ANAHEIM, California -- Two student-athlete-welfare issues that have complex ramifications for athletics administrators topped the agenda for meetings between the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and members of the Division I Management Council and Board of Directors.

As has been done at past Conventions, SAAC members engaged Management Council representatives during a January 12 round-table session, then for the first time conducted the same format with members of the Board later in the day.

The issues de jour were financial aid deregulation and student-athlete time demands, topics that have moved from the back burner to the forefront of Division I governance discussions. The Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet's subcommittee on financial aid has spent more than a year working on deregulating Bylaw 15, including consideration of allowing grant-in-aid student-athletes to accept non-athletics aid up to the cost of attendance. Similarly, the Championships/Competition Cabinet's playing and practice seasons subcommittee is working on Bylaw 17, carrying out a Board of Directors charge to ensure that student-athletes' athletics commitments don't overshadow their academic pursuits.

Both topics, as Davidson College Athletics Director and Management Council member Jim Murphy pointed out, are student-athlete-welfare issues that sound easy to solve in theory but are difficult to implement practically.

"What's best for the student-athlete is often different from what's best for the athletics administrators and coaches," Murphy said. "That's why we have so many rules."

SAAC members maintained that what's best for them in the case of financial aid is for the Management Council and Board to support the package the subcommittee on financial aid has proposed. It consists of legislation that further defines sources of countable financial aid and allows student-athletes to accept non-athletics aid without counting against team limits. Proponents say the proposals remedy situations in which student-athletes are forced to turn down institutional aid not related to athletics ability in order to stay below team limits.

"The current rules stating that student-athletes can't accept rewards for academic success sends the message that athletics is paramount," said SAAC member Gabe Ribas, a former baseball student-athlete at Northwestern University.

"We're just looking for the same opportunity that other students have to be eligible for these awards," said Fairfield University's Kelly Sorensen, a volleyball student-athlete.

Trust issues

But Council members worried aloud during a presentation on the package at their meeting a day earlier that the proposals, which are intended to level the financial-aid playing field for student-athletes, actually widen the gap between the financial haves and have-nots. Some members, in fact, said that institutions that can afford to might be tempted to "disguise" athletics dollars as institutional non-athletics aid, which could set up recruiting advantages for some schools. Student-athletes, though, argue that financial aid officers are in place to guard against such abuse.

"There shouldn't be concerns about the validity of the non-athletics institutional aid because we already have checks and balances in place," said Amy Barr, a softball player at Eastern Illinois University.

Barr also noted that seeking non-athletics aid fortified student-athletes' abilities to build resumes and learn about the scholarship process. The proposals also make sense, Barr said, because they exclude the non-athletics aid from team limits. "That way, outside aid won't interfere with teammates' ability to receive athletics aid," she said.

Ribas also pointed out that allowing student-athletes to receive aid up to cost of attendance enhances their college experience by allowing them to afford participating in more university-wide activities. He said groups such as the Collegiate Athletes Coalition have raised concerns that the grant-in-aid "doesn't allow student-athletes the full college experience."

Administrators counter, though, that the deregulation proposals raise competitive questions. One Management Council member foresaw a situation in which a school could lure recruits away from a rival by dangling "leadership grants" that may actually be shrouded dollars from the athletics department. But Oakland University soccer player Ashley McGhee thinks that vision is short-sighted.

"To limit student-athletes out of fear is not right," she said. "All we're asking is for the same kind of access other students have."

Though the Management Council saw the package at its October meeting, members won't conduct their official first review until April. The AEC Cabinet subcommittee also will take another look at the proposals at its meeting next month.

Time demands

Deregulating playing and practice seasons is another issue where student-athletes know what they want but can't convince administrators and presidents that it is for their own good.

Student-athletes resist the notion of reducing practice and playing opportunities, but college and university presidents are openly considering the idea in the name of academic integrity. The Board of Directors, in fact, has made student-athlete time demands a priority issue and has charged the Championships/Competition Cabinet subcommittee with recommending amendments to Bylaw 17.

But student-athletes used their meeting with the Board to clarify their position. They argued that athletics activities were not the problem -- it's the "extra" commitments that may in fact clutter student-athletes' calendars.

"We oppose any reduction in the length of the playing and practice seasons," said former Baylor University football student-athlete Bobby Darnell. "It's the easiest decision we've made.

"As student-athletes who have been through the schedule and regimen since before high school, we knew what we were getting into when we signed the Letter of Intent. We know how to manage that. We know who we are. To reduce the season would be a slap in the face."

Darnell said other activities that student-athletes are not required to do but may be "expected" to do, such as team meals, fund-raising activities, hosting recruits and performing community-service projects, while having merit individually, cumulatively add up to big-time time away from the books.

Even more salient to the time-demands discussion is the issue of enforcing the 20-hour rule, which has been a student-athlete concern for several years. Several anecdotal accounts indicate widespread abuse of the rule by coaches and administrators, but those incidents go unreported by student-athletes who fear retribution from their coaches and teammates.

Indeed, SAAC members told Management Council and Board members that they were fine with the 20-hour rule the way it is, as long as it could be enforced. But that's where the problems arise. A range of solutions, from anonymous "suggestion boxes" to preseason education sessions, has been proposed, but all are difficult to implement with any degree of success.

If nothing else, the student-athletes were able to share those concerns with presidents, an audience largely unfamiliar with the issue.

"The idea of additional education (on the 20-hour rule) for administrators and student-athletes is a good one," said Kent State University President Carol Cartwright, who is beginning a term as chair of the NCAA Executive Committee. "But so is the ability for a student-athlete having a safe harbor to lodge a complaint."

James Madison University President Linwood Rose said student-athletes might consider using faculty athletics representatives as that safe harbor, an idea the SAAC embraced.

And while SAAC members acknowledged that the 20-hour-rule issue wasn't likely to subside any time soon, they made it clear to presidents that they liked their playing and practice season opportunities the way they were.

"We all know we need to be students first," said Northeastern University rower Chris Jarvis, "but we also want to be able to compete at the highest levels."

The Board of Directors Task Force is continuing its review of the time-demands matter. So far, no reductions in the length of the seasons have been proposed, but the group has charged the NCAA staff with developing options for task force review in April regarding concerns about the length of playing seasons, the 20-hour rule, out-of-season practice, interference with exam schedules and missed class time.

The latter was something Baylor's Darnell urged presidents to remember.

"The idea of missed class time may be a misperception," he told Board members. "Not only is that notion supported by the fact that student-athletes graduate at rates higher than the general student body, but it's also true that most student-athletes already meet the recently adopted progress-toward-degree enhancements.

"We already expect to perform at the highest level athletically, and academically."