The Division II Management Council made clear during its April 11-12 meeting that it enthusiastically supports the development of a clearinghouse to certify that prospective student-athletes comply with NCAA amateurism requirements.

Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice-president for membership services, told the Management Council that his staff hopes to have an amateurism clearinghouse operating by fall 2006.

Divisions I and II currently use the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse to certify that prospects are eligible academically. The amateurism element would work similarly, greatly reducing or eliminating disputes among institutions by certifying student-athlete eligibility in advance.

Division II radically changed its amateurism philosophy in January 2001, eliminating the long-standing restriction that prohibited prospective student-athletes from ever having received money to compete. Instead, the division established an approach in which prospective student-athletes would lose one season of eligibility for every season of organized competition in which they took part after leaving high school and before enrolling at a collegiate institution.

The approach was designed to reduce the punitive effects on "failed professionals" (athletes who turned pro but whose careers didn't last) and to make amateurism regulations fairer and easier to apply.

While Division II administrators still appear to support the rationale behind their decision, they have been frustrated since the vote by the uneven application of the rule. At last summer's final legislation deregulation summit, the longest discussion focused on the frustration of administrators and coaches who were forced to compete against student-athletes who were not sitting out time despite the belief of some institutions that they participated in organized competition after high school.

The problem is sufficiently large that the Sunshine State Conference has been developing a system to certify the eligibility of international student-athletes.

Lennon said that the Association currently is reviewing its contract with American College Testing, which administers the Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse. That review will examine whether ACT can handle both functions. He also said efforts will be made to make amateurism legislation for Divisions I and II more alike, not only to facilitate certification but to lessen confusion among student-athletes and their parents.

Lennon stressed that an amateurism clearinghouse will have to be authorized through legislation. However, he said the staff has begun the groundwork with the expectation that legislation will be approved in the future. Bill Saum, former director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities, has been assigned the responsibility for establishing the clearinghouse.

Lennon said that although the staff has set next fall as the goal for implementation, he said that circumstances could cause the change to be phased in more gradually. He said the membership would be apprised as developments occur.

Baseball and transfers

While the concept of an amateurism clearinghouse brought nothing but good will from the Council, issues involving baseball rules and transfer student-athletes proved more complicated.

The baseball-rules issue involved the conditions under which seven-inning games can be counted as regulation contests. Earlier this year, the Baseball Rules Committee learned that many games, possibly numbering in the hundreds, had been illegally truncated in all three divisions. A detailed description of the situation appears on page 1 of this issue.

The Management Council clearly desired, for this year only, that seven-inning games played on the same day against different teams be counted as regulation contests since institutions that played the shorter games appeared to be acting in good faith. The Management Council recommended that the Baseball Rules Committee reconsider its previous position, and -- in an attempt to ensure that no Division II team would be penalized -- directed the Division II Baseball Committee to use the seven-inning games for championship-selection purposes. However, the direction to the Baseball Committee subsequently was ruled out of order (the Baseball Committee is required to consider only regulation games, and the Baseball Rules Committee's ruling was that many of the shortened games were not regulation). In the end, the Management Council was left only with the option of recommending that the Baseball Rules Committee change its position.

The issue involving transfers also experienced parliamentary complications. The question was rooted in 2005 Convention Proposal No. 27, which effectively would have banned student-athletes with only one year of eligibility remaining from transferring to Division II institutions. At the Convention, the Division II Presidents Council supported the spirit of the proposal -- that is, preventing the exploitation of academically unqualified student-athletes -- but noted during debate that the proposal would eliminate too many legitimate transfer opportunities. After the proposal was defeated by a vote of 36-216-1, it was referred to the Division II Academic Requirements Committee, which was directed to add an academic component to the legislation.

The ARC developed a proposal that would require any student-athlete transferring to a Division II institution with one season of eligibility remaining to have satisfactorily completed an average of 12 hours of transferable degree credit acceptable toward a degree program at the certifying institution. However, the issue ran into a Management Council headwind when several members said that the problem was not sufficient to merit such a large rules change.

"This is all because of one television announcer and one school," a Council member said in debate. "It doesn't need to be fixed. This is a blanket solution that is too broad. We would be cutting kids out of an opportunity to play for us who would meet any other criteria."

However, another member said, "There is an issue here, and that is that Division II is perceived as a dumping ground. The Convention voted this proposal down because it was missing an academic component, but that has been added and that's what we are considering."

The Council defeated a proposed amendment to restrict the rule to only Division I transfers. On the first day of the April 11-12 meeting, the Council voted 11-9 to support the ARC legislation; however, proposed legislation must be sponsored by two-thirds of those voting, so it was defeated. On the second day, however, the Council reconsidered the proposal, at which time it achieved the two-thirds vote needed to sponsor the legislation.

"I believe the question on this proposal may involve how it has been presented in the division's governance structure," Division II Vice-President Mike Racy said. "We will get some survey results later this spring about senior-year transfers, and in the aggregate, that survey very well may show that most transfers do well academically. So, you can see where people are coming from if you limit the discussion to academics.

