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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Council backs restrictions on male practice players
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By Jack Copeland
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
The Division III Presidents Council agreed to sponsor a legislative proposal at the 2008 Convention to restrict use of male practice players in women’s sports.
It is among a total of 15 proposals slated for consideration by Division III Convention delegates January 14 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Council, which met August 9 in Indianapolis, decided to place six proposals on the Convention agenda, including the measure to limit both the frequency of use and number of males who may practice with women’s teams at Division III institutions.
The proposal would allow males to practice one day per week during the traditional segment, and limit the number to half of a team’s starting squad (rounded up).
The Council agreed with positions taken earlier this summer by the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Division III Management Council that the division should at least limit males’ participation in practices. The Presidents Council also reviewed a recent membership survey that indicated interest by a majority of the Division III membership in limiting both the frequency of use and number of males who may practice with women.
A few Council members said they prefer to go a step further and ban the use of male practice players on philosophical grounds, but most of the Council preferred to impose limits rather than a ban.
Council members also agreed to co-sponsor one of nine proposals submitted by Division III conferences for a Convention vote. The Council will join the Centennial and New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conferences in an effort to ban the use by athletics department personnel of text messaging and other electronic communication (except e-mail and fax) to contact prospective student-athletes.
The proposed ban would include communication with recruits via text messaging, instant messaging and social networking sites. The Division III SAAC supports the ban because it believes those technologies are intended for social interaction among friends — and believes that institutions should use more formal and appropriate avenues for recruiting purposes — and also because it regards use of such technologies as an intrusion on recruits’ time.
The Presidents Council also agreed to back another SAAC-supported initiative when it agreed to sponsor a proposal that would require the presence at games and practices of at least one non-student institutional employee certified in first aid, CPR and use of an AED.
The Council broadened the emergency-treatment certification proposal, which the Division III Management Council had suggested should require the presence of at least one certified coach, to include any employee designated by the institution (including a part-time or graduate assistant coach) who is certified to provide emergency treatment. However, the presidents also specified that students employed at an institution would not be permitted to serve in that role.
A possible 16th Convention proposal was shelved when the Presidents Council decided not to sponsor legislation addressing the formation of single-sport conferences that was proposed by the Division III Championships Committee and endorsed by the Management Council.
The proposal would have permitted single-sport conferences with seven or more active members as of February 1, 2008, to receive automatic qualification for championships. It also would have established a waiver process to permit the formation of a single-sport conference in sports with low division-wide sponsorship, sports that recently have added a new championship and sports in those championships in which multi-sport conferences historically have not sponsored that sport.
Council members, pointing to the current Association-wide study of the NCAA membership structure and the possibility that Division III could be restructured, agreed that now may not be a good time to provide new opportunities for achieving automatic qualification to championships.
The Council asked the Championships Committee to consider more limited “interim” solutions for accommodating single-sport conferences, pending the outcome of the structural study.
Including the proposals to limit male practice players and require first aid/CPR/AED certification, the Presidents Council will sponsor six Convention proposals. The other four proposals would:
It is among a total of 15 proposals slated for consideration by Division III Convention delegates January 14 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Council, which met August 9 in Indianapolis, decided to place six proposals on the Convention agenda, including the measure to limit both the frequency of use and number of males who may practice with women’s teams at Division III institutions.
The proposal would allow males to practice one day per week during the traditional segment, and limit the number to half of a team’s starting squad (rounded up).
The Council agreed with positions taken earlier this summer by the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Division III Management Council that the division should at least limit males’ participation in practices. The Presidents Council also reviewed a recent membership survey that indicated interest by a majority of the Division III membership in limiting both the frequency of use and number of males who may practice with women.
A few Council members said they prefer to go a step further and ban the use of male practice players on philosophical grounds, but most of the Council preferred to impose limits rather than a ban.
Council members also agreed to co-sponsor one of nine proposals submitted by Division III conferences for a Convention vote. The Council will join the Centennial and New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conferences in an effort to ban the use by athletics department personnel of text messaging and other electronic communication (except e-mail and fax) to contact prospective student-athletes.
The proposed ban would include communication with recruits via text messaging, instant messaging and social networking sites. The Division III SAAC supports the ban because it believes those technologies are intended for social interaction among friends — and believes that institutions should use more formal and appropriate avenues for recruiting purposes — and also because it regards use of such technologies as an intrusion on recruits’ time.
The Presidents Council also agreed to back another SAAC-supported initiative when it agreed to sponsor a proposal that would require the presence at games and practices of at least one non-student institutional employee certified in first aid, CPR and use of an AED.
