The 2004 NCAA Convention may be the most important for Division I since the Association restructured in 1997 -- not necessarily because of one topic or proposal but because of its re-emergence as an important stop in the Division I legislative process.

For the first time since the NCAA federated its governance, the Convention is a meaningful part of Division I's legislative cycle. Division I began its autonomy in 1997 with a complicated quarterly cycle, then two years later whittled the legislative adoption periods to April and October. But last year, members approved a return to the single annual cycle that begins July 15 -- as it does for Divisions II and III -- with conferences submitting proposals.

In this new cycle, the Convention, though still not the end point for legislative proposals as it is for Divisions II and III, returns to a prominent role as a significant opportunity for membership education and debate about proposals before they are considered by the Management Council and Board. By design, the Convention will serve as a focal point for sponsors of legislation to promote their proposals, and for other conferences to discuss legislation and inform their governance representatives what position to take.

Key in the Convention schedule for Division I members is a legislative forum Saturday morning, January 10. That session will be hosted by the Management Council's newly created legislative review subcommittee and will give sponsors a chance to speak to legislative proposals. Benefits are two-fold: Sponsors can better educate and explain the nuances of their proposals, and participants can debate the merits in a group setting.

Kate Hickey, associate director of athletics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, chairs the legislative review subcommittee. Her fellow Management Council members, plus members of the Board, also will attend the open, four-hour legislative review meeting. A number of conferences are then scheduled to meet Saturday afternoon to develop positions on the proposals for their Management Council representatives to take with them to the Council's Sunday-afternoon meeting.

The new single annual cycle, then, positions the January Council meeting as the one in which members give initial consideration to the legislative proposals. That is followed by a 60-day membership comment period in January and February before the Council and Board take final action in April.

"Now that the legislative cycle has been altered, the Convention becomes an opportune time for collective discussion at the legislative forum and at conference meetings," said University of Texas at Austin Women's Athletics Director Chris Plonsky, Management Council chair. "That leads into the membership comment period, cabinet review and a final vote in April. The timing is better now for meaningful membership involvement at the Convention."

Plonsky said the Saturday morning session triggers an important chain of events. The idea is to get members from conferences that have sponsored legislation to present their cases in front of an open group. That should generate discussion that will help the legislative review subcommittee set the legislative agenda for the Management Council meeting the next day.

Preliminary attendance figures support that notion of the Convention as a more meaningful event for Division I. Almost 400 Division I members already have registered for the Convention -- about 100 more than last year. That's a boost for a Division I Convention population in decline since the shift from the one-school, one-vote method of considering legislation before 1997. Though the primary purpose for the return of the single annual cycle was to simplify the legislative process and perhaps reconnect parts of the membership that felt disenfranchised by the previous multi-stage structure, a secondary purpose was to perhaps invigorate Division I's participation at the Convention. That seems to be a likely outcome at this stage.

Legislative proposals

Proposals likely to receive attention during the legislative review meeting include several significant measures designed to increase student-athlete benefits. Proposal No. 03-49, sponsored by the NCAA Risk Management and Insurance Task Force, would allow institutions to pay for a student-athlete's medical expenses resulting from any injury or illness, provided such expenses are necessary for the student-athlete to return to competition. Currently, schools are limited to paying for medical treatment only for athletically related injuries. Proposal No. 03-49, which has the support of the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet, increases the medical coverage.

Another increased student-athlete benefit is evident in Proposal No. 02-83-A, which would establish a student-athlete's individual maximum financial aid limit to the cost of attendance, and it would allow student-athletes to receive institutional aid based on athletics ability plus non-athletics aid (for example, academic scholarships) up to the cost of attendance.

Proposal No. 02-83-A, also supported by the AEC Cabinet, addresses what figures to be one of the next major philosophical debates after Division I completes its work on academic reform. Allowing student-athletes to use different sources of financial aid up to the cost of attendance would represent a significant shift for Division I, but AEC Cabinet members argue that the measure would give student-athletes the same financial aid flexibility other students have, and it would alleviate current situations in which student-athletes are having to turn down academic scholarship funds to stay within team limits.

Besides the student-athlete welfare measures, other proposals also have attracted attention, including Proposal No. 03-78 from the Atlantic Coast Conference, which specifies that in football a conference championship game between division champions of a league may be exempted from the maximum number of contests. This particular proposal has attracted more scrutiny from the media and public during the recent flurry of conference realignment than it has from the membership. The Championships/Competition Cabinet opposed the measure at its meeting this fall.

Academic reform

The academic-reform package should take another important step forward at the Convention, as the membership will get another chance to review the incentives/disincentives structure contained in Proposal Nos. 03-112, 03-113, 03-114 and 02-72.

Proposal No. 03-112 forms the foundation of the package, establishing an Academic Progress Rate (APR) that measures academic performance for all sports teams on a term-by-term basis. Proposal No. 03-113 puts penalties (disincentives) in place for teams that do not perform according to APR parameters. Proposal No. 03-114 establishes a contemporaneous penalty for poor academic performance by prohibiting a team from re-awarding the athletics aid of a student-athlete who fails to meet academic eligibility requirements and withdraws from the institution to an incoming prospect at the next opportunity.

Proposal No. 02-72 establishes a Graduation Success Rate (GSR), which is an alternative for the current federally mandated graduation-rate methodology required by the Student Right-to-Know Act. The GSR is a more accurate rate since it takes into account transfers who perform well academically. College presidents have criticized the federal methodology because they do not believe it reflects the reality of student movement among institutions.

Though this will not be the first time the membership has been presented with the academic-reform package, it represents another opportunity for education and debate. The Board of Directors, many of whom are expected to attend the Saturday morning legislative review session at which the debate could take place, already has indicated support for the concepts in each of the three proposals.

Other proposals of note to be reviewed during the legislative review session include:

No. 03-74, which prevents institutions from counting a travel day related to athletics competition as the required day off in the calculation of student-athletes' athletically related activities. A related proposal (No. 03-17) establishes two days off for student-athletes outside the playing season.

Nos. 03-13 and 03-80 regarding automatic qualification. Proposal No. 03-13 eliminates the AQ period for an institution reclassifying to Division I provided the institution joins an established conference that satisfies the continuity-of-membership requirement. Proposal No. 03-80 increases from one to two years the grace period during which a conference may continue to qualify for AQ to the Division I Men's Basketball Championship when it fails to satisfy either the seven-member or continuity-of-membership requirement.

No. 03-32, which prohibits media guides and other athletics-specific brochures from being mailed to prospects; however, those materials may be posted on institutional Web sites. This proposal is one of several in a recruiting deregulation package submitted by the AEC Cabinet's recruiting subcommittee.