Busy week at the NCAA. If you haven’t heard there were a multitude of changes to NCAA post-season eligibility, men’s basketball recruiting, academic requirements, and athletic scholarships. Lets review some of the changes and their possible effects.


POST-SEASON ELIGIBILITY
For access to postseason competition in 2012-13 and 2013-14, teams must achieve a 900 multiyear APR (Academic Progress Rate) or a 930 average over the most recent two years to be eligible. The eligibility requirement will begin phasing in with the 2012-13 academic year.

The new postseason eligibility structure will take effect in the 2012-13 academic year, with a two-year implementation window before the benchmark moves from 900 to 930. For access to postseason competition in 2012-13 and 2013-14, teams must achieve a 900 multi-year APR or a 930 average over the most recent two years to be eligible.

In 2014-15, teams that don’t achieve the 930 benchmark for their four-year APR or at least a 940 average for the most recent two years will be ineligible for postseason competition.

In 2015-16, the 930 benchmark for postseason competition participation – and additional penalties – will be implemented fully.

What’s this mean? Well, we might want to ask the University of Connecticut what this rule means because under the new rule, the team won’t be eligible for the 2013 NCAA tournament! But I will believe that when I see it! Since millions of dollars are at stake, a few things could happen. One – coaches might recruit more accomplished high school academic achievers who aren’t as good at sports (not likely). Two – Colleges will become extremely diligent in making sure their athletes are making some concerted effort to attend class and get decent grades, (more likely). The bottom line is some of these schools have millions of dollars on the line on the form of post-season appearances and they will now go into damage control to get back on track academically!

MEN’S BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Men’s basketball coaches will be free to contact recruits without many of the current restrictions under a new recruiting model for the sport adopted by the Division I Board of Directors Thursday.

Coaches will be allowed to send unlimited phone calls and text messages to men’s basketball recruits. The deregulation extends to social media, starting June 15 after a recruit’s sophomore year. Private messages on social networks also will be deregulated. Public messages through social networks will continue to be prohibited because of the rule preventing institutions from publicizing their recruiting efforts.

A new start date for official visits beginning January 1 of the junior year, with schools able to pay travel expenses for the prospect and a parent/guardian (The current rule was September 1 of senior year). The new model will be fully in place by August 1, 2012. On June 15, 2012, the current contact limits will be lifted and coaches may contact prospects who have finished their sophomore year.

Under the new measure, coaches would get four evaluation days in April and 12 in July. Previously, April was a dead period and coaches had 20 evaluation days in July. Coaches also will be permitted more contact with their own players during the summer

What’s this mean? Basketball always seems to be different and this rule is an attempt to get the “street agents” out of the game by allowing college coaches more access to recruits so the two parties can form a stronger relationship. I think having a separate rule for one sport also speaks to a far larger problem that no one has figured out how to address. I like the date change for official visits from the start of senior year to January of Junior year, I think it will help families make some decisions earlier as to schools they might not want to attend. I am torn on the text messaging and phone call rule. D1 basketball coaches have long proven that when it comes to communicating with high school athletes, they are obsessed with this! In fact, it is D1 basketball coaches who forced the NCAA to ban text messaging a few years ago after recruits were getting thousands and thousands of texts from coaches, sometimes hundreds a day. Even coaches that didn’t want to text had to start texting just to keep up with their fellow coaches that were burning up their Blackberry’s. It got expensive for some recruits not privy to an unlimited data plan for their cell phone and distracting as coaches were texting kids while they were in class, before class, after class, at night, etc. So while the NCAA thinks they are creating an environment that will foster better relationships between college coach and recruit, they are re-creating an environment where kids will be getting bombarded by coaches via phone and text, possibly trading one bad virtue of recruiting for another. While a street agent doesn’t always have the best interest of a high school player, does John Calipari?

