NCAA Division I to Require 16 Core Courses by 2008
 
Effective August 1, 2008, any student-athlete wishing to compete in the NCAA's top division will be required to pass 16 core courses in high school, up from 14.  The student will need an additional core course in math and one other in the core area of his or her choice.
 
And to send a message indicating how important the new core course rule is to the college presidents that approved it, the amendment was passed as "emergency legislation", meaning the NCAA membership will not be permitted to debate and comment on it.
 
Board members cited data that supports the increase, including the fact that most current qualifiers already average 17 core courses, and the vast majority of Division I institutions require more than 14 core courses for admission.  Also, Board members believe that given this advance notice, prospects will meet the higher standard as they did when core courses were increased before.
 
The NCAA believes increasing the number of core courses raises graduation rates.  This theory has been proven out, at least temporarily, in the wake of the previous core course increases.  Student-athletes continue to graduate at a higher rate than their non-athletic classmates.

 

Text Messaging Prohibited in Division I

 

Division I coaches will no longer be able to send text messages, talk in public online chat rooms or video conference with prospects as of August 1, 2007 – at least for now. In a somewhat unusual move, the board said it would consider proposals to bring text messaging back, with certain restrictions.

 

Text messaging has been a controversial practice.  Many recruits complained that they received messages from overeager coaches in the middle of the night.  Others claim the technology helped them get to know coaches better and was quicker and more convenient than talking on the phone.

 

Before the ruling was announced, many coaches lined up in support of text messaging.  In a proposal it submitted to the NCAA, the American Football Coaches Association, whose nearly 11,000 members include 5,000 to 6,000 college football coaches, endorsed the use of text messaging.  The football coaches, however, suggested limiting the days of the week in which coaches could send text messages. The NCAA did not adopt that proposal, and earlier this year it voted down another measure that would have restricted use of the technology.

 

But NCAA officials said at the news conference that the Division I board, which is made up of 18 college presidents, was open to other "viable proposals" that would restrict the use of text messaging but not altogether eliminate it.

 

Baseball Drops One-Time Transfer Exception

 

The Division I board approved four requirements designed to help improve graduation rates in baseball, which are among the worst of any sport.  One rule will require players to sit out a year if they transfer to another Division I school, a la football and basketball.  Baseball teams that fail to meet minimum NCAA academic-progress requirements will also face stiffer penalties than other sports, including limitations on how many games and practices they may schedule.  The new baseball rules will take effect August 1, 2008.

 

Division I Football Phone Calls  
May is the month that Division I-A and I-AA football coaches may make one telephone call to prospects in their junior year of high school.

 

As the summer progresses, the following are important telephone dates:

 

June 15 for Division II coaches in all sports to 2008 graduates; 

 

July 1 for Division I coaches in sports other than football to 2008 graduates. 

 

The phone call is a key in the recruiting process, but families generally do not know it.  Most assume the phone calls won’t start until the student’s senior year.  Families should understand the timing of the process and that if the phone is not ringing during the spring and summer, they need to do something now!

 

The new president of the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) says he will take steps to differentiate the smaller association from the NCAA, beginning with an emphasis on character.

 

Jim Carr, who worked as the chief legal counsel for the NAIA before assuming the role of president, says his association will never have the resources to compete toe-to-toe with the NCAA but there is a niche.  He thinks he can attract much-needed corporate support and new members by emphasizing what he calls a "character driven" model of intercollegiate athletics.

 

Too often, Carr says, big-time college sports (read NCAA Division I) is known more for rampant spending, boorish fan behavior, and athletes who get in trouble with the law.  By contrast, he says, most of his group's programs are lean, clean, and more focused on academics than athletics.  "We're providing a strong model that's different than the entertainment-based model of the NCAA," Carr says. "And we believe there are more people out there willing to support us."

 

Spreading the NAIA's message is not easy.  Many sports fans have never heard of the 282-member organization, which is made up of mostly small private colleges and universities.  And those people who do know about it generally perceive it as inferior to the NCAA, which hampers recruiting.  The NAIA has lost more than half of its membership since it peaked at 600 in the 1970s but the losses have slowed considerably over the past five years.  Now that the NCAA has established a moratorium on growth at its smallest levels, Carr is focused on adding members, not on not losing them.

