The Division II Legislation and Championships Committees will continue their critical roles in the division’s “Life in the Balance” Bylaw 17 initiative this week when they meet jointly to discuss concepts regarding fewer contests and shorter seasons.

The two panels charged by the Presidents Council with heading the Bylaw 17 review meet Wednesday in Seattle. Recommendations could be forwarded to the Management and Presidents Councils later this summer.

The groups will talk in particular about four concepts that appear headed for the 2010 Convention – two dealing with later start dates for fall and spring sports, another proposing limits on games and practices during the winter holiday break, and a fourth that would reduce the number of contests in baseball and softball.

Those concept areas were deemed as “consensus” items coming out of the Management and Presidents Councils’ spring meetings and appear to have enough momentum to at least go forward as draft legislation. It will be up to the Legislation and Championships Committees to get them to that stage.

The Legislation Committee has conducted several conference calls over the past few weeks to shape the concepts further. Here’s what committee members will present at the joint session with the Championships Committee on Wednesday:

Later reporting date for fall sports. The concept calls for all fall sports, including football, to begin competition a week later than normal (a number of alternatives for specific dates have been proposed) while retaining the overall length of preseason practice. That also would apply to golf and tennis in cases where an institution is a member of a conference that conducts its only league championship in the fall or plays most of its conference schedule in the fall.

Also under consideration is a five-day acclimatization period for all fall sports, similar to the model currently in use for football, during which practices would be heavily restricted.

The idea is to reduce the financial burden on institutions by not requiring them to house and feed student-athletes for as long before classes are in session. It also extends the summer break and gives student-athletes and staff more time before adjusting to the rigors of training and competition.

Still to be determined, though, is whether the week “lost” is recouped either by extending the season on the back end (and thus moving the championship back) or by reducing the number of contests and thereby shortening the season overall. The Presidents Council to date hasn’t been enthusiastic about fitting the same number of contests into a shorter season, and moving the championships back could cause logistical concerns with overlapping the start of winter sports. Fall sports championships that are televised (football, for example) might have schedule concerns as well.

Also under discussion is whether the concepts should apply in the same ways to all fall sports. For example, membership does not appear to be interested in reducing the number of football games. Other sports, such as cross country, don’t view themselves as having to be subject to the same restrictions as sports with more competitions.

Restricting countable activities during the winter break. The idea is to create a seven-day “dead period” – both for participation and recruiting purposes – between the last day of finals and the first day of classes for the next semester. As of now, the concept leaves it to the institution to determine its own seven-consecutive-day period.

It would mean student-athletes couldn’t participate in any countable athletically related activities or voluntary workouts on campus during the seven-day period, nor would coaches or staff be able to engage in recruiting activities. The goal is to facilitate family time during the holiday period and relieve staff from managing facilities during the break.

Still under discussion are whether the same seven consecutive days would apply to all sports on a given campus, and whether the dead period for recruiting purposes should be expanded to include all of the days between the last final exam and first day of the spring semester.

The Legislation Committee is also trying to determine whether the dead period would serve to shorten the season and thus be accompanied by contest cuts and whether the concept applies to all winter sports.

Later start date for spring sports. The second Thursday in February is being considered, rather than the current date of February 1. The idea is to shorten the season and reduce missed class time to better align with the division’s strategic-positioning platform (the umbrella premise over  the entire Life in the Balance initiative).

The later date, though, would spur the same domino-type discussions (contest reductions and championship dates) as for fall and winter sports.

Possible game reductions in baseball and softball. This is the only concept so far that targets specific sports, though it appears that presidents and athletics practitioners alike would be receptive to considering reductions in these two sports.

The concept is fairly cut-and-dried for baseball, in which the maximum number of contests would drop from 56 to 50. In softball, though, the “tournament exception” complicates matters. As the concept stands currently, the maximum number of contests in softball would also go from 56 to 50 but teams would still be allowed to participate in up to five tournaments (half of the current rule) in which each day of the tournament counts as one contest (even if more than one game per day is played).

Earlier versions of the softball concept eliminated the tournament exception altogether, but the Legislation Committee is considering a compromise since tournaments are such a big part of the softball culture.

It stands to reason, though, that the tournament exception will continue to be discussed.

In addition to those four concepts, the Legislation Committee and the Championships Committee will also review ideas that are more championship-specific, such as bracket formats, selection criteria and regionalization. Members also will discuss the number of officials required for various sports. The Championships Committee will be ready to present ideas, since it will have met for two days before the joint meeting with the Legislation Committee (the Legislation Committee will then meet for one more day after the joint session to apply Championships Committee feedback to their own concepts).

After that, final concepts will be forwarded to the Management Council for its July 18-21 meeting in Denver. The Presidents Council would review the concepts at its August 6 meeting in Indianapolis. Whatever emerges from those meetings could end up as Convention legislation.

While these particular four areas are the ones under the most scrutiny right now, the Division II Presidents Council has indicated that the Life in the Balance review will encompass a much broader scope. The presidents want to ensure a comprehensive review of whether the division’s playing and practice seasons and championships policies align with the division’s strategic attributes, and they say that the review could extend to 2010-11 and perhaps even 2011-12.

RELATED: Watch a video featuring Presidents Council Chair Stephen Jordan and Management Council Chair Tim Selgo on the Life in the Balance initiative.