Besides adopting a 12th regular-season game (see story, page 1), the Division I Board of Directors also made football news at its spring meeting with emergency legislation that alleviates pressure on institutions to meet attendance criteria to maintain Division I-A status.

The legislation allows institutions to demonstrate over a rolling two-year period either an average minimum actual attendance of 15,000 for all home football games, or at least one season in which the institution averages a minimum of 15,000 in paid attendance for home games.

The measure provides breathing room for some long-standing Division I-A institutions some people thought were disadvantaged by an attendance criterion in place last year. Those standards required institutions to average at least 15,000 in actual attendance per year. Board members believe the new recommendation still requires institutions to develop their fan bases, which presidents feel is a worthwhile criterion, but it helps those who consider actual attendance to be outside the control of an institution (due to inclement weather, for example) by providing the opportunity to comply through paid attendance once every two years.

The new criterion also continues to distinguish I-A requirements from I-AA standards, something the Division I-AA membership clearly desired.

The new attendance measure becomes effective for the 2005 season, but there won't be an analysis of whether institutions meet the standard until after the 2006 season (because of the two-year rolling period).

Board members took other actions regarding Division I-AA proposals they agreed to consider earlier in conjunction with revising the attendance criterion. One was to adopt emergency legislation allowing Division I-A teams to count one win each year against a Division I-AA opponent for bowl eligibility beginning with the 2005 season. Supporters said this not only provides more incentive for competition between the two subdivisions, but that it probably will increase the number of bowl-eligible I-A teams as well.

Another piece of emergency legislation will allow Division I-A institutions to use one game each year against a Division I-AA opponent to satisfy the home-game scheduling requirement for I-A membership (for 2005, four home games; for 2006 and thereafter, five).

While those measures were adopted before the Board acted on the 12-game proposal, the subsequent adoption of the 12th game complemented both I-AA proposals.

Subdivision nomenclature

Just as significant as the legislation the Board considered was a non-legislative item the presidents agreed to pursue regarding subdivision labeling in football. The Board asked NCAA staff, the Collegiate Commissioners Association and the Division I Management Council to evaluate editorial and other changes in the NCAA Manual that would eliminate the I-A and I-AA descriptors. Instead, for football competition purposes, Division I football members would be distinguished by those eligible for bowls (the former I-A classification) or those eligible for the Division I Football Championship (the former I-AA subdivision).

Board members believe that would maintain the necessary distinction between the two without disadvantaging either group in sports other than football. Division I-AA institutions have long believed they suffer a public relations hit in sports such as basketball in which the media and others incorrectly assume the I-AA football label carries over to all sports.

One member illustrated the importance of the issue by noting that the term "Division I-A baseball scores" recently appeared on a cable network's news crawl at the bottom of the screen, when in fact there is no such thing as Division I-A baseball.

This purely editorial change would not modify the membership requirements that separate the football subdivisions. Division I Football Championship institutions would continue to provide no more than the equivalent value of 63 grants-in-aid, and the bowl-eligible group would continue to vote as a subdivision on its bowl-eligibility requirements. The change, then, would not affect representation or votes in the governance structure for either group.

CEO legislative involvement

Board members also acted on two proposals that increase their involvement in the Division I legislative cycle. One gives the Board the authority to initiate legislation, while the other gives presidents the power to restore a proposal defeated by the Management Council to its previous standing in the cycle.

Both recommendations came from the Management Council's governance subcommittee and were supported by the Council at its April 11 meeting. The Board suggested the ideas during a meeting with Council representatives at the 2005 NCAA Convention.

The ability to initiate legislation affords the Board another tool to carry out its presidential agenda. When Division I went to a representative governance structure in 1997, the Board was placed in more of an oversight and approval role than as a body that would submit legislation into the cycle. The thinking then was that presidents would not have the time or desire to deal with legislative details. Over the years, though -- particularly during the recent academic-reform movement -- presidents have indicated their desire to initiate legislation when appropriate.

"While I don't expect this new provision to signal a run on the bank on Board-proposed legislation," Board Chair Robert Hemenway said, "I do think it provides the flexibility for the Board to generate a top-down approach when warranted. Giving the division's top policy-making body the same legislative parameters as other bodies in the structure is an approach that makes sense to me."

