DALLAS -- To accommodate the full day of legislative voting January 9, the Division I Management Council took care of other business at a January 7 session, including presentations regarding the contemporaneous-penalty cut points in the newly adopted academic-reform structure, a report from the new joint NCAA/USOC Task Force and an update from the first Division I regional leadership conference held this past fall in Atlanta.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who chairs the Committee on Academic Performance (CAP), presented on academic reform, specifically, the contemporaneous-penalty cut scores that the CAP recommended to the Board (see related story, page 1). Though Harrison's presentation preceded the CAP's January 8 meeting at which the group recommended the actual cut scores, Harrison took general questions from Council members about the CAP's deliberations.

Concerns from Council members ranged from considering how institutional mission factors into the equation, particularly the differences between admissions policies among private and public schools, to whether the contemporaneous penalties will be necessary at all once the four years of data necessary to determine historically based penalties are collected.

Harrison emphasized the contemporaneous penalties affect a broader distribution of teams, whereas the historically based penalties are meant to identify the "chronic under-performers" and punish them accordingly. Contemporaneous penalties also are a one-time hit in and of themselves, whereas scholarship losses under the historically based penalties remain in effect until the team in question raises its Academic Progress Rate (APR) to the level at which it is not subject to penalty.

"Without the contemporaneous penalties," Harrison said, "you don't have as far-reaching an effect. The contemporaneous penalties are designed to deal with the lower half of the academic distribution and thus affect behavior with far more teams than do the historically based penalties."

One Council member also noted the potential for the contemporaneous penalties to carry a "double hit," since the same behavior that triggers the contemporaneous penalty factors into the historically based penalties as well.

The report on the NCAA/USOC Task Force reviewed progress made since May when the group was appointed to examine the decline of sponsorship of traditional Olympic sports at the college level. The task force is composed of NCAA members and representatives from several national governing bodies and other related organizations. Indianapolis-based lawyer Jack Swarbrick chairs the group charged with developing recommendations to protect and expand opportunities for student-athletes and coaches in collegiate Olympic sports programs.

Swarbrick told Council members that the task force will produce those recommendations as part of its final report in September. He noted that the group's analysis has led to an initial focus on what he called "category one" sports that have suffered significant drops in sponsorship over time. Those "high risk" sports are women's and men's gymnastics, men's fencing, wrestling, men's rifle, men's water polo and men's volleyball. Swarbrick said the task force in its examination was most interested in protecting the student-athlete experience.

"Our goal is to make sure the student-athlete experience is available to as many people as possible," he said. "We want to help the NCAA help its members maintain rich and diverse athletics experiences for its student-athletes."