It is August, and the summer is long over for many Division I NCAA campuses. Student-athletes are preparing for their first day of classes or practice and by early September, many are gearing for their first competition. It’s undoubtedly one of the busiest times for compliance coordinators, registrars, academic-support staff and others involved with certifying eligibility. And that includes the NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff and committee as discoveries of violations that affect eligibility are reported to the NCAA office. Consider the following scenarios:

n Institution A discovers in June that a student-athlete participated in impermissible outside competition during the spring term. The institution determines the facts of the case and that the student-athlete was properly advised and educated about the eligibility consequences of doing so. Before leaving the campus for the summer, the student-athlete is told he will need to seek reinstatement to be eligible in the fall but that there is no need to worry. The week before the first competition, though, the student-athlete is informed that the institution “forgot” to file the request during the summer and that he will have to wait to find out whether he can play that weekend. The institution files the request on Wednesday for competition within the next 48 hours.

n Institution B is re-checking the eligibility of its student-athletes on the Monday before the first competition Saturday. It discovers that a grade for a student-athlete has been changed from an “incomplete” to an “F” for failure to complete the work by the institution’s deadline, resulting in a GPA below minimum NCAA requirements. The institution is scrambling to contact the student-athlete, the academic advisor and the registrar’s office to determine the facts of the case and submits a request to the NCAA on Wednesday for competition within the next 48 hours.

Those scenarios are more common than people might think. Between August and October of 2005, more than 25 percent of the 460 Division I requests were “urgent” cases — double the amount from the same time period in 2004. “Urgent” is defined as reinstatement requests for a student-athlete to compete within the same week of filing a report. Many of those cases involved institutions that were aware of eligibility violations but did not file a request until just before the first date of competition, a time during which many details are finalized. Other cases involved situations in which there was a late discovery — and institutions were not aware that an eligibility reinstatement request would be needed. Those cases truly are urgent.

In an effort to address this “trend,” the Division I Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee revised its policies and procedures manual to help prioritize “urgent” cases for the staff’s review under the following guidelines:

n Based on date of next competition.

n The order in which the case is received.

n The timing of when the violation was discovered.

Under those guidelines, Institution B would be prioritized over Institution A in the earlier examples.

The NCAA reinstatement staff makes every effort to reach decisions before the student-athlete’s next competition. Staff members also look for ways to help institutions make their best arguments and gather all relevant documentation to support that argument. That generally requires 48 hours from when a case is complete to render a decision. Institutions need to keep in mind that filing an urgent request does not guarantee a response within 48 hours. The number of urgent cases makes that difficult. Such a compressed review often results in a significant number of cases that require follow-up information be sent to the NCAA staff — thus delaying the decision.

And if a decision is rendered and an institution wishes to appeal a withholding condition, there are pre-scheduled times throughout the year during which the committee has agreed to be available for appeal calls. In general, 48 hours’ notice is required.

Although the policies help clarify for the membership how “procrastination” is processed, these guidelines should not become institutional deadlines. Reinstatement cases can range from 20 to 100-plus pages of documentation that are thoroughly reviewed before rendering a decision.

When an institution files urgent requests, it may actually hurt the student-athlete’s case by not providing enough time for the NCAA staff and committee to conduct its comprehensive review of the facts. Filing reinstatement requests in a timely manner and building in a window to prepare a strong case is in the best interests of the student-athlete’s well-being in the process. 

Carol Iwaoka, an associate commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, is a member of the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet and the Division I Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee.