The only two conference-sponsored legislative proposals for the 2010 Convention,  including a measure to permit “walkthrough sessions during the early days of preseason football practice, won support this week from the Division III Management Council.

If the Division III Presidents Council also agrees to support those proposals during its meeting next week, it would mean that all nine proposals currently scheduled for a vote at the Convention either will be sponsored by or supported by the division’s presidential leadership.

The Management Council also endorsed a proposal that would eliminate what members termed the “double jeopardy” faced by a student-athlete who transfers to another school two years after a disciplinary suspension. Members asked the Presidents Council to support both proposals.

The Council’s support for the “walkthrough” proposal from the American Southwest, Empire 8 and New Jersey Athletic Conferences pushes that idea closer than it ever has been before to winning support from Division III’s governance structure.

Two previous efforts originating from the Division III Football Committee to win approval for walkthroughs − consisting of daily one-hour instructional periods during the five-day acclimatization period without helmets, pads or conditioning activities – failed to win Management Council support. In those instances, the Council’s refusal to sponsor the proposal blocked it from being brought before the membership for a Convention vote.

The three conferences’ sponsorship of the idea this year ensured the proposal would receive a hearing on the Convention floor, but that’s not the only thing that has changed.

The Council previously had refused to support the idea because of concerns expressed by the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports that not enough was known about whether walkthroughs interfered with football student-athletes’ recovery from physical activity during the early – and typically hottest – days of preseason practice.

A recommendation to put the proposal on the 2008 Convention agenda was opposed by the Division III Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which also cited concern about the opportunity for recovery and noted that walkthroughs represented another demand on football players who also spend time viewing film, participating in strength and conditioning activities, and receiving athletic training treatments.

This time, the competitive-safeguards committee reported that it has enough information from the use of walkthroughs in Divisions I and II to conclude they have no adverse effect on recovery from activity. SAAC will not take a formal position on the proposal until its November meeting, but its Council representatives said the competitive safeguards committee’s conclusion addresses many of the student-athletes’ previous concerns.

The proposal to be voted on in Atlanta specifies that student-athletes must be provided at least three hours of continuous recovery time between the end of an on-field practice session and the start of a walkthrough session.

Disciplinary suspensions

The Management Council also supported the proposal, sponsored by the Massachusetts State College Athletic and Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conferences, addressing transfers following a disciplinary suspension

The proposal would permit a student who was disqualified or suspended for disciplinary reasons from a previously attended school, but who meets requirements of Division III’s two-year nonparticipation exception, to be immediately eligible for athletics participation upon transfer to another institution. The current rule requires the student-athlete also to complete one academic year in residence at that school before again participating in athletics.

Council members, including its SAAC representatives, suggested that the original disciplinary action and going two years without participating in intercollegiate athletics is a sufficient penalty. They also concluded that requiring the student-athlete to sit out during the first year at the new institution is unjustifiably more severe than the penalty imposed on a student-athlete following an academic suspension.

Facility monitoring

Council members also dealt this week with an issue arising from one of the Division III governance structure’s seven legislative proposals for the 2010 Convention.

The action relates to a Presidents Council-sponsored proposal that would permit coaches to supervise a campus facility as part of their employment duties when enrolled or prospective student-athletes are present.

Management Council members adopted noncontroversial legislation contingent upon adoption of that proposal, which currently includes a requirement that the facility must be open to the general public in order for the coach to be exempted from Division III tryout legislation.

The Council, acknowledging that some institutions do not grant general public access to its facilities but do permit access for prospective students during visits to campus, agreed it would amend that legislation to remove that requirement. However, that revision would not change the requirement that a facility must be open to all students if a coach is present in a supervisory capacity while enrolled student-athletes are present.

The action is based on the Council’s conclusion that schools should have the discretion to provide appropriate monitoring of the facility even when it is not open to the public.

Other actions

In other actions during its October 19-20 meeting in Indianapolis, the Council:

• Approved an administrative regulation giving the Division III Championships Committee authority to make limited adjustments in access ratios  for individual-team championships in golf and tennis. The action would permit the committee to adjust the current ratio of 1:7.5 (one team for every 7.5 teams that sponsor the sport) to any point between there and 1:7, within budgetary constraints. Doing so could add as many as five at-large teams to a golf or tennis championship.
• Recommended to the Presidents Council a legislative proposal for the 2011 Convention to allow Division III institutions to buy advertising or otherwise promote themselves, for nonathletics purposes, at high school or two-year college athletics events. The Division III Interpretations and Legislation Committee recommended the proposal to permit institutions to engage in promotional activities to encourage student enrollment, as currently permitted for Divisions I and II institutions. The proposal also would permit a school to promote a noninstitutional athletics event it is hosting, such as a state high school championship.
• Reviewed details of the voluntary academic-reporting pilot program that will explore the possibility of calculating graduation rate and academic-success rates for Division III student-athletes. Council members learned that a recent memo soliciting participation in the program beginning in spring 2010 is generating interest.
• Reviewed results from the recently concluded drug-education and testing pilot program, which will be shared with the Division III membership in early November, following the Presidents Council’s reviews of the results next week.
• Reviewed the Division III strategic communications platform with the NCAA branding and communications staff, noting that the division’s identity initiative will be the primary topic of the Friday-morning (January 15) Division III Issues Forum at the Atlanta Convention.