The NCAA Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct agreed during its June 7-8 meeting in Indianapolis to withdraw a recommendation for legislation mandating that postseason misconduct rules also be enforced during the regular season.

The committee reached its decision after fulfilling a charge from the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet to discuss with conference commissioners whether there was a need to have misconduct rules applied uniformly among conferences. Through interviews with a number of commissioners, the committee determined that conferences generally are comfortable with the guidelines currently in place in each league. The group also found that commissioners were more concerned about consistently enforcing misconduct rules within their own conferences rather than aligning their misconduct rules with other leagues.

In place of the withdrawn recommendation, the committee decided to focus on developing strategies that the membership can use to create an environment conducive to sportsmanship. The group will work with conferences to develop appropriate strategies.

"What we'll do is define some positive behaviors that establish a positive 'collegial environment,' " said Woody Gibson, chair of the committee and director of athletics at High Point University. "When that collegial environment is violated, you have misconduct and unethical behavior. We want to focus on the positive aspects of sportsmanship, and we want student-athletes, coaches and administrators to work hard to build a competitive, highly energized, collegial environment.

"We'll work with conferences that have already taken these steps -- for example, the Horizon League has developed sportsmanship parameters -- to create an effective model."

In other actions, the group voted to implement a pilot program to track misconduct in Divisions I and II. The initiative is directly linked to Objective 2.3 in the NCAA strategic plan, which calls for the Association to increase sportsmanship in intercollegiate athletics among student-athletes, coaches and fans. A Division III conference -- the Empire 8 -- already has developed a program that monitors and tracks misconduct in a variety of sports. The committee will use the Empire 8 model to guide the pilot program.

The committee also plans to announce in mid-July the six division winners (three males and three females) and the national male and female recipients of the NCAA Sportsmanship Award. The national winner will be selected from among the division honorees. An award presentation to the national winner is tentatively scheduled for the fall.