The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports (CSMAS) addressed issues related to individual schools' medical coverage during its June 20-22 meeting in San Diego.

Of primary concern to the committee is the potential increased time demands on athletic training staffs because of the newly adopted summer conditioning model in football. The committee will send letters to athletics directors and presidents of NCAA institutions encouraging them to examine those additional staff needs.

The group recommends that each member institution reference the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) Appropriate Medical Coverage of Intercollegiate Athletics document to ensure appropriate workloads and provide for adequate student-athlete medical care.

The CSMAS also discussed the issue of student-athlete sexual assault in the context of whether it should be considered a competitive-safeguards matter. The Committee on Women's Athletics and the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee also are examining the issue. CSMAS members agreed that while the committee should continue its support from an educational standpoint through the NCAA Speakers Grant Program (which funds presentations about sexual assault prevention, among other issues), they preferred that the CSMAS be used as a primary budget resource only in health and safety issues.

The committee's two subgroups -- the sports sciences safety subcommittee and the drug-education and drug-testing subcommittee -- also held sessions during the CSMAS meeting. Actions from those groups follow.

Sports sciences safety

With the adoption of the conditioning model in football, the subcommittee looked at other fall sports to see if similar acclimatization and recovery procedures could apply. The group cited data in fall sports other than football that show injury rates in the preseason that are three times higher than for regular-season competition in those sports.

The subcommittee recommends developing educational materials for all divisions that emphasize the importance of recovery and acclimatization. The group also is encouraging fall sports committees to adopt an acclimatization and recovery model by 2004. The suggested model that will be forwarded to the sports committees would include three initial days of single sessions no longer than three hours. After that, an institution should not conduct multiple practice sessions (for example, two-a-days or three-a-days) on consecutive days (for example, the two-one-two-one format) and may not exceed five total hours of activity each day. On days with multiple sessions, there should be at least three hours of continuous recovery between the end of the first practice and the start of the next session of that day.

The subcommittee also acted on the following sport-specific issues:

Voted to retain the current specific gravity standards in wrestling.

Discussed the possibility of adding helmets to the list of permissible equipment in women's lacrosse.

Recommended that the NCAA Field Hockey Committees adopt language to include protective eyewear as permissible special equipment.

Agreed to work with the Softball Rules Committee in reviewing bat standards.

Added procedures for requesting non-transparent eyeshields in football as a new section in the 2003-04 Sports Medicine Handbook.

The subcommittee also noted two surveys that will be conducted this fall. The first will be mailed with the Sports Medicine Handbook in early August. The second is the Emergency Care Survey, an expanded version of the original survey conducted in 1998.

Drug education and drug testing

The subcommittee expanded drug-education resources to the membership by modifying the Speakers Grant Program to allow for two grants per year per institution. The group also recommended increasing the CHOICES grants from 10 to 15 and increasing the Betty Ford Center Professional in Residence Program from a four-day to a five-day session.

The subcommittee also discussed educational efforts regarding nutritional supplements. The group approved a draft statement from The Center for Drug Free Sport that emphasizes the risks of nutritional supplements to be placed at the beginning of the NCAA banned-substances list.

The subcommittee also recommended an updated legislative assistance column on Bylaw 16.5.2.g, including the NCAA position on topical agents; and recommended more consistent and complete language in the division bylaws relating to the permissibility of providing nutritional supplements.

In other action, an all-sport drug-testing plan was forwarded to each division's governance structure as a high-priority budget request. The plan would implement year-round testing in all sports while maintaining the level of year-round testing in Divisions I and II football. The rationale is that drug use is prevalent in all sports, but football and track are the only two sports currently tested year-round. Institutional testing focuses on street drugs, but steroids, ephedrine and other NCAA banned substances are being used, according to drug-use surveys.

The drug-education and drug-testing subcommittee also:

Formed an NCAA drug-testing sanctions project group to consider the relationship among international federations, the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The project group will present a proposal to the CSMAS at its winter meeting.

Noted that the NCAA biennial drug-testing and drug-education survey for administrators will be mailed in September.

Recommended an amendment to NCAA Bylaw 30.5 defining the institutional responsibilities to accommodate NCAA drug testing.

Highlighted phenylephrine and synephrine, ephedra derivatives, as banned substances.