Last February, the NCAA Men's and Women's Soccer Rules Committee called for regular-season games that end in ties to be decided by a penalty-kick shootout. The rule, which ran counter to soccer's longstanding perception of the tie as an honorable outcome, caused so much controversy that coaches vowed to fight the rules committee's desires at a higher NCAA level -- but they weren't sure which governance body to approach.

In May 2000, the Men's and Women's Basketball Rules Committees decided that all schools should have game clocks that showed tenths of seconds, and a shot clock and red indicator light mounted on top of the backboard. While Division I approved the rule, the Division II Management Council referred it to committee for further study (and Division III opposed it altogether). By the time the issue made the trip from the Division II Management Council to the Division II Championships Committee and back to the Management Council, six months had passed, which meant that the implementation of the rule was delayed a year in Division II and Division I.

And recently, the issue of protective eyewear has arisen in women's lacrosse, a sport for which the Association doesn't even write playing rules. The Division I Women's Lacrosse Committee wants to require the eyewear during championships, but the governing body for the sport does not want to require the eyewear for regular-season play. That's a problem since playing rules generally must be the same for regular-season and championship competition.

Taken individually, those matters might sound unimportant or even trivial, but collectively, they point out some unintended consequences of NCAA restructuring: Specifically, when it comes to playing rules, who's making the calls?

When the NCAA federated its governance in 1997, each division took along its own eligibility rules, its own financial aid rules and its own length-of-season rules. But there was another set of rules that couldn't be divided -- playing rules.

Playing rules -- those items such as the height of the basket, the length of the field, the size and weight of the ball, the width of the goal, the weight of the bat and the length of the game -- must be the same per division. That not only is mandated by NCAA bylaws, but it is practical because of interdivisional play, game management and simplicity of officiating.

Before 1997, the Executive Committee ruled on playing rules issues that dealt with player safety or financial impact, or issues that rose to the level of perhaps affecting the "image of the sport." Those issues came straight from playing rules committees, and the Executive Committee -- then composed of athletics administrators -- settled the matters.

After federation, though, significant rules changes now go through each division's championships body, then directly or indirectly through each division's Management Council and presidential body. If those groups don't agree, the proposal goes to the Executive Committee.

That progression has presented challenges as various issues have played out.

First, from a time perspective, it became apparent that proposals could be derailed for all divisions if one division sought further study. That issue was addressed by creating a timetable for the consideration of playing rules and by asking governance bodies to vote playing rules proposals up or down (rather than referring them to another committee). That timetable and other playing rules policies may be viewed in the sports and championships section of NCAA Online (www.ncaa.org) by clicking on a selected sport and then viewing the "Sports and Rules Committee" selection.

Second, the new version of the Executive Committee is composed of college and university presidents who understandably are not familiar with playing rules issues. That lack of background is potentially problematic in the event the Executive Committee is called upon to resolve differences among the divisions.

Third, the rules committees, which once had almost unilateral authority over their area of expertise, now encounter more checks and balances, which can be good or bad depending on the point of view.

A debate over time

The situation in soccer is a prime example. The soccer rules committee has struggled with the administration of overtimes for more than a decade. Soccer coaches always have been divided about how to settle ties, if at all, but whatever rule is in place at a given time seems to raise enough rancor to indicate a desire for change. Thus, after reviewing survey information from previous years, the rules committee recommended a change and set off one of the bigger playing rules disputes in recent memory.

What raised concern was the use of penalty kicks -- an old bugaboo for soccer traditionalists -- to determine a winner in regular-season games. The one-on-one shootout approach has long been used to determine outcomes in tournament or postseason games where advancement is necessary, but ties in the regular season had been left alone if the overtime period didn't settle the score.

The pros and cons of a tie in soccer are numerous, but the argument often boils down to whether the game should be played by the world's rules, which does not break ties (unless advancement is necessary) or by America's rules, which loves a winner. Americans seemingly don't approve of ties in other sports; why should they in soccer?

In the end -- and there was a lot of discussion before the end was reached -- the rules committee shortened the overtime periods and introduced PKs to accomplish two primary goals: decrease the duration of the game in the interest of student-athlete welfare and appease fans' desire for an non-deadlocked outcome.

Nelson Bobb, athletics director at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and current chair of the rules committee, said the outcome came from "reasonable discussion," yet once the ruling was reached, opponents didn't care what kind of talk had taken place.

"Once the discussion left the committee," Bobb said, "it became scrutinized and a debatable issue. At the point it became a debatable issue, there wasn't any real audience for us to come back to and say, 'Here's how we arrived at our decision.' "

By that time, coaches had rallied a campaign that targeted the Division I Championships/
Competition Cabinet as a group that could overturn the decision. After a barrage of phone calls and e-mails, cabinet members appeared to be ready to block the proposal, but the soccer rules committee convened again before the cabinet met and backed off on the penalty kicks.