The second recommendation allows the Board to in effect overturn a previous Management Council decision to defeat a piece of legislation. The new provision means that a proposal that the Council defeats upon initial consideration in January could be restored by the Board in January to its position in the legislative cycle. If the Council defeats a proposal upon second consideration in April, the Board can restore that proposal and enact it at either the Board's April or August meeting.

Board members in fact used their emergency authority to adopt a proposal in the National Association of Basketball Coaches legislative package that the Management Council had defeated two weeks ago. The proposal (No. 04-115-B) eliminates the limit on the number of student-athletes who participate in out-of-season skill-instruction sessions.

Management Council members favored the current limit of four in part because of concerns that no limit would turn the sessions into year-round practice opportunities. The NABC argued though that the current rules tied up facilities just to accommodate a small number of players, and that coaches aren't simply looking for additional practice opportunities. NCAA President Myles Brand called the current rule an example of micromanagement.

The Board's action also affects a companion proposal (No. 04-145) for women's basketball. Both proposals now become effective August 1.

The Board agreed with the Council on the rest of the NABC and WBCA legislative proposals except one. The Council had approved Proposal No. 04-130, which would have prohibited a women's coach from being employed with a professional women's team or serving as an announcer or commentator for a professional women's basketball league broadcast. The Board decided to defeat that proposal, however, in part to align with existing rules in the men's game.

Another reversal of a Management Council decision came when the Board sent back two proposals regarding financial aid. Both proposals, Nos. 02-82 and 03-23-A, would allow student-athletes who receive only nonathletically related institutional aid to compete without counting in the institution's financial aid limits.

Other highlights

Division I Board of Directors
April 28/Indianapolis

• Agreed to support enhancements with possible budget ramifications that would encourage stability of Division I-AA and participation in the Division I football championship. The Board also agreed to evaluate regular-season and postseason opportunities for low and nonscholarship programs.

• Adopted 17 emergency or noncontroversial legislative proposals previously approved by and forwarded from the Division I Management Council (see the April 25 issue of The NCAA News).

• Agreed with a recommendation from the Division I Committee on Academic Performance and approved emergency legislation that exempts student-athletes who are medical noncounters from contemporaneous penalties. The Board also approved emergency legislation that subjects institutions that award aid on a term-by-term basis to contemporaneous penalties that are equivalent to a full year of aid. The Board believes such legislation is necessary to ensure that the contemporaneous penalty is not reduced or manipulated by the awarding of term-by-term aid.

• Adopted Proposal No. 02-96, which establishes the Division I-AA/I-AAA Presidential Governance Committee. The Board amended the proposal to ensure that diversity requirements in place for the composition of the Board of Directors also apply for the I-AA/I-AAA group.

• Heard an update on the NCAA's alcohol policies, which prohibit alcohol sales at all NCAA championship events and alcohol advertising within championship venues. Broadcast advertising during the NCAA championships is also limited to no more than 60 seconds during each hour of broadcast. The Board recommended that the NCAA Executive Committee develop a comprehensive alcohol policy that would cover all three divisions.

• Commended University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway for his years of service as chair of the Board. Hemenway, who assumed the leadership role in 2002, completed a five-year term on the Board at the end of the April meeting.

The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has been emphatic in its support of those measures for two years, claiming that current rules force student-athletes eligible for non-athletics aid to turn down the aid in order not to count against team limits.

While Board members have been sympathetic with those concerns in previous meetings with SAAC members, some, including those serving on the Division
I-AA/I-AAA advisory group, could not get past the fact that the deregulation effort could lead to institutions with higher institutional-aid resources "stockpiling" student-athletes in basketball and football.

Instead, they have charged the Management Council to revisit the proposals and see if there is a way to safeguard against such practices. Part of that assignment may include a more stringent definition of what constitutes non-athletics aid.

"We want to try to respond to student-athlete needs but we need to define academic aid in a way that would be acceptable," Hemenway said. "We acknowledge the ability to stockpile would exist with the current proposal, and we'd like to see a rule that would discourage that from happening."