Four out of the 10 wealthiest athletic departments–Texas, Tennessee, LSU, and Oklahoma–as well as the national champion in football, Alabama, stood in opposition to a new policy allowing major-college programs to offer multiyear scholarships to athletes, according to an NCAA document obtained by The Chronicle.

The change, which was narrowly upheld last week, makes it possible for programs to provide more security to their scholarship athletes. Previously, athletic departments could only sign athletes to one-year renewable awards.

Much of the initial opposition to the measure, which was first approved by the NCAA Division I Board of Directors last October, came from colleges concerned with the cost of locking in players for multiple years (lest they get injured or not work into a new coach’s offense, for example).

Last week, an override vote by Division I colleges fell two…

Read More

There’s plenty of conjecture about the future of the Bowl Championship Series, but one area that hasn’t gotten much attention is the role of academic schedules.

That seems to be changing in the latest round of BCS talks, as conference commissioners spent part of a meeting Tuesday reviewing final exam schedules for all 120 FBS institutions.

Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, told the Associated Press that commissioners would like to avoid playing bowl games from early December until about December 21, when most colleges have finals. As it is, a number of the 35 bowls are played during that stretch.

The commissioners also don’t want to end the season as far past January 1 as it currently goes, and they’re not happy with a mid-week finish. Although those potential changes could have as much to do with sagging attendance as academic priorities, the season-ending games…

Read More

Jeremy Lin’s unlikely ascension from Ivy League standout to NBA superstar has gotten plenty of attention. William C. Rhoden, a New York Times writer, makes one of the more interesting observations about it, prompted by a question last week from Rebecca Lobo, a former star college player herself:

“Can anyone recall a black athlete who had come off the bench like Tim Tebow or out of the blue like Jeremy Lin, flared to immediate stardom and received the sort of impassioned outpouring of love that has enveloped Tebow and Lin?” Rhoden asks in a column today. (Tebow is another unlikely breakout story, starring for the Denver Broncos this season.)

“When was the last time a young, untested professional African-American athlete had been on the receiving end of this type of adulation? Specifically, adulation that had more to do with positive, universal characteristics–faith, humility,…

Read More

After writing about the perceived lack of fairness in the NCAA’s judicial process, I got a note from Jo Potuto, a professor of law at the University of Nebraska and former chair of the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions.

She passed along a forthcoming article on constitutional rights and the NCAA, which tees up an interesting question: What fallout would the association face if the Supreme Court were to consider it a “state actor,” and thus subject to due process, a set of constitutional rights that it currently is not required to provide athletes?

Many people assume such a change would trigger greater judicial and legislative oversight of NCAA processes, substantially more opportunities for outside parties to prevail in the courts against alleged NCAA over-reaching, and fundamental change to the way the NCAA operates. Potuto disagrees.

Any such change…

Read More

The last of the four NCAA working groups to complete its work–the one charged with rewriting the association’s vast rule book–just circulated an early draft of its proposals. A quick look at the documents, first reported on by the Birmingham News, suggests that the members of this group have a lot of work on their hands.

So I say we help them out. If you could change one NCAA rule, or streamline part of the 400-plus page rule book, what would you do?

Last year Andy Staples, an SI.com writer, came up with one plan. Among other ideas, he suggested allowing agents to negotiate deals for students and provide them with money on the side (presumably this would cut down on the tainted payments certain high-level prospects receive). Staples also believes coaches should have unlimited opportunities to text, e-mail, or call players. And he proposed an easy-to-understand chart to keep…

Read More

“In America, a person is presumed innocent until proved guilty. Unless, that is, he plays college sports.” If you had to pick a dominant theme from Joe Nocera’s recent attacks against the NCAA, these two sentences would neatly summarize it.

Nocera (left), a New York Times columnist, has written more than 11,000 words about college sports since late December. The vast majority of those words have condemned the NCAA for failing to treat athletes fairly in its eligibility and enforcement actions.

The association has pushed back hard, defending its practices and calling Nocera out for a perceived conflict of interest and errors in his reporting. I write about their war of words in this week’s Chronicle.

How fair is Nocera’s complaint that the NCAA mistreats athletes? Brian L. Porto, an associate professor at Vermont Law School, has an interesting take.

Porto, who just…

Read More

Updated 2/9/12 at 5:42 p.m.

Fewer major-college athletes may be eligible to receive extra money toward their cost of attendance, under a new proposal being considered by Division I colleges, according to an NCAA document obtained by The Chronicle.

The plan, which is to be voted on next week by an NCAA working group and would still need the endorsement of the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors to go into effect, would require athletes to prove financial need before they could qualify for an extra $2,000 stipend. An earlier proposal, approved by the board last fall but revoked after strong pushback from more than half of the Division I institutions, would have allowed colleges to provide the additional $2,000 to any full-scholarship athlete, not based on need.

“The idea of students’ getting the money who may not need it just did not sit well with a lot of people,” said Percy…

Read More

The University of Memphis today accepted an invitation to join the Big East Conference starting in 2013, making it the seventh program to be added to the league in recent months. Four of the new additions (SMU, Houston, Central Florida, and now Memphis) are coming from Conference USA.

I was struck by the statement put out by Britton Banowsky, Conference USA’s commissioner:

“Based upon my conversations with commissioner Marinatto, the Big East has now completed its future membership plan,” Banowsky said. “If this is true, it is very helpful as we can now move forward with our plans in a more stable national environment. We hope that the other conferences appreciate the value of stability in intercollegiate athletics and higher education.”

He didn’t put it this way, but here’s how it sounded to me: The Big East is done picking apart our conference, now can everyone back off so we…

Read More

Ideas for overhauling the NCAA’s enforcement process, which are due to be circulated to member colleges in coming days, will focus on the new violation structure (i.e., most egregious, still-pretty-damn bad, not-so bad, not worth our attention), stepped-up penalties (up to a 50-percent loss of scholarships for the worst offenders), and a faster mode of processing cases (weeks rather than months).

That’s not all the NCAA’s enforcement working group has considered since taking on this gargantuan task last August. In a conversation I had this week with Edward Ray (pictured above), Oregon State’s president and chair of the group, he singled out several ideas the group has discussed for improving the way athletic departments operate. It’s unclear if any of these will make it into the draft sent out to colleges, but they’re worth thinking about. Among the suggestions:

Change…

Read More

Budget pressures are starting to catch up with fast-growing athletics programs. On Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service took the fairly unusual step of downgrading the revenue-bond rating of FSU Financial Assistance, a unit of Florida State University’s well-heeled Seminole Boosters.

A supporting organization of the university that raises money to feed the athletics budget, Seminole Boosters has long been one of the stronger fund-raising arms in college sports. But increasing costs in the athletic department–expenses climbed to $55.3-million in fiscal 2011, from $44.5-million in 2007–have drawn down the booster club’s financial reserves, Moody’s says, weakening its operating performance.

At the same time, Florida State appears ready to take on more debt, Moody’s says. The Seminole Boosters are considering several capital projects, with possibly $45-million in added bonds….

Read More