Effective with the October 24 issue, The NCAA News will change its longstanding distribution policy.

Beginning with that issue, the News will be provided as a membership benefit to predetermined positions at each member institution and conferences. Until now, athletics directors and conference commissioners have had the authority to determine which individuals at their institutions or conferences received the News. Division I institutions were provided up to 30 copies, Divisions II and III institutions up to 20, and conference offices up to five.

Starting October 24, individuals in the following positions at each institution will receive a hard copy of the News:

• Presidents and chancellors.

• Athletics directors.

• Senior woman administrators.

• Faculty athletics representatives.

• Compliance officers.

• Sports information directors.

• Athletic trainers.

• Head coaches in all sports.

The News will be distributed to conference offices as follows:

• Commissioner.

• Senior woman administrator.

• Compliance officer.

• Sports information director.

Top officers of affiliated organizations, such as coaches associations, also will receive copies.

David Pickle, News editor-in-chief, said that three principal factors led to the change. Those factors were a desire to decrease membership confusion, the opportunity to administer the list more efficiently, and the opportunity to create a broader and more consistent distribution of the information contained in the News.

The confusion element surfaced in recent years after the development of the membership database.

"We learned that many people in the membership thought that the membership database and the News mailing list were linked," Pickle said. "In fact, the lists never were connected, but because of this misunderstanding, too many people were understandably frustrated when changes they submitted were not made across the board as they assumed."

The new News mailing list will be drawn from the membership database or from outside databases that the membership database relies upon, such as those for head coaches. That means that when institutions and conferences change personnel on the membership database, they also will be changing who receives printed copies of the News.

"This is a better way of making the News available," Pickle said. "It not only frees athletics directors and commissioners from the responsibility of constantly updating their lists, but it also will simplify administration of the list for the News staff."

Pickle said that the new approach will result in a number of people who do not fit into the designated position being deleted from the current list. He said that those individuals who are displaced and want to continue receiving the News will be retained on a complimentary basis for one year. Thereafter they will be required to purchase the News at the annual rate of $12.

"We also know that there are those in the membership who will not want a hard copy of the News," Pickle said. "That is dealt with in the membership database, where we will provide an option that gives members the opportunity to decline their copy of the News. This probably will be most common among head coaches who coach multiple sports such as track and cross country, but we also know there are readers who prefer to access the information online or not at all. Each person will control whether they receive a hard copy."

The changes mean that the News will be delivered uniformly to all head coaches and to most athletics administrators. Pickle hopes that the result is a greater understanding of NCAA legislation and policy among those key groups.

The list will not include all constituents. For instance, business managers and marketing and promotional personnel are not included. Pickle said that their exclusion is not a slight but rather is a reflection of the need to control the size of the list.

"We anticipate that this change will expand the News mailing list by 4,000 to 5,000," he said. "As with any change of this sort, we have to make some hard decisions on where to draw the line."

Questions about News subscriptions may be directed to Nancy Ettinger, assistant coordinator for the News.