative proposals that were submitted by Division I conferences. The Council also agreed in October that Division I conferences would have until mid-December to submit additional alternative proposals to be reviewed in January. That package (summarized in a chart on page C7), came before the Division I members at the forum.

From the outset, Shaw, who chaired the working group, challenged the room during his presentation of the package to embrace change.

"Change has its detractors and supporters," Shaw said. "Sometimes it's the supporters who keep change from occurring. We want change but the change we see is not enough, so we feel that it doesn't deserve our support. Sometimes it is those that don't think anything's wrong, so why change?

"Sometimes opposition comes from those who are not in favor of change because they won't be advantaged by it.

"We've come to a point now that we must be willing to endorse substantive change. The process ahead of us should improve the package we are presenting -- not weaken it. Whatever the final product is, it will be imperfect. If we don't take action, we become a part of the problem. It's time to do the right thing."

Shaw presented the package in three primary parts, the first of which addressed the issue of summer aid. The working group's summer financial aid proposal would encourage all entering basketball student-athletes (freshmen and transfers) to enroll in summer school before their first fall term and would allow schools to provide athletically related financial aid for student-athletes enrolled in a minimum of six hours.

Shaw said the proposal was developed after the group's initial discussions regarding whether freshmen should be eligible at all. Shaw said while the latter issue has valid arguments on either side, the overriding goal is to alleviate the academic pressure on the entering student-athlete during that first year, which the working group thinks Proposal No. 99-120-A does without preventing first-year competition.

Judy Devine, the senior woman administrator at Kent State University and a member of the working group, said the group reached a consensus on Proposal No. 99-120-A only after a thorough debate on the freshman-ineligibility issue. But concerns of denying competition, the possibility of creating freshman or junior varsity teams with accompanying staff requirements, and relying on schools' admissions departments to determine eligibility (rather than the NCAA Clearinghouse) led the group to abandon the idea of freshman ineligibility.

"If more time needs to be devoted to academics," Devine said, "the only solution is to allow basketball players to begin earlier through summer enrollment. This provides a reasonable transition time from a high-school to a college environment and for student-athletes to meet a standard of academic success as a precursor to competition."

But a couple of concerns, one of which was raised by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, were how this would affect the countable athletically related activities legislation (voluntary summer workouts), as well as a logistical concern of enrolling prospects and providing aid before their qualifying status had been determined by the Clearinghouse.

"Reinvesting in scholarships"

The second part of the package proved more contentious, particularly during review of the working group's proposal that grants-in-aid be based on schools' four-year graduation rates. Schools with rates of 75 percent or higher would be allowed one additional scholarship, while schools with rates below 32 percent would have one scholarship taken away. Schools in the middle would be allowed the current 13 grants.

David Knight, chair of the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet and a member of the working group, said the proposal is designed to improve graduation rates in men's basketball, as well as for transfers in men's basketball -- which are among the lowest of any one group -- by "reinvesting the value in the scholarship agreement."

Knight said the adoption of Proposal Nos. 99-121-A and 99-122-A (a proposal that would limit the number of grants-in-aid that could be awarded annually to four) together would benefit academic performance.

"There's a large number of transfers and other attrition factors in basketball, especially in the high-profile conferences," he said. "One way to address this is to limit the number of initial scholarships each year. But this proposal and the incentive plan for graduation rates will encourage coaches to exercise more care in offering that limited number of scholarships to students who are likely to graduate."

But Vanderbilt University Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt addressed the crowd on behalf of the Southeastern Conference about an alternative proposal that would apply to all sports and would require students not in good academic standing who leave the team to continue to count against team limits until that student would have graduated.

"The difficulty that I have with (the working group's proposal) is that par for the course would be that two-thirds of basketball players don't graduate," Wyatt said. "Would it be acceptable for two-thirds of high-school or middle school players to not graduate?"

James E. Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, spoke just as passionately in support of Proposal No. 99-122-A (limit of four scholarships per year). He said the Big Ten tracked the number of players during an eight-year period, and more than half of them had left their school before graduation either because of transferring, leaving school altogether or leaving early for the National Basketball Association.

"Proposal No. 99-122-A will do as much as anything to encourage coaches to recruit the right players and decrease that mobility," Delany said.

Even more adamant about supporting that proposal was Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer, who spoke vigorously after the third part of the package, which deals with revisions in the recruiting calendar -- particularly in the summer evaluation period -- was presented.

Kramer said if Division I really wanted to change basketball for the better, it needed to limit the number of initial grants per year and support an alternative proposal from the Southeastern and Big Ten Conferences to eliminate summer recruiting altogether.

"The issue is whether we choose to just rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic and let the ship sink or whether we want to do something about the ship," Kramer said. "If you have enough courage to do something about the ship, you should eliminate summer recruiting and limit the number of initial grants. Then we will turn the sport around.

"The question is do we pass a group of meaningless legislation just to look good (in the media), or will we change the sport of basketball?"

Nigel Burton, former University of Washington student-athlete who chairs the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, supported Kramer's contention.

