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Mar 18, 2010 8:37:24 AM

By Jack Copeland
The NCAA News

 

Each of the Association's three divisions has its own NCAA Manual, but that trio of rules books helps tie Divisions I, II and III together into one organization – an important consideration in a significant initiative now underway to make the books more user-friendly.

Any effort to modify the format of a Manual requires sensitivity to hundreds of administrators, coaches and rules interpreters at all levels of intercollegiate athletics who may regularly or only occasionally thumb through its pages.

"We know we have to have our rules in a place and in a format so they can be easy to understand and presentable to the membership, and we know we have a variety of people who work with the legislation, or have exposure to it," said Lynn Holzman, NCAA director of academic and membership affairs, the group in the national office responsible for organizing and publishing the Manuals.

"So we want that information to be presented in a way that both the novice and the expert know where to go to get the answers they need."

That's the driving philosophy behind the AMA staff's current work to make each of the three Manuals easier to use – to assist the membership in finding information easily, while continuing to consistently present the rules in each book (for example, by including recruiting legislation under Bylaw 13 in each division).

The initiative includes editorially revising rules to make them more easily understood, as well as consolidating or even eliminating sections. It also could result in weeding out an array of policies and procedures that currently are included in each Manual, thus focusing the book more tightly on legislation.

"The Manual is about the legislation that our membership has adopted, for our schools to follow, and not so much the detailed procedures that are in place for requesting waivers or other procedural issues," Holzman said.

Changes will be noticeable to the NCAA membership during coming months, particularly as the 2010-11 Manuals are published later this year.

How extensive – and potentially, frustrating – could those changes be?

"You could use the analogy of going to a grocery store," said Binh Nguyen, associate director of academic and membership affairs. "You are used to finding an item in one aisle, and then they shift the aisles and you need to get accustomed to it. Most of the changes involve moving things to more logical places."

One-stop shop becomes three

Extending that grocery-store analogy, think of the NCAA as operating just one store before 1997. When the Association restructured itself, the resulting federation gave each division more autonomy over its own rules. One NCAA Manual was split into division-specific books for 1997-98.

Putting it another way, the NCAA expanded to three grocery stores that look identical at first glance, perhaps with an amateurism section near the front door and an eligibility section over by the wall. However, similar items might be found on different shelves within those sections, and each store "stocks" rules that won't be found in either of the other stores.

"We knew with federation that legislation would diverge among the divisions," Holzman said. "But, because the national office staff supports regulation of all three divisions through legislation, interpretation, enforcement and education, there needed to be some level of similarity in the way the three division Manuals were organized.

"The staff and the divisional governance entities agreed that the core articles of the constitution, the bylaws and the administrative regulations would be the same structurally across the divisions – that Bylaw 12 would be amateurism, for example, regardless of the division," Holzman said.

Maintaining consistent Manuals across divisions is crucial to the national office staff's efforts to serve the entire membership's legislative and enforcement needs efficiently, while helping link the three federated divisions together into one Association. Doing so also is important to institutions that sponsor sports in more than one division, as well as to schools considering reclassifying from one division to another.

Providing consistent, yet user-friendly, Manuals is a guiding principle of the initiative.

It's not difficult to find areas of the Manuals where differences among the divisions have popped up since restructuring. It's as simple as looking behind decimal points.

"The membership knows that Bylaw 14 is eligibility, and 14.5 is the transfer section, but rules within 14.5 are going to vary by division," Holzman explained.

Last year, the AMA staff began digging beneath those decimal points, reviewing every bylaw within the Manual in search of opportunities to make the books easier to use.

"We first picked up language and inconsistencies that we easily could improve through editorial revisions," Holzman said. "For example, there may be a bylaw added during 2003 and another added during 2005 that said the same thing, but for whatever reasons weren't drafted with the same words. Or we may be simplifying a bylaw, perhaps by breaking a 20-line paragraph into smaller pieces or moving information into charts."

Such changes do not change the rule itself, nor will more complicated revisions that are occurring in consultation with the divisions' legislative cabinets or committees, such as moving information from one section of the Manual to another.

"Recruiting calendars currently are in Bylaw 30, because before 1997, if they were placed in Bylaw 13, they only could be changed by a vote at the Convention," Holzman said. "Now, after  other constitutional changes that have allowed for Bylaw 13 to be changed at times other than during the Convention (for example, as noncontroversial legislation), it begs the question, why aren't the recruiting calendars in Bylaw 13? It's a structural issue involving where things are placed.

"The idea is to make this more user-friendly, so that when someone new in a compliance position needs to review the women's basketball recruiting calendar in Division II, they know they can go to Bylaw 13 to find it."

Future accommodates past

AMA staff members, however, are sympathetic to veteran administrators and coaches who have learned through the years where to find the information they need. After all, the staff also works day to day with the Manuals and also must track any changes that occur in the books.

"There is change associated with this," Holzman said. "We have the new professionals that we're trying to serve, but we also have experienced professionals – including the NCAA staff – who have become used to the recruiting calendars being in Bylaw 30."

Nguyen said there will be resources to help with that change, such as a guide in the Manual to help users find where an "old" bylaw has been moved. She also is leading efforts to inform the membership in advance of changes to come, through materials such as announcements that will be posted on the Legislative Services Database (LSDBi) and provided during this spring's Regional Rules Seminars, and through direct communication with all affected groups – committees, the membership and the NCAA staff.

The biggest potential change remains on the horizon, as the staff seeks support in each division's governance structure of efforts to remove information from the Manual that included legislation, but really is a policy or procedure.

The inclusion of such information, especially during the past 15 to 20 years, has been a major contributor to growth in the size and complexity of the publications.

Holzman cited the Division I Manual treatment of the Committee on Academic Performance as an example.

"Policies connected with the Academic Performance Program, such as the detailed criteria for filing waivers, are included in the Manual in a way that permits flexibility in changing procedures. The legislation simply states that the committee may establish or amend the policies and procedures and that they are subject to review and approval by the Board of Directors. We're asking, in other cases in which details related to how a process works is included as legislative text, does this really need to be legislation? Or can it be handled as a policy or procedure?"

Offering an example of how that question already has been addressed elsewhere in the Manual, Holzman said policies for operating the NCAA national sports statistics program have been removed.

"What you now see is a brief paragraph that requires that there be a national statistics program, without five pages of policies and procedures for how it's run. The policies and procedures still exist and are overseen by divisional bodies. However, the policies and procedures are posted on the NCAA Web site."

Holzman notes that the staff has been working and will continue to consult with appropriate divisional committees to investigate removing such material from the Manuals.

The staff's initiative also might someday lead to creation of more-focused rules publications, such as a printed "operating manual" that would include only core NCAA bylaws that compliance personnel use every day.

That publication could be supplemented by providing a more complete Manual online only and by tools such as LSDBi, Holzman suggested – cutting printing and shipping costs while ensuring that an array of legislative aids remain readily available.

Meanwhile, changes such as combining related bylaws – moving those recruiting calendars, for example – will begin appearing in the 2010-11 Manuals that will be published before the next academic year.

"I'd describe this as moderate change, occurring over a lengthy period," Holzman said.

"We'd expect the reaction to be, No. 1, ‘Oh, something's different! Where did it go?' Then, No. 2, ‘Why did it happen?' And then, No. 3, ‘Oh, I guess that makes sense.' And we'd be able to move on."