The Southeastern Conference presidents voted May 30 to sponsor NCAA legislation that would increase the number of permissible baseball scholarships in Division I from 11.7 to 14.7. Once entered into the 2008-09 legislative cycle, the proposal will first be considered by the new Legislative Council.

The earliest the proposal could be adopted by the Division I Board of Directors would be at the NCAA Convention in January 2009.

The proposal, sponsored by Mississippi State and LSU, gives voice to those who have long felt that the number of scholarships allowed for baseball student-athletes is too small, especially in the wake of recent changes in the sport.

In 2007, an NCAA working group recommended various changes in the sport as a way to improve academic success. Among those changes, approved as emergency legislation by the Board and implemented last year, was a requirement that individual financial aid packages for baseball student-athletes include at least 25 percent athletics aid and the elimination of the one-time transfer rule for student-athletes.

Supporters say the change would help create more parity among teams that have state assistance for scholarship programs and those that do not, but they acknowledged that the change might be a tough sell at the national level.

Larry Templeton, Mississippi State athletics director and a member of the baseball working group, told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that “we’ve got to do a lot of work” to get the Division I Board of Directors – which has final approval on the plan – to agree to it.

Discuss the SEC proposal at the NCAA's official blog, the Double-A Zone.