Delays before the start of the 2005 fall athletics season were not excessive or extraordinary at the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse, despite public claims and private grumblings to the contrary.

However, several cases have required intricate or time-consuming legwork to verify academic records, Clearinghouse officials said, and some potential student-athletes did not begin the initial-eligibility process until the late spring or even early summer months. Calvin Symons, director of the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse (IEC) -- based in Iowa City, Iowa -- said that, anecdotally, the summer of 2005 saw more high-profile cases requiring more work than those in past years, though the Clearinghouse does not have statistics regarding high-profile athletes.

"I think a lot of the higher-profile athletes do have more complicated backgrounds than the basic student who did ninth through 12th grade at Washington High School and never went anywhere else," Symons said.

Symons said some coaches had complained that their athletes were "unfairly delayed," and while it's possible that the Clearinghouse was at fault, the more likely scenario is that the case is just more convoluted than the average registrant.

"I think that when you look at individual cases, there are complicating factors that sit inside a particular student's academic preparation that require us to either do a lot more communication with the student or the high school," he said. "We're seeing a lot more academic records that need to be scrutinized."

The IEC cannot begin to examine a potential student-athlete's background until the prospect registers with the group. Officials recommend students register during their senior year, at a time "when they feel confident that their athletics talents would put them at a place where they could be a Division I or Division II athlete," Symons said.

Early registration, certification

Lisa Roesler, NCAA associate director for membership services, said such early registration would make the entire certification process move more quickly and smoothly for the individual.

"The best practice is for students to register after they complete their junior year so that the Clearinghouse has an opportunity to perform what we call 'a preliminary certification,'" Roesler said. That preliminary determination can serve as a gauge for potential student-athletes who need to work on improving grades or test scores. It also can help institutions determine whether a student-athlete will be academically prepared to attend that college or university. Also, the later students register, the less likely they will receive their certification quickly.

Symons said that registering with the Clearinghouse is not a requirement for enrolling in classes at an NCAA member institution. However, NCAA rules prohibit a Division I recruited student-athlete from practicing with their team for more than 14 days while awaiting certification. Non-recruited Division I and all Division II athletes can attend practice for 45 days before receiving their certification. No student-athlete may participate in competition while uncertified.

However, Roesler stressed that registering late was "not the best practice." She urged high-school students to begin the preliminary certification process early.

"It is the single-most important tool that colleges have to ensure that their prospects are going to be eligible: Early registration and early certification," she said.

Barriers to avoid

After registering and paying the registration fee, student-athletes also must provide a minimum of four documents to demonstrate their academic work, including a registration form, transcripts from all institutions at which any high-school credit was earned, confirmation of graduation and standardized test scores.

Ellen Wetzel, manager of the IEC, said the requirement that all transcripts be submitted can be an issue.

"We often have to go after (registrants) for additional transcripts from different programs. Sometimes it's not even clear where they took another course," she said. "We have to have them all in before we do the final certification."

Once students have registered and submitted all required documentation, the staff at the Clearinghouse begins the filtering process according to pre-set priorities. The top priority for the Clearinghouse is student-athletes who have had their infor- mation requested by a specific member institution. Called an institutional request list (IRL), the student-athletes who fall in this group will be a main concern. Institutions can activate and deactivate such requests at the Clearinghouse Web site.

As of July 31, 79 percent of all students on an IRL had been issued a final certification, Symons said. By August 21, that number was up to 93 percent. Roesler said that number has likely climbed even higher.

"Of the names that colleges had supplied to us, more than nine out of 10 of them had received their final certification by late August," Symons said.

The second priority is student-athletes who have been identified by NCAA staff as having some type of disability. The Clearinghouse staff examines those applications as quickly as possible to determine whether the student-athlete will be certified.

Occasionally, though, Clearinghouse staff members run into difficulties with a student-athlete's transcript. For example, courses listed on a transcript may not match the list of core courses provided by that student's high school. A student's transcript may list "English 9" or "Integrated Math for the Technologies," and neither class is on the high school's approved core-courses list -- though classes such as "Literature and Composition" or "Applied Math" are on the list. If the classes are the same but called something else, that information has to be verified by the high school. If a student doesn't register with the Clearinghouse until late in his or her senior year, and transcripts aren't sent until the summer, Clearinghouse officials have trouble reaching anyone at high schools that are closed for the summer months.

That process can delay certification, though recent legislation has allowed Clearinghouse staff to simply verify with high schools. Previously, member institutions would have to apply for waivers in such cases.

Other recent changes have helped streamline the process as well, Roesler said, such as allowing students to take high-school courses in the eighth grade and receive credit for a core high-school course without applying for a waiver.

"That's eliminated hundreds of waivers. The eighth grade (change) and core-course process has saved a lot of time," she said.

For the vast majority of student-athletes, the certification process is simple and straightforward. It is often the more complicated cases -- or those that weren't submitted in a timely fashion, officials said -- that receive the most attention in the media.

"Sometimes the most vociferous parent or institution are ones where a student has registered extremely late and we have just gotten all their information within the last couple of days, way late in the season," Wetzel said. "It's interesting to me that those are the ones we hear from the loudest."