"(The proposed summer evaluation period) imposes more contact periods and more telephone calls, which affect student-athletes' lives, and once again involves student-athletes in revenue sports, the very student-athletes who have said they don't want this increased intrusion. So I would move to eliminate the summer period as well," he said.

As heated as the debate was during the forum, Shaw said the working group hopes -- and expects -- that conferences will conduct more discussions in the coming months before the entire package hits the Management Council agenda in April.

"What we want is an end product that speaks to our original concerns -- the best possible package that we can support," Shaw told the audience. "Let's hope that it's even better than what we have today. But if you want to make it better, ask if (the alternative proposals) really will make the package better, and if they better enable the package to be sold to our constituents.

"If we aren't united in April, woe is to us."

Amateurism

The second half of the forum was devoted to an amateurism deregulation package regarding rules for pre-enrolled prospective student-athletes. The package was produced after the Subcommittee on Agents and Amateurism's two-year study of amateurism legislation affecting pre-enrolled prospective student-athletes.

The proposals include an expansion of the "tennis rule" to other sports, as well as deregulation of legislation restricting contractual agreements with professional sports teams, and pay and compensation or prize money for athletics participation before college enrollment. One of the proposals had included a one-year "grace period" for the prospect to participate in organized competition and still retain four years of eligibility, but that has been replaced by an alternative proposal that eliminates the grace period.

The Management Council tabled the amateurism deregulation package during its October meeting to ensure membership debate at the January forum.

The proposed changes began as a result of an increasing number of reinstatement requests from schools on behalf of prospective and enrolled student-athletes. The number and types of requests indicated members' desire to include these student-athletes in their programs. The application of the current legislation led to inconsistencies when determining the consequences of various amateurism violations.

NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey, who supports the deregulation package, told a press conference during the Convention that several pertinent examples point to the need for reform. He said in two separate cases, two Olympic swimmers won significant amounts of prize money before they were enrolled and because of different economic circumstances in their families reached different eligibility outcomes despite mirroring competitive experiences.

"One had enough money in the family and sacrificed $80,000 of Olympic prize money so she could go to college, while the other family needed the money, and that young person was ineligible," Dempsey said. "Now what advantage does one have over the other? What competitive advantage is gained if they take the money or not? It's that inconsistency in our rules that we're trying to address."

Presenters at the forum emphasized that the deregulation package targeted pre-enrolled student-athletes only, yet one of the concerns from the audience was whether such deregulation would leak over to post-enrolled student-athletes in the future.

Others expressed concerns regarding whether the changes would alter the recruiting scene, where tournaments and other competitions might be arranged on an individual basis and controlled by the schools.

Paul T. Dee, athletics director at the University of Miami (Florida), said the proposals could "change recruiting tactics in baseball from visiting high schools to visiting minor league ballparks instead."

Forum participants also worried about how the legislation would affect student-athletes' relationships with agents, something the subcommittee agreed it was studying on an ongoing basis.

Lisa Dehon, former NCAA student-athlete reinstatement representative who has remained as a consultant to the subcommittee, said the group has made several presentations over the last year and that most of the feedback has been positive, but that some objections remain.

"There's a general fear of change," she said. "One of the biggest was the grace period we had proposed in Bylaw 14.2.4.2. Based on that, we took that out and are supporting an alternative proposal. Another concern is that this deregulation encourages prospects to pursue avenues other than college. But on the contrary, we think we're opening doors for people who otherwise wouldn't have any eligibility."

Thomas C. Hansen, commissioner of the Pacific-10 Conference, urged forum participants to support the proposals. He said as long as the legislation trades one year of ineligibility for each year the student-athlete participates in organized competition before enrollment, there will not be cases in which a "post-professional" player comes in at age 25 as a true freshman.

"What we propose is easier to administer and will be fairer to our institutions," Hansen said. "Our current rules contradict what the rest of the world is doing."

Forum success

Both the basketball issues and the amateurism deregulation packages are on the same track but are at different stages in the legislative calendar. The basketball issues package will be on the Management Council's April agenda for possible final recommendations to the Board of Directors, whereas the amateurism package is only in the initial stages of development.

Any Council action on the amateurism package in April would be initial approval that would trigger the mandatory 60-day comment period before being considered for adoption. It is likely, in fact, that October 2000 would be the earliest that the Board would take any final action on amateurism deregulation.

Stanford University athletics director Ted Leland, who moderated the forum as chair of the Division I Management Council, said the forum provided the kind of direction and guidance that the Council was looking for.

"The quality of discussion was absolutely what we wanted," he said.

Dempsey, too, said the debate not only gave Division I members a chance to come to the podium on two vital issues, but it allowed the division to re-establish itself at a Convention that has lacked a Division I business session since the Association restructured in 1997.

"It provided a chance for debate across conference lines," Dempsey said. "That's important because there's a tendency to become provincial if you don't come to the Convention for this type of event. Conferences and schools end up talking to the same people without this kind of national forum.

"This will continue to be important as we move forward. This time next year we might have before us a set of legislative proposals regarding amateurism that are met with the same type of passionate input that the basketball issues package triggered this year."