No fireworks exploded in celebration and nobody got a ticker-tape parade, but on August 1, Division II quietly completed a major passage in its legislative evolution.

Division II now has pre-enrollment amateurism legislation in place that proponents believe will produce more competitive equity within the division while also providing educational opportunities for athletes who have tried but failed to achieve professional athletics careers.

To this point, the rule not only is a change from previous Division II legislation, it is unique among the divisions. Division II adopted a so-called "pay-for-play" concept for pre-enrolled student-athletes at the 2001 Convention, but neither Division I nor Division III has followed suit. Division III has resisted "pay for play" outright while the Division I Management Council has forwarded the concept to its membership for comment but has refrained from taking a position.

If neither Division I nor III takes the plunge and permits failed professionals to compete, Division II will find itself in the position of having an amateurism rule for pre-enrolled student-athletes that is significantly more permissive than the rest of the membership's.

If this potentially solitary stance has led to any post-approval anxiety within Division II, it is not obvious. In fact, Division II leaders seem more resolute than ever in believing that the membership took the proper course when it approved the changes with 88 percent of the vote at the January Convention.

Taking the long view

"What we said when we proposed this legislation was that we think this is the best alternative available to us at this time," said Jerry E. McGee, president of Wingate University. "Let's give it five or eight years and see how it's working. For right now, it appears to be the best product on the market."

Clint Bryant, former Division II Management Council chair and a member of the Division II Amateurism Project Team, said the legislation's benefit goes beyond the present.

"I think even Division I will have to make some adjustments by that time because the face of amateur athletics is constantly changing in this country. I read the other day that a golfer is declaring pro and he hasn't even finished high school. We're going to see more of that."

"I just hate for youngsters to realize that at age 18, 'Gosh, I made a mistake and I love the game, but now there's nowhere to play.' I just don't think that's right. I don't think that a decision made by an 18-year-old that proves to be a bad decision should eliminate him from the great joy of participating in intercollegiate athletics."

Unique position

The potential rub is that unless changes take place in Divisions I or III, failed professionals will have no place to turn except to Division II. That could raise concern that the rule will upset the NCAA's competitive landscape, perhaps putting Division II on equal footing with Division I in sports such as baseball, tennis and golf.

However, Bryant said the new rule might be more likely to bring the opposite result. He noted that many Division II institutions already use the division's lack of a common-age rule to assemble power-packed teams. The new rule could neutralize that advantage.

"Some of our schools are on equal footing now with Division I in tennis and soccer because of our ability to have recruited older, mature international student-athletes," said Bryant, athletics director at Augusta State University. In fact, Division II teams drawing from traditional sources have been unable to compete against such squads, raising competitive-equity questions within the division.

Safeguards in place

Bryant dismissed the concern that Division II teams could become dominant with former professional athletes, noting that the rule features safeguards that effectively exclude successful professionals. An athlete who has competed for two or three years professionally would have to sit out an academic year in residence and would lose a year of eligibility for every year of organized competition in which he or she participated. All the while, that athlete would be counting against the institution's financial aid limits. Another safeguard would deny eligibility to any prospective student-athlete who has retained an agent.

Ed Harris, director of athletics at West Texas A&M University, said the restrictions have enough clout to ensure both institutional and individual commitment.

"We feel like the penalties are enough to make it a very serious thing before a person would do that," he said. "I believe this is really for somebody who has tried the pros only briefly because otherwise you're talking about giving up two years or more of eligibility. In that case, a coach who is going to recruit that youngster is going to think really hard about whether he is going to give up that scholarship money."

Membership education

"The sessions went well," said Julie Roe, NCAA director of student-athlete reinstatement. "They were well-attended, and the membership asked good questions. They really seemed to be embracing the legislation and are learning how to make it work."

Other background work has included creating a Division II version of the International Student-Athlete Form and developing an Amateurism Pocket Guide for Division II Coaches, which will be provided to the membership this fall.

In addition, the Amateurism Project Team has been following through on its pledge to identify and resolve questions arising from the change. For instance, if a failed professional enrolls at a Division I institution and a year later decides to transfer to a Division II institution in order to compete, does that Division I year count as having fulfilled the Division II year-in-residence requirement? Roe said the answer is no; the year in residence must be served at a Division II institution (as stated in a July 2001 Management Council official interpretation).

"We're going to have certain things that we're going to have to tweak and monitor," Bryant said, "but overall, it's like a recruiting class -- I don't think you're really going to see the true impact until four or five years from now, after you have had various athletes coming into Division II and competing.

"But the part I like about it is that if they do come back as failed professionals, they have to commit to a year in residence to almost assure their commitment to academics. I think that's a key to the way we looked at this. We're not trying to create some atmosphere so we can get a better caliber athlete."

Ultimately, it is the importance of providing educational opportunity that assures McGee that Division II made the right decision about amateurism.

"There's a price to be paid for giving your pro career a shot," he said. "But the price to be paid shouldn't be so severe that you can never participate in intercollegiate athletics or perhaps go to college.

"If all of us were evaluated at 20 years of age, I doubt any of us would be where we are today professionally. When I was 20, I was terribly confused about a lot of things in life. There's no way you could have predicted I would be able to even graduate from college and be here. So I don't think we want to brand a 20-year-old a failure for life just because he didn't make it in a pro sport."