Bobb thought it was right for the committee to retract its decision under the circumstances, but he nonetheless was concerned that an opinion poll more or less determined the outcome.

"Having a majority of opinion persuade someone one way or the other might not always be preferred because there may be misinformation that persuades the majority of opinion," he said. "In other words, you might have a majority of opinion that is ill-advised, and then that majority comes forward and says you ought to be doing such and such. And then without having reasonable discussion, you might end up correcting something that didn't need fixing."

Cliff McCrath, soccer coach at Seattle Pacific University and longtime secretary-rules editor for the soccer rules committee, also was dismayed by what he considered to be a popularity contest.

"Overturning the proposal because a number of people objected is a little like a patient taking out his stitches because the custodians in the hospital told him the surgeon should have used dental floss to close his wounds," McCrath said. "I know that's a bit far out, so a better analogy would be basketball's three-point shot. At the time it was proposed, a popular vote might have prevented the change. What a tragedy that would have been."

Structuring some oversight

Fortunately, the playing rules oversight committee apparently is on the way to assist with such issues. It would be composed of eight specialists who would be attuned to providing guidance on complicated playing rules issues.

The proposal, which has been approved in Divisions II and III and is on the docket for approval in Division I this month, would help manage the overall issue of playing rules and also provide counsel for the Executive Committee when interdivision differences arise. An oversight committee also would take a burden off the staff, which is frequently called upon to resolve issues related to conduct rules (such as playing equipment, the number of competitors in a contest at any one time, substitution, duties of officials, scoring, fouls and penalties) and administrative rules (the number of competitors who may suit up for a contest, number of officials, types of timing equipment, methods of timing, facility specifications and competition formats). In some cases, the staff is presented with challenges for sports in which the NCAA doesn't write playing rules.

Had the oversight committee been in place, it would have provided the membership with a more targeted place to voice its soccer-overtime concerns. The eight-member group, proposed to include the three championships committee chairs, might have better understood the situation at hand and could have advised the soccer rules committee to rethink its position, thus saving the group the embarrassment of a cabinet override. Or, it could have supported the rules committee's position by presenting the "reasonable discussion" issue more evenly to the championships groups. In either event, more experts could have provided an effective pressure valve for the discussion.

"The cabinet would be comfortable with the oversight committee taking on this type of review," said Jean Lenti Ponsetto, the athletics director at DePaul University who chairs the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet. Ponsetto, whose group was faced with having to rule on the soccer overtime matter if the rules committee had not revised the proposal, was most concerned about the communication -- or lack thereof -- that had taken place before the proposal was made.

"I'm not convinced there was enough recognition of how Division I felt. That to me was disconcerting," she said. "But the cabinet will look forward to knowing that discussion has taken place in all three divisions and that everyone who has a stake in the outcome will have been heard. We hear from the membership all the time that we need to have a more open process. The cabinet welcomes any additional support that creates a more open process."

The creation of the playing rules oversight committee will not affect the current approval process. Recommendations still will be considered by each division's governance structure. If a division wants to opt out of a recommended change because of cost ramifications, it can do so, assuming the Executive Committee grants the request.

But it can help with the gray areas. For example, the rules committees traditionally have been granted major latitude to make changes if a proposed rule does not have financial or safety ramifications or does not affect the image of the sport. Money and safety are clear enough, but opponents don't have to stretch far to say a proposal affects the image of the sport.

McCrath said that the buffer might protect rules committees against the popularity-contest situations. "If the proposal is distinct enough that the common human is put on alert or given cause to pause, then I think the oversight committee should step in and say halt," he said. "If on the other hand someone just reacts to a particular change and then rallies support or develops a campaign, then the committee should be in position to realize that the issue isn't about image of the sport as much as it is about a groundswell of opposition."

Having an oversight committee also places important decisions in the membership's hands where they belong and not with the staff. Recently, the staff has been placed in the awkward middle of issues involving rally scoring in volleyball and protective eyewear in women's lacrosse.

The group also might assist with policies that are appearing in playing rules books but that are difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. Those include the prohibition of tobacco during practice, mandated protective equipment during practice or required policies for practice and the period preceding competition (for example, wrestling weight-loss practices). All of those issues are exceedingly important, but they aren't really playing rules.

"Policies of that nature are a lot different than ones that pertain to the playing of a sport, which should reside in the safekeeping of the experts," McCrath said.

With the playing rules oversight committee almost in place, the link between expert and result may be stronger than it's ever been, in either structure.

"When you're an Association as big and diverse as the NCAA, it's better to get all the information out on the table and then let people make choices," Ponsetto said. She believes the oversight committee can help in that regard.

"I would rather err on the side of having made an unpopular decision having heard from everyone who has a stake in the outcome than having made an unpopular decision without soliciting input," she said. "I still think the experts will make the decisions, but they'll make them with a better understanding of how everyone feels about them."