Many eyes will be focused on the NCAA enforcement staff's efforts to investigate major infractions cases more quickly and efficiently, but that initiative also significantly will impact the handling of "secondary" violations of rules.

The secondary infractions staff is implementing a new procedure that is designed to streamline institutional and conference reporting, as well as staff processing, of those violations.

"Right now, all secondary violations, no matter how minor or technical, have to be reported to the national office and processed by the enforcement staff or the Committee on Infractions," said Chris Strobel, NCAA director of enforcement for secondary infractions.

The new process changes that, by dividing secondary violations into two categories: Level I and Level II.

The biggest change in the process stems from the creation of Level II, a category that is intended to include the majority (as much as 65 percent) of violations currently reported to the secondary infractions staff.

The most significant feature of that change involves the manner in which those violations are reported to the national office. Rather than report those violations as they occur, institutions will summarize them on a form that will be submitted once a year to the enforcement staff.

"Level II secondary violations will be processed by institutions and/or their conferences," Strobel said. "Then, on an annual basis, the institution and/or conference will submit what we're calling an annual violations report to the enforcement staff.

"We'll scan those reports for patterns of violations, as well as irregularities, such as violations that appear to be serious or that need a closer look. But there will not be any formal processing of those Level II violations by the enforcement staff."

Determination of levels

The percentage of current cases likely to be treated as Level II violations is significant, considering that Strobel's staff processed about 2,600 secondary violations cases in 2003 and is on track to handle more than 3,000 cases this year.

"The new process was developed in response to a concern that institutions, conferences and the national office staff were spending too much time and energy reporting and processing secondary violations, particularly minor or technical violations that in the overall big picture just aren't very significant," Strobel said.

The most significant secondary violations -- those that will be categorized as Level I -- still must be reported to the national office as they occur, in the same manner in which they currently are reported.

"We went through the list, focusing on those violations we absolutely want institutions to keep reporting to us -- those that are most vital. Those will be Level I violations," Strobel said. "They are the violations that are most important for institutions to report as they occur, and for the staff to continue processing, not just because of the general seriousness of those violations, but because reporting them will have the least detrimental impact on identifying potential major violations."

That wish to streamline the process while maintaining effective enforcement presents one of the biggest challenges of the shift, and that desire is shaping criteria for deciding which violations to classify as Level II.

"In theory, 65 percent of the violations we processed last year should now be Level II, leaving 35 percent for us to process," Strobel said. "But we put a lot of caveats on what should be considered Level II to try to limit those violations on the annual reports to the most minor and insignificant."

In addition to excluding cases involving eligibility of a student-athlete, Level II will be limited to violations that are inadvertent and are isolated and limited in scope. Also excluded are repeat violations during the year-long reporting period of a specific rule in one sport.

Strobel acknowledges that Level II will include violations that could be regarded as more serious than others in the category, and the most serious of those violations will require implementation of prescribed penalties by institutions.

"The majority of Level II violations will not have prescribed penalties, and for those, institutions and conferences should take whatever action they feel is appropriate in response to the violation," he said. "There won't be any minimum, threshold penalty that the NCAA requires; it will be up to the institutions and conferences to decide how those will be dealt with."

That, too, may present challenges, because the secondary infractions staff will play much less of a role in ensuring general uniformity in assessment of penalties -- based on review of precedent -- than it currently does in processing all violations.

Conferences could become important entities in dealing with that challenge, Strobel suggests. But conferences will not be required to take on that role.

"The level of involvement will be left up to each conference," he said. "We anticipate that the larger conferences, especially in Division I, will be involved in some manner, take charge among their member institutions, and figure out a system for review. But we didn't dictate the level of involvement, because a lot of smaller conferences, particularly in Divisions II and III, don't have the staff resources to be involved directly in the process.

"We left it up to the conferences, but it is our hope that they will be involved in some manner."

Streamlined reporting system

The first annual reports of Level II violations will be due between the end of the 2004-05 academic year and the beginning of the 2005-06 academic year.

"We're asking institutions, as they discover Level II secondary violations, to keep a running list and add them to the annual reporting form as they occur," Strobel said. "If questions come up as to whether the institution was aware of the violation or would report the violation, they can document, 'yes, we were, we've already added it to our Level II report.' They just won't send it in until the summer."

The NCAA information services staff is developing a Web-based reporting system and related database to expedite and manage institutions' submission of those reports, with plans calling for completion in time for reporting in summer 2005.

Meanwhile, Strobel has been describing the new procedure at regional seminars. He expects that a full explanation of the program -- including a list of Level I and Level II violations, as well as a printable version of the annual reporting form -- will be available on the NCAA Web site by August 1, when the procedure officially goes into effect.

Strobel believes the NCAA membership quickly will notice that the reporting process is much simpler and much less time-consuming.

"I think they'll notice they're not spending as much time and energy reporting minor and/or technical types of violations," he said. "They'll feel like the process has been streamlined, for their benefit."