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Summer issue of Champion now available

By Gary Brown
NCAA.org

The Summer 2010 issue of Champion magazine is being mailed to campuses this week and is available online.

This edition of the Association’s official publication features a unique look at one of the NCAA’s most influential groups in the governance structure – the national Student-Athlete Advisory Committees. Now in their third decade, the student-led governance groups have not only strengthened student-athlete representation on a national scale but also more locally through the establishment of SAACs at the campus and conference levels. Champion takes a look at some of those groups’ accomplishments over time through the eyes of the people who were involved in the decisions.

Also featured in this issue of Champion is a comprehensive look at the challenges that NCAA Eligibility Center staff members and various NCAA committees face in evaluating online curricula when certifying initial eligibility for prospective student-athletes. More prospects are turning to online alternatives in secondary education, and while most of those course offerings are legitimate, some cut corners and actually put the prospect at a disadvantage when it comes to learning at the college level. Champion looks at what’s being done to ensure that prospects are academically prepared and not merely seeking eligibility.

This issue of Champion also examines the variance in sports sponsorship among major Division I conferences.

Among the personalities profiled in this edition are Stanford Athletics Director Bob Bowlsby, who has been a prominent figure in NCAA governance, including as chair of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee and the very first Division I Management Council, and DePaul AD Jean Lenti Ponsetto, former chair of the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet.

Also in this issue are tributes to Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha and a recap of all the spring-sport championships. The cover student-athlete this time is baseball standout Ryan Avery from Ashland University.

Champion is the Association’s quarterly magazine. It is printed in July, October, January and April and is distributed to the president, athletics director, faculty athletics representative, senior woman administrator, compliance coordinator, sports information director, athletic trainer and all head coaches at each NCAA member institution. For subscription information, click here.

More awards for magazine

NCAA Champion continues to establish itself as one of the nation’s top trade publications, winning five more awards in the 2010 contest conducted annually by Trade Association and Business Publications International.

Champion, which also won five “Tabbie” awards in 2009, was one of just two publications (of more than 500 entered each year) to win as many as four awards in both years. The other is Exhibitor Magazine.

As it did in 2009, Champion again won honorable mention for best single issue in the 2010 contest (the Fall 2009 issue).

Individual honors include two second-place awards for feature design (“Game Day, Again” – a feature on the re-emergence of football at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania – in the Fall 2009 issue) and design for an opening spread (“Unbound” – a  summary of how the U.S. Supreme Court’s antitrust ruling in 1984 affected the future of the NCAA – in the Summer 2009 issue), a third place for best single news article (“Effects of testing are proof positive” – about a Brevard football player whose positive drug test actually unveiled a more serious medical issue – in the Summer 2009 edition) and a fourth place for best feature article (“Not the same game” – a feature on the challenges of growing women’s basketball – in the Fall 2009 issue).