The Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet will sponsor a series of proposals in the 2009-10 legislative cycle designed to address concerns about coaching limits and the role of non-coaching personnel.

The cabinet will sponsor legislation regulating student managers, non-coaching staff with sport-specific responsibilities and student assistant coaches. The proposals would:

• Define the duties and policies for student managers. Currently, the title and duties of student managers exist only interpretively. The cabinet’s proposal will codify these duties and limit student managers to traditional managerial duties (no instruction) and limited on-the-field tasks during practice and competition such as retrieving balls or throwing batting practice, which are currently permissible but not outlined in the legislation. The legislation would also require all managers to be full-time students and would require baseball student managers to forfeit remaining eligibility. The baseball condition would prevent the potential for tryouts, particularly because of the recent roster limits imposed in the sport.
• Eliminate the five-year clock and the requirement that athletics eligibility must be exhausted for student assistant coaches and require those who serve in that capacity to forfeit all remaining eligibility. Under the proposal, student assistant coaches would be limited to undergraduate students only. The proposal would also specify that the number of student assistant coaches be limited to the number of countable coaches in that sport (for example, four in basketball, three in softball, 10 in football).
• Permit non-coaching staff with sport-specific responsibilities to participate in organized activities with the coaching staff (attend coaches’ meetings) and perform administrative duties (for example, review video or track statistics). Non-coaching staff would be prohibited from recruiting or instructional activities but could attend practice and competition and be in the team bench or sideline area during competition.

Cabinet Chair Petrina Long, senior associate athletics director at UCLA, said the feedback the group received after its February meeting helped both with creating the proposals and deciding to leave other areas (volunteer coaches and countable coaches) alone.

“We felt like there needed to be more specific definitions,” she said. “We felt that deregulating some of the activities (for non-coaching personnel) – like attending meetings and watching video – was appropriate, while still making sure they’re not on the field or on the floor coaching.”

The cabinet will continue to examine coaching limits at its September meeting. The group did not reach a consensus on any recommendations for graduate assistant coaches and will seek feedback from the membership and related coaching organizations. The group will also continue to discuss the number, role and duties of non-coaching staff with sport-specific responsibilities.

“We’ll examine the comments that emerge from our legislation,” Long said. “People will have a chance to see what we’ve done and respond to it. If there’s a controversial reaction, we’ll go ahead and look at it from a different perspective. We are a resource for the membership. We’re not trying to say we have all the answers. We want the membership to decide if they like what we’ve put forward.”

The group also will sponsor other legislative proposals, including several regulating recruiting for sand volleyball, others dealing with indoor volleyball and another measure restricting what can be sent under institutional letterhead.

Long said she expects personnel issues and technology related to recruiting will be the primary focus for the cabinet in the near future.

At its recent meeting, the cabinet also affirmed current legislation regarding countable coaches and volunteer coaches based on feedback from conferences and coaches associations indicating that current policies and regulations were appropriate in those areas.