Since the Division II membership began voting on legislative deregulation two years ago, the Legislation Committee has run up a record that would make Tiger Woods proud.

A total of 24 proposals have gone forward and 24 have been approved. Debate has been minimal, approval has been lopsided and the goals of a more efficient Division II Manua seem to have been realized as the membership has deregulated Bylaws 11, 13 and 15.

While the golf coaches have specific concerns, the larger question involves how nonchampionship segments should be viewed. Would student-athletes benefit from greater limitations on practice and competition in the nonchampionship segment and would Proposal 2-28 significantly ease administrative burden for short-staffed Division II programs?

At the moment, fall and spring sports have a 144-day season that can consist of segments in the championship and nonchampionship seasons. Among other things, Proposal 2-28 would eliminate that 144-day season and replace it with specified beginning and end dates for the championship and nonchampionship segments. Competition and practice in sports affected by the legislation would be limited to 24 dates during a 45-day period in the nonchampionship season (see chart, page 12).

Under current legislation, few restrictions are placed on practice or competition dates in the nonchampionship season. How to divide the 144 days is up to the institution, but a typical decision might be to allocate 60 consecutive days to the nonchampionship segment. In such a case, Proposal 2-28 could reduce competition and practice in the nonchampionship season by 36 days.

Many reform-minded presidents have absolutely no problem with that reduction, but some golf coaches believe the proposal contains hazards that are not readily apparent and that could affect their sport.

Paul Engelmann, faculty athletics representative at Central Missouri State University and chair of the Legislation Committee that developed the proposal, understands the frustration of coaches who want to retain the 144-day season.

"I'm absolutely sympathetic to that and understand that perspective," he said. "Most coaches like to spend as much time with their student-athletes as possible."

But Division II presidents have made it clear that they want greater control over athletically related activities so that athletes can be better integrated into the student body mainstream. In that regard, extensive practice and competition in the nonchampionship season has become something of a symbol for CEOs who want to make certain that the "student" in "student-athlete" truly does come first.

"I don't like it when I look out my office window in October and see the baseball team practicing," said one Division II president.

Besides, say proponents, the proposed restrictions on the nonchampionship segment represent only a small part of a much larger proposal that makes playing and practice seasons easier to administer.

Be that as it may, some golf coaches believe that the current approach best suits their sport. Jerry Hrnciar, golf coach at Cameron University, cited a list of concerns with Proposal 2-28:

Many Division II coaches lead both the men's and women's programs at their institution. He said the compressed schedule could lead to tournament conflicts that could force them to choose between which team they should accompany. "When you have a broader season," Hrnciar said, "you can kind of let the boys rest while you're with the girls and vice versa. This proposal would make it extremely difficult on those coaches."

Tournament schedules that have become routine could be upset. Finding alternate dates might be difficult or even impossible because of limited course availability.

Competition with tournaments hosted by institutions from other divisions might be more difficult to arrange since their permissible dates might be different from Division II's.

The proposed change might disadvantage Northern teams, which currently conduct most of their practice and competition in the nonchampionship segment because of weather factors.

Hrnciar believes the proposal could work to the academic detriment of golf student-athletes. "I have found in 28 years of coaching that, particularly for freshmen and sophomores, the more structured I can be with their schedules, the better they do academically," Hrnciar said. "They come here very undisciplined, and if we see them only for a limited time, we're liable to be spending most of our time in the athletics director's office trying to explain why we're not doing what we should be doing because we have virtually no control over them."

Except for questions about course availability and climate, the concerns do not seem to be unique to golf and seem instead to suggest a belief that the current approach would work better for any sport. If time demand on athletes is the issue, Hrnciar said, a proper alternative would be to reduce the current season from 144 days to, say, 130 days.

Engelmann, while sympathetic to coaches' concerns, believes that the membership has had abundant opportunity to reach an effective compromise through the Division II Deregulation Summit and other meetings.

"Coaches had very direct input into the implications of proposals for their particular sports," he said. "In the case of the proposals aimed at the playing and practice seasons, we put off final determination of that legislation until we had an opportunity to bring in coaches, in this particular case from individual sports, to make sure that what we were proposing would not be significantly harmful to their sport."

