DALLAS -- Sitting down to discuss important issues with the Division I Management Council and the Division I Board of Directors paid dividends for the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at the NCAA Convention.

During a luncheon on January 9, for example, SAAC members were able to convince enough members of the Management Council that Proposal No. 04-46 was a bad idea. The proposal, which would restrict the composition of the SAAC to current student-athletes, was one SAAC had fought against for the last several months.

The Management Council had agreed to send it out for comment earlier that morning, but after hearing SAAC members state their case, the issue was reconsidered -- and defeated -- at the Council's afternoon session.

SAAC members made convincing arguments that student-athletes a year out of school should be allowed to continue to serve on the committee. They said former student-athletes add diversity and experience to the group without being "disconnected" or disenfranchised from the issues.

They also noted that the typical timeline for a SAAC member is service on a campus SAAC as a freshman or sophomore, service on a conference SAAC as a junior, followed by a national appointment in their senior year. Forcing them to leave after graduation not only aborts their term, but it also disrupts the continuity of the committee.

SAAC members also argued that current provisions allow for conferences to recommend that a member resign his or her position on the committee should he or she not be able to devote the time and energy needed for the job.

"It renews your sense of faith," SAAC Chair Ian Gray said of the Council's reversal. Gray, who began his term as chair during the Convention, said the turn of events reflected the committee's positive attitude. "We really never lose that faith," he said. "Now in terms of 04-46 being gone, we can focus on real issues like financial aid.''

SAAC members indeed took up that cause the following day during a breakfast with the Division I Board of Directors. Much of the discussion among bacon and eggs centered on expanding access to financial aid through Proposal Nos. 02-82 and 03-23.

Proposal No. 02-82 would permit a recruited football or basketball student-athlete who receives only non-athletically related institutional financial aid to compete without counting in the institution's financial aid limits.

"It will give more student-athletes the chance to compete even though they are not receiving athletics aid, and they won't count toward the number of student-athletes on the team receiving athletics aid,'' said Ryan Morgan, a Division I SAAC member from Rice University. "Currently, if a student-athlete is receiving academic aid from the institution and the coach has already given out all of his scholarships, that student-athlete wouldn't be able to compete even though he isn't receiving athletics aid.''

Proposal No. 03-23 would permit a student-athlete who participates in an equivalency sport to receive institutional academic scholarships and need-based institutional aid under specified conditions without including such aid in an institution's equivalency computation in the applicable sport.

"If there is a baseball player on half an athletics scholarship and his coach has already given out all the scholarships up to the 11.7 allowed -- and if the student-athlete wants to get half an academic scholarship to increase his aid, he cannot accept it,'' Morgan said. "He has to choose between athletics aid and academic aid. Right now, academic aid counts towards the 11.7. There are student-athletes out there who are being forced to turn down this aid.''

What resistance there is to those proposals is embedded in the potential recruiting abuses that could lead to teams stockpiling student-athletes on particular teams.

"I certainly understand the argument and I'm sympathetic to it,'' said Stephen Flatt, president of Lipscomb University and a member of the Board. "To me it's a strong argument because it will still exclude a number of students who might choose a Lipscomb or any private university.''

Division I SAAC wants to dispel concerns that there will be "fictitious" scholarships created and dollars thrown to students that aren't really for academic purposes.

"We also have to look at how this relates to the other students on campus,'' said Board member Sidney McPhee, president of Middle Tennessee State University. "You have to look at the commitment, the time and the effort that a student-athlete provides to the unive rsity. It would seem that we allow what some would call stacking the scholarships to attract other students to our campus. So it would seem unfair to hold the student-athlete to a different standard.''

SAAC's goal entering the Convention was to have the financial aid proposals make it to the comment phase, which both did during the Management Council meeting. They then used their breakfast with the Board to lobby presidents for a positive vote in April.

SAAC members indicated they may conduct a letter-writing campaign to push their point of view even further.

"Saying we have a unanimous united front is an understatement for the number of student-athletes who are pushing for this,'' Gray said. "I could list story after story of student-athletes who could take no aid, because in an equivalency sport, their coach is not going to give them a scholarship. They were a walk-on and had a half academic ride and had to give it up. They couldn't accept it, because it would count against the team limits. We get that over and over again.''