NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- In addition to voting on legislative proposals at its January 11 meeting, the Division I Management Council also revisited a reinstatement directive adopted in July 2002 regarding student-athletes who violate amateurism rules. The new directive, which applies to individuals who enrolled at NCAA institutions after August 1, 2003, makes permanently ineligible those student-athletes who competed with professionals, accepted impermissible money from a professional team and signed professional contracts. That directive was stricter than the previous standard, which applied a maximum eight-game suspension for violations in basketball.

Two institutions asked the Council to review the effective date of the new, stricter standard, since there appeared to be confusion about how the new standard applied to students who were enrolled at a non-NCAA institution before August 1, 2003. In one case, an international basketball student-athlete who was enrolled in his second year at a junior college during the 2002-03 academic year and who was being recruited by NCAA institutions was declared permanently ineligible. This student was scheduled to graduate in May 2003 and enroll at an NCAA institution in August 2003. The Division I Student-Athlete Reinstatement committee ruled that since he did not enroll before August 1, 2003, his eligibility would not be reinstated as a result of the new standards. Had he enrolled before August 1, 2003, he could have been subject to the maximum eight-game suspension under the previous directive.

After review, the Council determined that the new amateurism standard should be effective for student-athletes first enrolling at any collegiate institution during the fall 2003 semester. For practical purposes, this means that any student-athlete who first enrolled at a college (NCAA institution, junior college or NAIA institution) before August 1, 2003, and committed violations of NCAA amateurism legislation before their enrollment, will be analyzed under the former intent-to-professionalize standard, which is less restrictive than the new directive.

"This was a student-athlete welfare issue that everyone agreed needed to be changed to ensure proper relief is granted to student-athletes who already were in the system," said Chris Plonsky, director of women's athletics at the University of Texas at Austin and chair of the Division I Management Council. "In all of the Association's rules applications, we want to be fair, and this was surely the right thing to do. It is also important to emphasize however, that the stricter standard adopted in July 2002 still applies and is the standard our student-athlete reinstatement staff and committee will use when determining if a student-athlete should be reinstated in the future."

NCAA President Myles Brand called the action "an excellent example of NCAA staff and committees demonstrating a level of flexibility and fairness to benefit student-athletes."

The NCAA reinstatement staff will immediately review all reinstatement requests that may be affected by the Management Council action in order to ensure relief to student-athletes affected. The NCAA reinstatement staff in fact already has used the Management Council change to reinstate some affected student-athletes that meet the former standard.

-- Gary T. Brown