"But the question should be about more than the division's academic requirements. It's true that most of the time, we don't want to legislate for the 1 percent of the membership that has trouble with the spirit of the rules. Still, I think the Management Council realized that this is one of those times when you do need to act with that 1 percent in mind -- both to protect our competitive environment and to protect a limited number of student-athletes from the worst sort of exploitation."

The Presidents Council will consider whether to sponsor the legislation at its April 28 meeting.

Championships issues

The Management Council also supported the legislative package developed by the Championships Eligibility Project Team.

The project team, formed as a result of action at the 2004 Convention, has sought to ensure fairer access to Division II championships by:

• Providing a deterrent for institutions that play student-athletes whose eligibility may be in question.

• Penalizing institutions that allow an ineligible student-athlete to participate in intercollegiate competition.

• Ensuring that penalties for playing an ineligible student-athlete affect only the institution violating the policy and protecting other institutions from unintended consequences.

• Encouraging early self-reporting of violations.

• Establishing a mechanism for due process and appeals.

A cornerstone of the proposal involves the concept of "nullification" rather than forfeiture. Under the nullification concept, a team using an ineligible student-athlete would be penalized a predetermined value against its win-loss record and strength-of-schedule index (the value would vary from sport to sport). If adopted, nullification would set aside the long-standing "material contribution" concept that requires sports committees to evaluate the degree to which an ineligible student-athlete contributed to a team's success.

The project team's package also would establish a system for fining teams found to be using ineligible student-athletes. In addition, it also would develop mechanisms to achieve better rules compliance in advance.

If the legislation is approved at the 2006 Convention, it will be effective for the 2006-07 academic year.

The Management Council also approved a waiver of Bylaw 17 length-of-season provisions that will permit women's volleyball and men's and women's soccer to start their seasons one week earlier in fall 2006.

Without the waiver, the playing season for those sports would have been shortened by two weeks by the 2006 Division II National Championships Festival.

The Council also noted that some flexibility remains for conferences that do not want to start the season a week earlier (in some cases, the earlier start could mean additional expense). In both sports, conferences could start the season at the traditional time and gain the extra week back by forgoing their postseason conference tournaments. The conference tournaments have no bearing on NCAA championship selection in soccer, which does not use automatic qualification; in women's volleyball, automatic qualification is used, although any conference would be free to designate its regular-season champion as the automatic qualifier rather than the conference tournament champion.

The waiver in both sports is for one year only.

Football task force

In other business, the Management Council established a task force to study a new model for football within the NCAA structure. The group is charged with examining possibilities that span all three divisions; if the task force determines that change across division lines is not possible, then it will be charged with addressing the matter within Division II.

The members of the task force must be approved by the Presidents Council.

Other highlights

Division II Management Council
April 11-12/Indianapolis

• Expressed concern with an Association-wide Executive Committee mandate to reduce committee meetings and committee membership. The Council noted that Division II committee membership has not changed significantly since the Association restructured in 1997. The group was advised that no changes will be made to the committee structure until a study of the matter is completed by a committee headed by NCAA Senior Vice-President Bernard Franklin. Franklin noted that the Executive Committee directive is consistent with the NCAA strategic plan, which demands operational efficiency.

• Commended the work of the Division II Regionalization Task Force, which issued a preliminary report. The Council expressed its belief that regionalization continues to be a proper philosophy for the division since it helps reduce missed class time and travel expenses, among other benefits. The task force, which acknowledges that it will not be able to develop a plan that satisfies the entire membership, will issue a modified report to the Division II Championships Committee in June.

• Pending Division I action, tabled a proposal from the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports to sponsor legislation that would extend the term of the committee chair by one year if that individual becomes chair with only one year remaining on his or her term.

• Approved a recommendation from the Academic Requirements Committee to sponsor legislation for the 2006 Convention to permit a prospective student-athlete to use a state-administered ACT exam to meet initial-eligibility requirements.

• Requested that the Division II Budget and Finance Committee withhold conference grant money from conferences that fail to report information on student-athletes who are rendered ineligible because of the six-hour requirement.

• Supported the recommendation of the Membership Committee to sponsor legislation for the 2006 Convention to withhold enhancement funds from institutions failing to comply with the Institutional Self-Study Guide deadline. Failure to submit the report after another year would result in the institution being placed in restricted membership.

• Agreed to sponsor noncontroversial legislation to clarify that failure to certify insurance coverage for a student-athlete will have no effect on the student-athlete's eligibility (it would be considered an institutional violation).

• Endorsed a set of guidelines for a model Division II athletics program.

• Noted the most recent recipients of the Division II Strategic Alliance Matching Grant Program. They are Bowie State University (assistant athletics director for operations); University of Indianapolis (assistant athletics director for academic services); New York Collegiate Athletic Conference (assistant commissioner/senior woman administrator); University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown (assistant director of athletics for student-athlete services and senior woman administrator); Regis University (Colorado) (assistant athletics director for compliance and game-day marketing, promotion and management); and Saint Leo University (assistant athletics director).