National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2001
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WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY (CONNECTICUT)
The value of college athletics to the educational enterprise is being challenged. The media regularly report about NCAA member institutions being placed on probation for violating recruiting regulations, or about college athletes who have been suspended for violating team rules. Sports talk shows continually focus on the multimillion-dollar salaries of the most heralded coaches and suggest that the college athlete is exploited so that colleges can appease alumni and gain visibility and prestige. In the book "The Game of Life," authors James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen contend that even the academically selective Division III colleges are compromising their standards in favor of fielding winning teams. At every level and in every arena, the NCAA and college athletics are being scrutinized and criticized.
However, contrary to what often is reported in the press and espoused by the pundits, the NCAA leadership is not using the Association's money to fuel rockets launched toward national championships. In fact, through Division III initiatives. a significant portion of additional revenue generated by the NCAA's $6 billion contract with CBS is being used in a positive way to promote the goals and objectives of Division III. From its inception, the objective of the three-year initiatives program was to redirect new monies to increase diversity, enhance membership education and provide student-athlete welfare. I am pleased to report that the membership is actively using the initiatives funding to promote these objectives.
Guided by the Division III strategic plan, the Division III Initiatives Task Force received a jump-start by using $2.85 million from the Division III reserve. Those monies, along with the addition of $349,000 from new revenue in 2000-01, provided grants to women and minorities to attend the NACWAA/HERS Institute for Administrative Advancement and the NACDA Management Institute. New funds also were used to enhance the Division III Web site, brought 31 conference commissioners together in Indianapolis for important discussions and supported the membership from
independent institutions to attend a meeting in conjunction with NCAA regional seminars. Those meetings allowed conference commissioners and independent institutions to provide direct input to NCAA staff and to hear first-hand how they could gain access to new funding.
The heart of the Division III initiatives is educational programming. From the early stages, the planning axiom was to use new revenues to promote the educational objectives of the Division III strategic plan. Therefore, the Division III Initiatives Task Force challenged the membership to develop proposals that would educate student-athletes in areas of nutrition, alcohol and drugs; promote sportsmanship; enhance leadership skills and make the athletics departments on our campuses more diverse. The task force urged the membership to be creative, collaborative and entrepreneurial in developing proposals. The membership responded to the challenge with overwhelming enthusiasm.
This summer, the task force selected 84 initiative proposals from 104 submissions and awarded a total of $461,225. In all, 249 institutions will benefit from the grants and thousands of student-athletes will be directly impacted. The selected grants focused on alcohol education (STARR pilot grants), and programs to foster good nutrition, enhance athlete and spectator sportsmanship and to create student leadership training. The third phase of initiatives will expand on student leadership programming by providing for two annual NCAA regional student-athlete leadership conferences.
An important goal of the Division III strategic plan is to increase the number of women and ethnic minorities in leadership positions in collegiate athletics. This will be accomplished by increasing postgraduate scholarships for women and minorities and extending the grants for the NCAWA/Hers program and the NACDA Institute.
Also, $750,000 will become available to member institutions to implement the Strategic Alliance Matching Grant Program. This grant program is designed to provide salary funding for minority or female administrators who also may have some coaching responsibilities. Finally, $240,000 will be allocated to support 30 two-year full-time women and minority interns and fund two additional Division III individuals to participate in the NCAA Fellows program. This initiative will assist in making administrative staffs more diverse.
Funds appropriated this year also will be used to support conference activities and create two new national championships for women athletes. Thirty-four conferences received grants to improve technology and to promote the activities of conference student-athlete advisory committees. Also, $316,000 was approved for the creation of Division III championships in women's rowing and ice hockey.
Many of the new grants used for campus-wide educational programming will be matched by dollars from institutional student services. Other funded programs will support student-athlete leadership programs that will engage students from local communities. All proposals that were selected for funding will be carefully evaluated and the funding categories, if necessary, will be modified in the future.
Fielding successful teams and competing in national championships is important in Division III. However, having a plan and available funding to support, educate and create a meaningful environment for the student-athlete also are important. Hopefully, the recent Division III initiatives will become an important ingredient in the NCAA's overall efforts to provide leadership in addressing the critical issues facing higher education today.
John Biddiscombe is the director of athletics at Wesleyan University (Connecticut) and chair of the Division III Initiatives Task Force.
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