In fact, he said that the Legislation Committee made a major concession for golf. In the early stages of discussion, the sentiment was to prohibit missed class time for competition during the nonchampionship segment for student-athletes in all sports. Because golf courses typically are not available on weekends for college competition (because those who own the courses maximize their revenue on Saturdays and Sundays), that proposal was modified to apply only to team sports.

Eventually, though, only so many accommodations can be made and the question becomes basic: You either believe that the current approach to nonchampionship seasons needs to be significantly modified, or you don't. If you do, Engelmann believes that Proposal 2-28 is sound legislation.

"This represents, I think, a reasonable compromise between the people who would like to spend a virtually unlimited amount of time with their student-athletes and those who argue that during the nonchampionship segment, no time should be spent in outside competition or countable athletically related activities," Engelmann said.

"There are so many critical things that we try to focus on in terms of certifying athletes to be sure we're not playing ineligible people. We have to try to prioritize where our oversight is, so things like this that make it easier are certainly preferable to things that are more time-consuming and more difficult to chart."

Mac Cassell, athletics director and golf coach at Mt. Olive College and chair of the Division II Men's Golf Committee, understands all of the perspectives on the issue.

"It's difficult," he said, "because as an athletics director, I certainly see the benefits of putting all the sports in one basket, and the uniformity is certainly good rather than having to figure out what is going on in each sport.

"From a golf perspective, in a lot of ways it is uncommon to the rest of the sports, with the exception of tennis, in that you may have to use other facilities, particularly in inclement weather."

Still, Cassell doesn't dispute that golf interests have some valid points. However, those who oppose the proposal may be teeing off into a stiff wind.

"Golf," Cassell said, "is probably going to give up something for the sake of all programs."

Bylaw 17 proposals

Bylaw 17 deregulation proposals to be considered by Division II at the NCAA Convention January 12-14, 2002 (as numbered in the Second Publication of Proposed Legislation):

No. 2-21: Would eliminate the requirement that individual skill instruction be requested by the student-athlete. The purpose of the proposal is to eliminate unnecessary documentation that the student-athlete has initiated individual skill instruction.

No. 2-22: Would limit participation by multiple-sport student-athletes to 20 hours per week of countable athletically related activities. Current legislation limits such activities to 20 hours per week per sport, so a student-athlete competing in two sports could have to participate in up to 40 hours of countable activities when sports overlap (as is possible with women's volleyball and basketball, for example).

No. 2-23: In football, would permit student-athletes to view a maximum of two hours of game film per week as part of the permissible eight hours of required weight-training and conditioning activities that may occur during the academic year outside of the playing season.

No. 2-24: Would specify that for the purpose of counting time limits for athletically related activities, scrimmages shall count as the actual duration of the activity. Current legislation permits a scrimmage to count as only three hours, regardless of how long it takes.

No. 2-25: Would permit off-campus intrasquad scrimmages during the preseason practice period. The current legislation was adopted years ago in an Association-wide business session to address an issue that related primarily to Division I.

No. 2-26: Would prohibit student-athletes from missing class time for competition conducted in the nonchampionship segment in team sports (see accompanying story).

No. 2-27: Would eliminate the lists of annual exemptions and once-in-four-year exemptions in each section of Bylaw 17 and instead would create two all-inclusive lists that would apply to all sports. The belief is that such a change would make the Manual easier to use.

No. 2-28: Would redefine playing and practice season regulations for fall and spring sports, except outdoor track and field and other selected sports (see accompanying story).

No. 2-29: Would eliminate the prohibition against Sunday practice during spring football. The Legislation Committee believes the decision about practicing on Sundays should rest with the institution.

Also, the Legislation Committee at one point had recommended removing playing and practice season regulations for six emerging sports from the printed version of the Manual and maintaining the information instead on the database version. At the time of the recommendation, sponsorship for those six sports was extremely low, and the belief was that the benefit of reducing the size of the Manual would exceed the benefit of printing the information for such a limited constituency. However, since the original recommendation, sponsorship of women's bowling has climbed to 15 institutions in Division II. For that reason, the information for all emerging sports will continue to be maintained in all versions of the Manual.