The Council broadened the emergency-treatment certification proposal, which the Division III Management Council had suggested should require the presence of at least one certified coach, to include any employee designated by the institution (including a part-time or graduate assistant coach) who is certified to provide emergency treatment. However, the presidents also specified that students employed at an institution would not be permitted to serve in that role.
A possible 16th Convention proposal was shelved when the Presidents Council decided not to sponsor legislation addressing the formation of single-sport conferences that was proposed by the Division III Championships Committee and endorsed by the Management Council.
The proposal would have permitted single-sport conferences with seven or more active members as of February 1, 2008, to receive automatic qualification for championships. It also would have established a waiver process to permit the formation of a single-sport conference in sports with low division-wide sponsorship, sports that recently have added a new championship and sports in those championships in which multi-sport conferences historically have not sponsored that sport.
Council members, pointing to the current Association-wide study of the NCAA membership structure and the possibility that Division III could be restructured, agreed that now may not be a good time to provide new opportunities for achieving automatic qualification to championships.
The Council asked the Championships Committee to consider more limited “interim” solutions for accommodating single-sport conferences, pending the outcome of the structural study.
Including the proposals to limit male practice players and require first aid/CPR/AED certification, the Presidents Council will sponsor six Convention proposals. The other four proposals would:
- Permit the employment of prospective student-athletes and presence of institutional personnel at sport camps and clinics.
- Permit an extended term for the chair of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports.
- Clarify that strength and conditioning personnel may monitor student-athletes’ voluntary individual workouts for safety reasons, but cannot conduct the workout. The proposal also specifies that when a strength and conditioning coach also coaches one of an institution’s teams, the coach may monitor a workout only if that staff member performs such duties for general groups of student-athletes using the facility.
- Permit an institution to decide whether to accept online courses taken at any institution for purposes of determining a student-athlete’s academic standing or satisfactory progress.
- Including the text-messaging proposal that will be co-sponsored by the Council, Division III delegates also will consider nine membership-sponsored proposals, all of which were published at www.ncaa.org August 15 in the Division III Initial Publication of Proposed Legislation. The other eight proposals, which will be reviewed by various Division III committees and which the Council may decide later this year to support or oppose, would:
- Allow more time (until September 1) for a conference or 10 institutions agreeing by July 15 to sponsor a proposal at the Convention to obtain co-sponsorship for that proposal from another conference or 10 additional institutions. The proposal is sponsored by the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate, American Southwest and Northern Athletics Conferences, and has been referred to the Interpretations and Legislation Committee.
- Permit admissions offices to publicize campus visits of prospective student-athletes in the same manner that all visits by prospective students to an institution are publicized. The proposal is sponsored by the Midwest, American Southwest, Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic and Northern Athletics Conferences, and has been referred to the Interpretations and Legislation and Student-Athlete Advisory Committees.
- Permit providing academic or other support services for student-athletes that are similar to those available to students in general, thus providing institutions more flexibility to provide programming or services geared more specifically to needs and interests of student-athletes. The proposal is sponsored by the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic, American Southwest, Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic and Northern Athletics Conferences and has been referred to the Division III Interpretations and Legislation, Strategic Planning and Finance, and Student-Athlete Advisory Committees.
- Permit extending the regular season to “make up” a conference postseason contest suspended because of weather or other unforeseen circumstances, if necessary to determine a conference champion or NCAA automatic qualifier. The proposal is sponsored by the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic and Northern Athletics Conferences and has been referred to the Championships Committee and Playing and Practice Seasons Subcommittee.
- Change the starting date for the first contest in basketball from the Friday immediately before Thanksgiving to November 15. The proposal is sponsored by the Capital Athletic and State University of New York Athletic Conferences and has been referred to the Playing and Practice Seasons Subcommittee and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
- Permit 16 practice opportunities in fall sports other than football even when September 1 falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday and the first contest is played before that date. The proposal is sponsored by the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic, Northern Athletics and State University of New York Athletic Conferences, and has been referred by the Management Council to its Playing and Practice Seasons Subcommittee.
- Permit single-sport conferences that existed before February 1, 2007, to maintain automatic qualification for NCAA championships. The legislation, sponsored by the North Atlantic and Massachusetts State College Athletic Conferences, would replace a current bylaw permitting only single-sport conferences that have maintained the same original seven members since February 1998 to receive automatic qualification. The proposal has been referred to the Championships Committee.
- Allow institutions that are provisional members before August 1, 2007, and have completed the first year of provisional membership, as well as any institution that becomes a provisional member after that date to be counted by a conference toward the seven-institution requirement to receive automatic qualification in a sport. The proposal is sponsored by the North Eastern Athletic Conference and North Atlantic Conferences, and has been referred to the Division III Membership and Championships Committees.
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