ACADEMIC CHANGES
The proposal increases the standard for immediate access to competition to at least a 2.3 GPA and an increased sliding scale. Specifically, incoming student-athletes would need to earn a half-point higher GPA for a given test score compared to the current standard. For example, an SAT score of 1,000 would require a 2.5 high school core-course GPA for competition and a 2.0 high school core-course GPA for aid and practice.

The presidents also agreed with a recommendation to require prospects to successfully complete 10 of the 16 total required core courses before the start of their senior year in high school. Seven of the 10 courses must be successfully completed in English, math and science.

This legislation will affect student-athletes enrolling in college in August 2015 and later.

What’s this mean? Any changes to academics and eligibility means high school athletes need to work harder and be more diligent with not only how they grade in certain courses, but what courses they take and when. There are many athletes that scramble senior year to be eligibly and now the NCAA is saying that you need to take many of those classes before senior year. This is a big change. Prior to this change eligibility could be achieved with an 820 SAT score if you had a 2.5 GPA, so all students are simply going to have to be more diligent in their studies because now you may need to find an additional 180 points on your SAT. Your guidance counselor should be up-to-date on what classes your school offers that will qualify you for NCAA eligibility and if they don’t, they aren’t doing their job! If you want to start the process on your own, go to www.eligibilitycenter.org.

ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP CHANGES
Individual colleges have now been given the option of awarding athletic scholarships on a multiple-year basis, or keeping the current model, which is done year by year.

What’s this mean? Oh boy, anytime the NCAA uses the word “option” when implementing new rules it scares the heck out of me. Either make it a rule or don’t make it a rule but when you start giving schools the choice, it’s going to lead to some schools doing it and others not doing it, which we all know will lead to some coaches and school complaining that others have an unfair advantage in recruiting. If one school is offering you only a guaranteed year and another is offering a multi-year scholarship, we all know what the choice will be? Hopefully for schools that want to implement this program, it will make them work harder when recruiting and making decisions. If you were iffy on a kid for a scholarship and now you have to offer a multi-year scholarship, you better be sure that a given recruit is the right choice. For recruits, it’s great, it removes a lot of uncertainty that comes with not playing well or things they cannot control like their coach leaving and a new coach coming in and cleaning house.

In case you didn’t know, an athletic scholarship is on a one-year basis and then renewed each year. Under the following conditions, your scholarship can be removed:
1 - You become ineligible for intercollegiate competition.
2 - You fraudulently misrepresent info on an application, Letter of Intent or financial aid agreement.
3 - Engage in conduct warranting substantial disciplinary penalty.
4 - Voluntarily withdraw from your sport on your own.
5 – You won’t find this reason in the NCAA rulebook, but if a coach so chooses to remove your scholarship, they can. This often happens when a new coach takes over a program and wants to free up some money for new recruits. You have the right to appeal this decision to the athletic committee at your institution.

FINANCIAL CHANGES
Student-athletes who receive full athletics scholarships or get other school financial aid will have the opportunity to receive additional athletics aid (or other institutional aid, including use of the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund) up to the full cost of attendance or $2,000, whichever is less.
The figure will be adjusted according to the consumer price index, so the presidents will not need to approve new figures when the cost of living changes. The Board resolved to not revisit the $2,000 amount for three years.

What’s this mean? I am going to be a cynic here and say that I don’t honestly believe there are too many big-time college athletes on full scholarship that don’t have money for shampoo or pizza as many would like you to believe. Every time I see a story on college athletes, they are living in an off-campus apartment and playing X-Box on a flat screen TV? The kid at LSU had 56 pairs of sneakers in his closet and most of them have $4,000 worth of tattoo’s on their arms already? I also don’t believe that allowing athletes access to $2,000 throughout the course of his or her college career is going to stop certain athletes from taking a “handout” here and there if that’s the NCAA intention? If this aid gets people thinking that the NCAA cares and is trying to help student-athletes, well that is a step in the right direction I guess. But if athletes are complaining about not having money for pizza, they have every right to work a job in the summer before college or during college which is what I, and millions of other college students do every year for money!