The “Champions of Character” program Carr has created encourages character-training seminars with an emphasis on sportsmanship.  It even requires NAIA athletes to lecture to middle school age kids – and sometimes adult fans who get out of control – on the virtues of fair play.  Before games, a player often stands up in uniform to urge the other participants, coaches, and spectators to act responsibly — no fighting, no taunting referees, no trash talk.

 

The NAIA is moving its national office from Olathe, Kansas to downtown Kansas City, MO to take advantage of foot traffic created by a new college basketball hall of fame and an 18,000-seat arena.  The new president says the NAIA is in good financial shape, showing a modest profit for each of the past seven years.  Still, observers point out the association’s well-known penchant for loose rule enforcement and the inferiority complex as the NCAA’s “little brother” among the hurdles still to clear.

Carr insists that the NAIA does not need additional members to have a strong presence in college sports.  In fact, he says, he would rather see the association stay the same size or even become a little smaller than have members that do not share its principles.  "Our primary mission and responsibility is to build people of character, to prepare young people for life as opposed to winning games," he says. "If you're not in it for that, you're not an NAIA school."

(The Chronicle of Higher Education contributed to this story.)

 

Nearly half of the football and men's basketball teams in Division I are failing the NCAA’s newest measure of academic success, according to a report published last month by the association.  That includes last year’s national champions in both sports -- the University of Connecticut in men's basketball and the University of Southern California in football.

 

In the NCAA's first "real time" assessment of athletes' academic success, nearly 1,200 teams out of the 5,721 in all Division I sports had an Academic Progress Rate of less than 925, which means that the team is on track to graduate less than half its athletes. The rate, calculated for the 2003-04 academic year, measures how many athletes are making adequate progress toward their degrees.

 

To no one's surprise, sports with traditionally low graduation rates -- baseball, football, and men's basketball -- have many teams falling short of the NCAA standard. Many more men's teams fall short than women's teams.

 

According to the NCAA report, teams in all sports and at all kinds of colleges are failing to meet the rate of progress.

 

This report is merely a warning.  Next year, teams will lose scholarships if, based on data from 2003-04 and 2004-05, they fail to meet the standard and athletes flunk out.  Roughly a third of the failing teams have very small squad sizes, in sports like basketball, cross-country, and golf, and the NCAA estimates that those teams will meet the threshold once the new data are collected from them.

 

Publishing the grades and a school’s failing teams is the first phase of the association's new system for penalizing teams whose athletes are not making enough progress in the classroom.  The standard to be reached essentially requires each student-athlete to complete 20 percent of the course work needed per year for a bachelor's degree to remain eligible for sports.

 

Of the 234 football teams in Division I-A and I-AA, 113 had grades below the APR cut line of 925.  Among them were 9 of the top 25 in the final Associated Press poll for the 2004 season.

 

In men's basketball, the 65-team NCAA tournament field from 2004 included 25 that failed to make the standard, including the University of Connecticut, which won the national championship, and Oklahoma State University's Final Four squad.

 

If those teams do not make improvements, they will begin to lose scholarships for the 2006-7 season. The NCAA has said it will make exceptions for teams at institutions that serve "economically distressed segments of the population," but has not said how that would work.

 

In two years the NCAA will begin punishing teams that have chronic academic deficiencies.  Starting in 2007, teams failing to meet the minimum rate will be re-ranked by sport.  The NCAA will then establish minimum rates for each sport, and teams will be punished if they fall below that rate, the rate for all teams, and the Academic Progress Rate for their overall student bodies.

 

Programs will lose scholarships if they fail to meet the standards for two years out of four, and will be banned from postseason play if their athletes do not measure up for 3 years out of 10.  In other words, teams that fail to meet the standards in any year must surpass the rates for the next three consecutive years to avoid punishment.

The NCAA is beating the academic drum loudly for now.

 

Time will tell if it the organization will penalize high-profile athletic teams or bow to economic pressure and change the benchmark standards.